iTunes 4.6 Now Available

[runeasgar]

It's not Apple's fault you don't have a D/A with optical. Optical is fairly common, especially with stereo equipment.

Untrue. D/A optical in is not common for good D/A converters. As I said.. you find optical on crappy built-in D/A converters. They are built into a pre-fab stereo system, or directly into a speaker.

Regardless, you are talking about a lower-end system than I am. You are also talking about a very specific type system.

The majority of D/A converters you will find will not have an optical in. If you are looking at studio grade equipment, or even low end home recording equipment, or just audiophile-type equipment, you won't often find optical in.

Now.. did I hear something crazy about digital being perfect a ways back? I seem to recall someone talking about how could I hope for "better quality than digital" or something like that. Digital is.. without a doubt inferior to analog. The best digital equipment will not outdo the best analog equipment. I'm sorry.. but there is really nothing to argue about there. To get good analog quality out of digital would require a more dynamic method of storing information than binary, or a very very very large hard drive that is very fast and a perfect A/D converter.

 

[iChan]

Just wondering:
Why do such avid computer users still use dial up? And why download the updated iTunes because with dial up you can't take advantage of the wireless feature, can you?

wow, this comment is really out of touch.

a modem is for connecting to the internet at 56Kb per second. nothing more

ethernet is for connecting to the internet, really fast... AKA ADSL, CABLE, BROADBAND.

ethernet is also used to connect computers together to share files between 2 computer, and also for setting up a network.

ethernet (generally) comes in three flavours, 10Mb, 100Mb & 1000Mb

wireless does the same job as ethernet... but guess what? wirelessly!

it comes in (generally) two flavours, 802.11b (11Mb), & 802.11g (54Mb)

Apple's 54Mb system is called Airport Extreme

You need an airport extreme base station and an airport card. or you can bypass the base station and connect two computers together directly... just like ethernet!

How airtunes works is that is takes your airport card, in your computer and connects it directly to the new Airport Express product... it sends music wirelessly!!

Ergo, we come full circle. iTunes 4.6 connects to Airport Express wirelessly to send it music, Airport is just ethernet, in that it is used to set up a network, but without wires. however, it can also go online, just like dial-up. but seeing as the internet doesn't come into the equation WRT getting airtunes to work with Airport Express, we know that, YES, you CAN take advantage of the "wireless feature", which, in this case, you proabably mean Airtunes.

 

[runeasgar]

a postscript to that:

basically the wires or the wireless are just the method by which information is passed.

some things like routers have built in protocols that enable you to connect the internet to them, and then you connect your computer to the router and the router acts as the middleman between you and the internet.

so basically, wires or wireless are for sending information. whether that happens to be local networking (local file sharing, music sending, etc) or internet information (web sites, email, internet file sharing) has nothing to do with the wires or wireless technology.

on another side note, the 'internet' is just a really big network. in the most basic concepts, it's identical to a home network. there are some things that make it different though, so it's not exactly the same.

 

[centauratlas]

iTunes, Hymn/Playfair & Apple ID

I used Hymn to try conversting a few iTMS songs to the unprotected format and it worked fine. I had been burning to disk and re-importing merely so that I would have a format to use on various other devices besides my 10 and 30GB iPods.

Anyway, I changed the email address I used for my Apple ID (a reasonably common thing I think) and the converted songs don't play.

iTunes says "This computer is not authorized to play this copy of <song name>". The song was originally purchased using the account "<account name>".

It isn't a big deal since I only tried it with a couple of songs, but something to be aware of for the future if you are relying on Hymn.

One strange thing is that about 100 of my songs in my "Purchased Music" folder are no longer there. They ARE in the library just not there. And that is the main reason I want a common format for songs - so if iTunes gets messed up or not supported at some point, I will still have my songs. (Just like HyperCard...Apple may very well phase something out without offering a path to convert. I want to be safe.).

 

[chewbaccapits]

itms has been losing its appeal lately though, with CDs at bestbuy going for $9.99 when released.

Uh...What are you talking about? I cannot find ANYWHERE where it states itunes has been losing its appeal....9.99 at BEST BUY is no big deal to me when every, I don't know, MORRISSEY album is still 16-17 dollars a piece yet at itms its always 9.99...

