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The Beatles Appear in iTunes Store

On the subject of headphones (I'm enjoying this thread, loads of topics covered).

I have always been very sceptical of high quality audio/video. I listen to lots of music, but have never invested huge amounts on the systems that reproduce it.

One of the main reasons for this is that I have always been very happy with the music I listen to at the quality that it is. I've always known that, if I listen to it on some really good equipment then I may struggle when I go back to the lesser stuff. I value portability and it isn't an option to drag my collection around in lossless format.

Anyway, we recently upgraded all of our equipment in our lounge. HD TV with SkyHD subscription, 5.1 surround and I got a mid range pair of headphones (about £80).

I can obviously tell the difference between listening to music or watching video on them compared to through my iPod, for example. I'm re-ripping any music to the highest bitrate and have taken a rip of albums that have a 5.1 track. It's really nice, but could I have lived without it? Of course I could.

I have no regrets about upgrading, but it's been a lot of money spent and I was fully enjoying the experience beforehand.

I'm not sure what my conclusion is, but it's somewhere in the middle I think. I can see why someone would pay £200 or more for headphones, but I can see why others can't see any justification for paying that price. What it comes down to in the end is personal preference. Neither is right or wrong.
 
vastoholic said:
Anyone who pays for the perceived notion of good quality is a fool. Again, if you really truly can hear $150 worth of difference in those headphones, then by all means, you've made a valid purchase. But if your mind is telling you the sound quality is amazing because you spent an amazing amount of money on it, that's different.
Click to expand...

There is no way to tell, really. If those same headphones were £3, would he hear the difference? This is a fruitless and circular debate, one I am opting out of, now.
 
glossywhite said:
There is no way to tell, really. If those same headphones were £3, would he hear the difference? This is a fruitless and circular debate, one I am opting out of, now.
Click to expand...

Guess what! I have bought earphones at £3 and I do hear the difference. so it's not about price it's about quality.
 
one more thing... A Beatles iPod. Maybe a Yellow Submarine design or better yet something Psychedelic! All of the albums loaded in lossless. That would be a great gift from Grandma (grandma used to date Paul).
:D
 
Stevamundo said:
What a wimpy band.

Apple should be just embarrassed with this ridiculous BS hype!
Click to expand...

I don't mean to single you out. I could have quoted from any number of posts, but yours happened to be the most recent one.

Those of you who are whining about the big letdown don't get it.

Apple got more press coverage in the past three days than any amount of money could have bought. From the "What is Apple up to?" articles to the "Are the Beatles coming to iTunes tomorrow?" with a fair number of other articles touting Apples data center and the possibilities it affords, Apple once again captured the world's conscious attention. Apple may be the best company in the world at acquiring ever-increasing mindshare simply through marketing announcements and events.

Do you folks have any idea what that is worth? And now even more traffic is coming to iTunes. While you may not give a c@rp that Apple signed the Beatles to an exclusive, how would it have looked if Google or Amazon had stolen this away? It definitely would have changed people's view of those two providers from that of secondary source to contender, and would have been a big blow to Apple.

So stop your whining about Apple's marketing technique just because you thought you were going to get some sort of magical gift from the elves in Cupertino. You get plenty of them. But this marketing coup didn't backfire. It captured the world's attention and judging by the sales, is selling a whole bunch of music as well. It's all good for Apple.
 
netdog said:
I don't mean to single you out. I could have quoted from any number of posts, but yours happened to be the most recent one.

Those of you who are whining about the big letdown don't get it.

Apple got more press coverage in the past three days than any amount of money could have bought. From the "What is Apple up to?" articles to the "Are the Beatles coming to iTunes tomorrow?" with a fair number of other articles touting Apples data center and the possibilities it affords, Apple once again captured the world's conscious attention. Apple may be the best company in the world at acquiring ever-increasing mindshare simply through marketing announcements and events.

Do you folks have any idea what that is worth? And now even more traffic is coming to iTunes. While you may not give a c@rp that Apple signed the Beatles to an exclusive, how would it have looked if Google or Amazon had stolen this away? It definitely would have changed people's view of those two providers from that of secondary source to contender, and would have been a big blow to Apple.

