Hi, Does anyone know if itunes or itunes plus offers audiophile quality recordings? [i.e. FLAC, 96/24, etc...]
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itunes & audiophile's
- Thread starter M-theory
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It allows for ALAC, AIFF, and I think WAV
Edit: Nevermind, I just realized you meant the iTunes store.
Edit: Nevermind, I just realized you meant the iTunes store.
Generally speaking you need to be Windows-based for 'audiophile' downloads. Most of the ones available are FLAC - which has better support under Windows given the choice of the two platforms - and WMA.
Well, I started thinking about it when the HD video discussion started with iTunes, and apple should consider offering 96/24 recordings at similar price points of other sites...you hear me apple?
Higher data rates can be useful in the recording studio.. Not so much for the finished article however.
Given that most artists/record companies cant get decent quality down onto regular 16/44 CD's as it is. Whats the point in going higher?
Absolutely stunning results are achievable with regular data rates, if only people bothered. And until people do bother, higher fidelity is wasted.
Plus the market for higher fidelity recordings are limited to say the least, as most folks just can't tell the difference. Did you even notice that iTunes 7 was borked for 2 years with substandard audio playback quality? I did.. Thousands didn't. Fortunately iTunes 8 fixed that. But again, many people couldn't tell the difference anyway.
I think a lot of people think they need higher fidelity recordings because they are displeased with current offerings. What they dont know is that the poor quality of many modern recordings is not the fault of the technology used. Its the way its used that is the problem, and that wont change with 24/96 recordings.
ehm, why is wma a better "audiophile" format than apple lossless?
flac and apple lossless should perform pretty much the same, right?
flac and apple lossless should perform pretty much the same, right?
i don't think anyone said wma is a better audiophile format than apple lossless. reread the above threads.
if you want audiophile quality you should probably just get the CD and rip from it. none of the online offerings will give you what you really want
ah ok, so you mean that there is no downloads for that format 
as for flac, try this http://cubicfruit.com/fluke/
as for flac, try this http://cubicfruit.com/fluke/
WMA Lossless is the non-Apple equivalent of Apple Lossless. It can be DRM'd.
And if you aren't an Applezombie and are aware of the market at large it is actually a better audiophile format at the moment, since >16/44.1 sales of WMA are already happening.
if you aren't a MSzombie and are aware of the market at large it is actually better to buy CDs without DRM.
ALAC can be 'DRM'd' as well - it's more to do with the container than the codec.
But is the end result any better? Have the recordings been mastered for 24bit/96kHz, or are they just 'higher quality' versions of the original 16 bit samples (which would yield virtually no improvements)? Usually, any improvement over the 16 bit variants is... small, to say the least.
That's what I said.
A good hint might be 'Files from Studio Masters'. A small bit of easy research before posting would have highlighted this, but perhaps it is beyond even the more mediacentric Applezombie.
Sorry, read that the wrong way round.
You mean unmastered recordings? As in, just the mix put out at the end of the studio? They generally don't sound all that great...