 

[Jeff Harrell]

Okay, Runeasgar: this is completely out of control. You don't have a DA with an optical input? Fine. Get one. Or spend $60 and get an optical-to-coaxial converter. Or spend a few bucks more for one that goes from S/PDIF to AES if you prefer.

You want to upsample your music? Fine. Knock yourself out. But please, please, for the love of Christ and all that's holy, PLEASE understand that AirPort Express will not hinder you in any way.

How do you come out of your Audiophile? Obviously you go from the Audiophile to a set of speakers somehow, right? Are you taking the S/PDIF output to a D/A? FINE! Then you can do EXACTLY the same thing with an AirPort Express and a cheap optical-to-RCA S/PDIF converter.

I stand behind my comment from before: you're being an incredible spaz about this.

 

[PlaceofDis]

so does anyone have any idea why my party shuffle will no longer refresh nor will it let me change into a different playlist?

nevermind just got it to work after monkeying around with it for a while....

 

[advocate]

If you used hymn to remove DRM from songs from iTMS they will NOT PLAY in the new iTunes 4.6 !!!

Thank you, Apple, for continuing to fight technology with technology rather than with lawyers. Your enlightened attitude is a shining light in the industry.

 

[maxtrax]

I notice that now, thanks. However, it still doesn't solve the problem. =] Does me no good to have a high quality digital optical signal if it's coming from a 16-bit 48kHz sample. I might as well throw my $250 A/D converter in the trash and lose a huge portion of my clarity if I want to use AirTunes.

First of all, CD's are 44.1k 16 bit, so what are you talking about? And AirTunes is for sending tunes OUT, and an A/D is for converting analog to digital, which is the opposite. And if you are talking about using your A/D to get into your computer for recording stuff and then complaining about AirTunes sending out a 48k 16 bit signal, does that mean every recording studio should throw out their super expensive converters and high bit rate recording gear because CDs are 44.1k and 16 bit!!??? Jesus...

So irrelevant... AirTunes is an awesome idea, and for the most part for sending out MP3s or AAC audio files around your house. 48k 16 bit has nothing to do with this.

 

[Elektronkind]

"How can you add sound quality that isn't there in the first place?

Interpolation:
-calculation of the value of a function between the values already known

<snip>

I *knew* you would pull the aliased audio card out.

Okay, this is my take on it - it's WORTHLESS. The whole point of high sample rates is to render the original analog signal as acurately as possible.

aliasing a 44.1khz file to 48khz is a MINIMAL improvement I would consider not worth my time.

aliasing to anything above that (88.1, 96) and you're doing more harm than good. You're then playing connect-the-dots with a blindfold on, I don't care what fancy alg you're using.

Think about it, if you take 44.1khz audio off a CD and alias it to 96khz, you're more than doubling the samples. This means over 50% of the samples in a file are now FAKE. INFERRED. NOT REAL.

The whole science behind audiophilism is reproducing the sound as ACCURATELY as possible, not going after the bigger numbers because you assume that means, in some way, "better".

/dale

 

[runeasgar]

Lol.. still amazes me how people read my first post and don't read anymore and then post like they know what they are talking about regarding something that has already been resolved 3 posts ago.. that's for you maxtrax.

Jeff: The first intelligent/useful comment I've heard this whole time. I like that idea.

 

[Parikh1234]

what? play contiuously...in what way does iTunes not play continuously!?

It doesnt play continous in the fact that if you have two songs that are mixed together there is a gap between them when itunes switches from one track to the next.

 

[runeasgar]

dear overreactive dale:

sampling is only 1 part of this argument, thank you.

please see the memo regarding BETTER converters and HIGHER bit depth.

also, there was another memo sent out a while ago stating that I rarely use 96kHz or other high sampling rates.

maybe you should update your mailing address so you'll start getting these memos before you make new comments?

no one but you is interested in bigger numbers. ideal sound doesn't involve numbers. in the meantime, when we don't have ideal sound, technology improves to create smart aliasing and those of us who don't have $40,000 analog systems who want good sound have to use the technology at hand.

so, taking that into consideration, why don't you make a more directed comment next time, instead of just randomly blabbing out loads of argumentative manure.

also, maybe you should address more than one point in a multi-point argument before you assure yourself that you are right.