So stop your whining about Apple's marketing technique just because you thought you were going to get some sort of magical gift from the elves in Cupertino. You get plenty of them. But this marketing coup didn't backfire. It captured the world's attention and judging by the sales, is selling a whole bunch of music as well. It's all good for Apple.
Click to expand...

As long as they spend some of the revenue on putting "retina" displays into the next iPad, without raising the price, it's maybe not SO bad.
 
nemaslov said:
Actually the business was in a way their weak point during their career. You probably don't have knowledge of all the studio techniques they created intentionally and unintentionally. They didn't the digital fixes to fall back on. Things like automatic double tracking, tape loops, backwards guitar sounds. Using speakers as microphones-wiring them in reverse, Helter Skeleter some feel is the first Metal song. Some many of the thing the did in the studio influences many other producers and artists. The first music videos too. McCartney was obviously the best musician in the group but the others were good too. Not perfect or precise, but that pretty much what rock and roll is about.
Click to expand...

I recommend The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn if you haven't already read it. It's fascinating to read how they more or less had to invent techniques that are routine these days to get the sounds they were after.

41uiLJO5DhL._SL500_AA300_.jpg


While searching for that picture I was also pleased to find my 'first edition' is now a collectors item and is worth a few bob. :D
 
tigres said:
Question:

What do you guys/gals classify Beatles music in iTunes? (Genre)
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Now they call it classic rock but they throw a lot of groups into that category. The Doors, The Stones, the Kinks Pink Floyd even though they all are so very different. Even the BEatles has a mix of pop, rock, blues, country, psychedelic and folk. They didn't play juts one style or genre after the firs two or three years.
 
Hal Itosis said:
:D People saw what they WANTED to see, and then "hyped" themselves! :D

Any poster quoted above for whom English is a second language have my apologies. But Americans, Aussies, Brits, Canadians, Scots (etc.), that misread Apple's announcement have only themselves to blame. The "hype" and "exaggeration" was all manufactured by you!

Read it again, carefully:
Tomorrow is just another day.
That you'll never forget.
​
See? :rolleyes: Two separate sentences.
Totally different meaning. :)
Get it now?

Quoth the Ringo: “It's all in the mind.” :D
Click to expand...


Indeed.

You would think that Apple paid for time on every media outlet in this arm of the galaxy and Steve Jobs descended through the clouds accompanied by a chorus of angels in go-go boots and heralded by the Lord God Almighty and the Hosts of the Five Heavens.

They did none of this. They changed their web page for less than 24 hours. That's all. No trumpets, no drums, no go-go dancing angels. People saw the hype that they wanted to see. It reminds me of Percival Lowell seeing the canals on Mars that he truly believed were there.

Might I suggest people take a look at Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. It is as true now and in this situation as it was in 1841 when it was first published.
 
netdog said:
I don't mean to single you out. I could have quoted from any number of posts, but yours happened to be the most recent one.

Those of you who are whining about the big letdown don't get it.

Apple got more press coverage in the past three days than any amount of money could have bought. From the "What is Apple up to?" articles to the "Are the Beatles coming to iTunes tomorrow?" with a fair number of other articles touting Apples data center and the possibilities it affords, Apple once again captured the world's conscious attention. Apple may be the best company in the world at acquiring ever-increasing mindshare simply through marketing announcements and events.

Do you folks have any idea what that is worth? And now even more traffic is coming to iTunes. While you may not give a c@rp that Apple signed the Beatles to an exclusive, how would it have looked if Google or Amazon had stolen this away? It definitely would have changed people's view of those two providers from that of secondary source to contender, and would have been a big blow to Apple.

So stop your whining about Apple's marketing technique just because you thought you were going to get some sort of magical gift from the elves in Cupertino. You get plenty of them. But this marketing coup didn't backfire. It captured the world's attention and judging by the sales, is selling a whole bunch of music as well. It's all good for Apple.
Click to expand...

Spot on!!! They don't seem to get it. They think it is all about them, but this is great press for Apple. More great products will come. This week it was about Apple landing the Beatles exclusively which is a big deal and has been on every front page of every news, business and entertainment site. You are so correct. You can not put a price tag on that type of promotion and advertising. And when Apple makes more money, bringing more people to iTunes and apple.com , then they are able to develop better products and continue to keep ahead of everyone else.
 
