To counter this, I’m sick of those who deride others who can (or even think they can) tell the difference and want the extra quality. Those deriding often do so without knowing much about the studies to which they refer, or that there’s also research that shows the opposite; when even unwashed public listeners are trained to know what to listen for rates of positive identification increase. In one study, certain exceptional listeners could identify high-res audio as often as 80% of the time. Many of the studies that you’re referring to are old and some have been discredited. Yes, it’s not always easy or possible and it’s best to be able to rapidly switch between the same parts of tracks in the different qualities, but this in itself is not so easy to set up, especially because no two pieces of audio equipment are exactly the same.
But here’s the thing: I can usually (as in almost always) buy a digital copy of an album in true 16/44 for the same price or less than Apple’s 256 kpbs AAC, so why shouldn’t I? The argument that I shouldn’t makes even less sense than some wild generalisation that everyone can or can’t tell a difference! Not only that, I can usually buy the album in a higher-resolution format for around the same price or sometimes even less than Apple’s 256 kbps AAC. Just yesterday I bought an album in uncompressed 24/96 format for the same price Apple was charging for its version with less than 10% the data of the high-res version. And you’re implying I’m stupid for doing so? It doesn't matter how good the compression is, that amount is clearly audible (I've checked), and by having (essentially) the master, I can compress it myself if and when better compression algorithms come along. If you go to the high-res sites, the prices they charge are about the same as CD or “lossy” versions from elsewhere; sometimes slightly more but usually the same and sometimes even less. I haven’t bought anything from iTunes in years as a result.
Here’s the other thing, back in the day it wasn’t feasible for Apple to offer uncompressed music. They started out with lowly 128 kbps. Even back then I was ripping at 256 because hard drive space was at such a premium I couldn’t justify lossless. Nowadays, storage is cheap as chips and most people have fast, virtually unlimited download capacity. Even 1 TB of Apple’s super-fast SSD is within reach, so it’s not unreasonable to be able to devote 100 GB or more to music. Apple is way past the point they should’ve upgraded their store to ALAC. And I really mean way, way past. ALAC is only about three times bigger because of lossless compression anyway, so not much more than the jump from 128 to 256 kbps they achieved painlessly a decade or so ago.