 

[advocate]

My Audiophile connects to coreaudio via a driver. It grabs a 24-bit 48kHz (up to 96kHz) sample of the digital information coreaudio sends it. This is the digital representation of a moment of the song (signal). It then converts this digital representation into an analog signal.

** STOP **
This is the part that I want sent wirelessly to my speakers.

Okay, so what you want to do is push your super high quality analog audio through the air in analog form and receive it as analog audio on the other end.

In that case, I suggest you get one of these:
http://tinyurl.com/dqs0
and one of these:
http://tinyurl.com/35pag

Then you can stick the analog output of the second device into the analog input of your hideously expensive audio equipment. See, that does exactly what you asked for.

You know, it's simply amazing how far people will go in order to convince themselves that they are getting better music out than what went in.

 

[maxtrax]

Lol.. still amazes me how people read my first post and don't read anymore and then post like they know what they are talking about regarding something that has already been resolved 3 posts ago.. that's for you maxtrax.

Jeff: The first intelligent/useful comment I've heard this whole time. I like that idea.

True, I didn't read every post before I posted, sorry. But I still think all of this is irrelevant. And you say you are getting Mackie monitors, they are so damn hyped and inaccurate it is ridiculous, what do you use now?

I can't believe all this talk about upsampling. I use an Digi HD3 system with the 192 interface all the time, and I assure you I have never taken a 44.1 or 48k session and converted it upwards to 88.2 or 96k or for christ sake 192k. If you don't start out at those high bit rates it is all but useless to go there in my opinion. And when talking about simply listening to tunes in iTunes, I find it hard to believe your bottom of the line M-audio thingy is doing anything special...

Also most of todays decent hi fi receivers do indeed have optical in and that is the way to go, my Harman Kardon home stereo has quite a few of them actually...

Sorry, I just find this whole thread obnoxious and irrelevant.

 

[jsw]

So, um, anyway....

Has anyone yet found the "other enhancements" mentioned for iTunes 4.6? Just curious. Hate to get off of the sampling topic, and I'm sure we'll return to it, but I just wondered if some of the other changes have been noted yet.

 

[Powerbook G5]

Sure isn't. I always blame my ISP for that, especially for the time in which they advertised high speed connections, even when I am too far away to get high-speed.

Oh, and one hour to download, not 15 as mentioned on the first page.

xy14, I advise you to post your concerns either in the Software forum, or over at thetechpub before this thread turns into a speed-post war like almost every damn thread in the News discussion section.

This is enough to make me feel kind of bad that it only took me about 10 seconds to download iTunes 4.6...kind of...but not quite.

 

[runeasgar]

maxtrax

harmon-kardon (not even close to a respected stereo system) pre-fab stereo. I already addressed that in a previous post.

I've heard mackies. I've heard them alot. I've heard the HR824's alot. I'm buying these for personal enjoyment. For their price (well below that of genelecs and other speakers which everyone 'prefers') I believe they are worth it. THAT however is a subjective point and not suitable for argument. I'm simply stating that based on what I've heard (in both recording and listening). They are ridiculously accurate in my opinion, people just fail to realize something.

The main thing I see people do with mackies is overmix their low end because they aren't used to hearing bass that is so present that is sounds natural. They therefore don't pay attention to how present the low end is and they mix the low end too loud. With your average speakers, even with relatively expensive speakers ($200 or so), you are hearing just as much distortion off the low end as you are the actual sound. While I've heard a slight amount of distortion on the 824s.. I haven't heard monitors that compare. I find accurate sound to be more pleasing than warm genelecs or other brands that specifically color the sound.. If I had enough money I'd be spending money on much more expensive audiophile-type speakers. For now I'm going with mackies because they are so well worth the price.

Also, to the annoying sarcastic remark from advocate, you managed to (once again, and again, and again) ignore the OR there and the following post which illustrated that I wasn't aware of the significant degredation of analog signals over air; forgive me, I've never had interest in radio.

 

[nsb3000]

all these updates are so full of crap. They havent fixed the one thing that annoys so many people and thats the ability to have tracks play continously. Thumbs down to apple for this.

What are you talking about?