OllyW said:
I recommend The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn if you haven't already read it. It's fascinating to read how they more or less had to invent techniques that are routine these days to get the sounds they were after.


While searching for that picture I was also pleased to find my 'first edition' is now a collectors item and is worth a few bob. :D
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good read, I'd just like an anonymised version.
:)

Maybe you could blackout all the names and photos in your copy and lend it to me?
 
OllyW said:
While searching for that picture I was also pleased to find my 'first edition' is now a collectors item and is worth a few bob. :D
Click to expand...

Yep, I sold my copy on eBay recently for a decent amount. It paid for quite a few CD's.

Most of what is included in that is also in Lewisohns later book "The Complete Beatles Chronicle" so it is one that I could easily do without.
 
bartelby said:
That sounds like a good read, I'd just like an anonymised version.
:)

Maybe you could blackout all the names and photos in your copy and lend it to me?
Click to expand...

It's full of great stuff. Like how they called an new effect Flanging because 'Artificial Double Tracking with constantly changing tape speed' was too complicated for John Lennon. :D
 
As for the Beatles on iTunes, you're about eight years too late, Apple. Even if I didn't already own all their stuff, I wouldn't get it on the iTunes store. I'd buy the CDs and rip them in Apple lossless.

As for the people who don't like the Beatles or think they're overrated—you're stupid. :)
 
glossywhite said:
I own the disc, I own the bits ON the disc, ergo I own the medium which represents a simulation of the music. I do not own the talent or creativity that has gone into making the music which is simulate by my copy of the representation of it, but I own the DISC, the BOX, and I can carry it/lend it/read the cover without a computer, and it won't get accidentally deleted, or secretly altered or removed, in case, one day, Apple decide to turn into Microsoft.

I see your point, but I'd rather OWN the physical medium.
Click to expand...

But it will get disc rot eventually and become unreadable... So, you're actually better off getting a digital file to begin with since you're going to need to back it up anyway.

I'm a sound purist, and yet I hate removable media. In fact, in 1996 I wrote a paper on internet distribution of music... I wanted it badly. The physicality argument I can appreciate but it's a matter of personal affection for whatever medium incidentally happened to exist when you were growing up. How many kids are really nostalgic for wax cylinders or people showing up at your door passing along stories by oral tradition?

One odd exception is vinyl, for which many kids have what I find to be an amusing fascination with a medium that, I guess, makes them feel intellectually superior or what have you. The truth is, vinyl was a horrible commercial medium and still is. CD's are just 16-bit dithered LPCM on a poorly manufactured optical disk that's susceptible to oxidation at the slightest abrasion to its label-side coating.

I have greatly preferred having a searchable XML index of thousands of songs I don't want to go flipping through manually. I like that I can see the artwork on the on screen menu. I don't particularly always care about the liner notes because that's a matter of business... AFM rules pertaining to publishing, songwriting, etc. credits... It's something I can look up if I want to, or fundamentally, as with the iTunes LP concept it can be incorporated into the presentation, which negates the "physical medium" argument from an artwork standpoint.

What matters much more to me is the general decline in sound recording quality impacted heavily during the mixing and mastering phases. Since 1990, music recordings have gone to crap. Whereas one practically had to be an artist to squeeze every ounce of perfection from the analog medium, the simplicity of low-SNR digital recording processes demands less knowledge of the sound engineer, though I'm not advocating a return to the low dynamic range and high noise floor of analog recording/mastering media. The weakest link in the equation is the lack of expertise of the average mastering engineer who is pressured to pump the amplitude to levels more than twice that of properly mastered recordings, thereby leaving so little headroom that it wouldn't matter if you listened to today's garbage in 8kHz or 192kHz, 8-bit or 24-bit... the recording is so flat and clipped at constantly maximum levels that wider amplitude range is totally wasted on today's artists. You may as well be listening to a kazoo recorded on duct tape and played back through speakers made of crumpled wax paper.

But you can listen to an older, properly mixed and mastered recording, like Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" and it sounds brilliant even over 128 Kbps AAC fed through a factory car stereo. You can hear every nuance of the mix, and if you want it louder that's what your damned volume knob is for.

But people who spent tons of money on better speakers, better headphones, expensive DAC's etc. and insisted on getting 16 or 24 bit recordings of anything mastered in the past 20 years have basically shafted themselves.