 

[runeasgar]

What are you talking about?

something about some gap between playing the songs. not sure if he's talking about when you burn CDs or the gap between changing tracks in itunes..

 

[swajames]

Runeasgar
Probably safe to assume that you're not in Apple's target demographic for AEBS. So don't buy one. I'm sure it's going to do just fine for most of us.

 

[JGowan]

Does anybody know whether this update fixes the problem in 4.5 whereby big music libraries couldn't be shared via Rendezvous?

This is too funny. I haven't tried sharing between my Tower and PBook in months. My collection has grown considerably since the last time I shared. I tried sharing last night and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work (I've got over 10,000 songs now)... I just updated both computers and YES, IT FIXES THE PROBLEM!

Funny thing is, I didn't want to take the time to update iTunes until I read the Apple page you linked to. Once I read it, I had to see! Thanks!

 

[TSEliotLives]

I find it hard to believe that runeasgar is SO committed to hi fidelity audio, all the while listening through what are really mid-fi M-Audio monitors with..gasp...a powered M-Audio sub. Sorry, kiddo, but I really think you're talking yourself in circles here. If you're going to be stressed about audio quality, be stressed about the things that really matter and are easily remedied...like what speakers you're using, what amp you're using to drive them (and, I don't think I'm alone when I say that if you're really an audiophile, you wouldn't be using powered monitors on a reference system...pull those M-Audio's apart and I'm sure you'll find the amp to be under-engineered and all of the drivers connected with 18-16 gauge zip cable...or worse). How come you're not arguing about the crossover design of those monitors, or the purity of the cable you're using to connect your speakers to your DA converter (for the last time, it's a cotton-picking DA converter. Using the wrong term is not acceptable in this)?

Totally off topic with the iTunes release, I know, but it can't handle it when "audiophiles" spout about things they may have only a partial grasp on...or don't really have much bearing on real-world listening.

Talk when you're not using mid-fi powered M-Audio monitors, or even those Mackie monitors which, truth be told, still aren't really worth the price of admission.

 

[maxtrax]

maxtrax

harmon-kardon (not even close to a respected stereo system) pre-fab stereo. I already addressed that in a previous post.

I've heard mackies. I've heard them alot. I've heard the HR824's alot. I'm buying these for personal enjoyment. For their price (well below that of genelecs and other speakers which everyone 'prefers') I believe they are worth it. THAT however is a subjective point and not suitable for argument. I'm simply stating that based on what I've heard (in both recording and listening). They are ridiculously accurate in my opinion, people just fail to realize something.

The main thing I see people do with mackies is overmix their low end because they aren't used to hearing bass that is so present that is sounds natural. They therefore don't pay attention to how present the low end is and they mix the low end too loud. With your average speakers, even with relatively expensive speakers ($200 or so), you are hearing just as much distortion off the low end as you are the actual sound. While I've heard a slight amount of distortion on the 824s.. I haven't heard monitors that compare. I find accurate sound to be more pleasing than warm genelecs or other brands that specifically color the sound.. If I had enough money I'd be spending money on much more expensive audiophile-type speakers. For now I'm going with mackies because they are so well worth the price.

I said Harman Kardon as just a normal average stereo receiver, although I know it is actually better than what most people use... I consider it just fine for average home listening. However, I don't quite understand your dissing HK, but you use an M-Audio device... but whatever. I am also quite sure that Apple intention with AirTunes is not for pro studio use, but for home consumer listening and convenience.

Seriously though, have you checked out KRK monitors. The V8's are so superior in my opinion to the Mackies. I even prefer the Kroks wit the sub to the Mackies. We have the HR824s btw, and I can honestly say they do not sound accurate at all to me. I find them unbelievably hard to listen to, let alone mix on. But this subject is so subjective and there is no right or wrong so...

 

[JGowan]

all these updates are so full of crap. They havent fixed the one thing that annoys so many people and thats the ability to have tracks play continously. Thumbs down to apple for this.

Well, I don't think they've not done it out of spite. Obviously, it's a technical issue and everyone should chill until they fix it. They already give you the JOIN TRACKS feature. That should be enough. If you're going to be using it on your ipod, then just join 3-4 songs at a time. You'll only be interrupted a couple of times and then, only for a second.