Engineers like Glyn Johns, his brother Andy Johns and Bruce Swedien (who worked with Michael Jackson, poring over every single note of genius recordings like Off The Wall and Thriller)... they're so few and far between today it's not funny any more.
 
Last edited:
Avatar74 said:
But it will get disc rot eventually and become unreadable... So, you're actually better off getting a digital file to begin with since you're going to need to back it up anyway.

I'm a sound purist, and yet I hate removable media. In fact, in 1996 I wrote a paper on internet distribution of music... I wanted it badly. The physicality argument I can appreciate but it's a matter of personal affection for whatever medium incidentally happened to exist when you were growing up. How many kids are really nostalgic for wax cylinders or people showing up at your door passing along stories by oral tradition?

One odd exception is vinyl, for which many kids have what I find to be an amusing fascination with a medium that, I guess, makes them feel intellectually superior or what have you. The truth is, vinyl was a horrible commercial medium and still is. CD's are just 16-bit dithered LPCM on a poorly manufactured optical disk that's susceptible to oxidation at the slightest abrasion to its label-side coating.

I have greatly preferred having a searchable XML index of thousands of songs I don't want to go flipping through manually. I like that I can see the artwork on the on screen menu. I don't particularly always care about the liner notes because that's a matter of business... AFM rules pertaining to publishing, songwriting, etc. credits... It's something I can look up if I want to, or fundamentally, as with the iTunes LP concept it can be incorporated into the presentation, which negates the "physical medium" argument from an artwork standpoint.

What matters much more to me is the general decline in sound recording quality impacted heavily during the mixing and mastering phases. Since 1990, music recordings have gone to crap. Whereas one practically had to be an artist to squeeze every ounce of perfection from the analog medium, the simplicity of low-SNR digital recording processes demands less knowledge of the sound engineer, though I'm not advocating a return to the low dynamic range and high noise floor of analog recording/mastering media. The weakest link in the equation is the lack of expertise of the average mastering engineer who is pressured to pump the amplitude to levels more than twice that of properly mastered recordings, thereby leaving so little headroom that it wouldn't matter if you listened to today's garbage in 8kHz or 192kHz, 8-bit or 24-bit... the recording is so flat and clipped at constantly maximum levels that wider amplitude range is totally wasted on today's artists. You may as well be listening to a kazoo recorded on duct tape and played back through speakers made of crumpled wax paper.

But you can listen to an older, properly mixed and mastered recording, like Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" and it sounds brilliant even over 128 Kbps AAC fed through a factory car stereo. You can hear every nuance of the mix, and if you want it louder that's what your damned volume knob is for.

But people who spent tons of money on better speakers, better headphones, expensive DAC's etc. and insisted on getting 16 or 24 bit recordings of anything mastered in the past 20 years have basically shafted themselves.

Engineers like Glyn Johns, his brother Andy Johns and Bruce Swedien (who worked with Michael Jackson, poring over every single note of genius recordings like Off The Wall and Thriller)... they're so few and far between today it's not funny any more.
Click to expand...

I have about 8,000 CDs (and many vinyl LPs). Been collection CDs since the beginning 84 or so. In that entire time I have had maybe two CDs go bad or chip away and maybe five or so that I scratched an ruined. Never had a problem with any others. I've been loading them on Hard Drives at lossless for a few years now. A long way to go as I only have about 60,000 songs loaded so far. I probably have purchased 200 songs from iTunes but if I find I really want the music, I'll buy the CD for the better quality. Even used copies for 3 or 4 bucks which is far cheaper and better quality. You can find great used deals via Amazon from third parties.
 
Here I was thinking we'd get the iTunes Store in the cloud, and not the client.
 
OCPRunsTheCops said:
As for the Beatles on iTunes, you're about eight years too late, Apple.
Click to expand...

Disagree. It's really only one year too late. Why? Because the previous Beatles CDs were HORRIBLY mastered and Apple Corps was working on comprehensive remasters of the entire catalogue for the bulk of the eight years that you think they should have been in the digital realm. It was the right move on Apple Corps' part to wait until the remasters were done before entering the digital market. The mistake was to refuse to do so until a year after the physical media versions of the albums were out.
 
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