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Imola Ghost

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 21, 2009
1,153
12
Don't know much about iTunes downloads but when I buy music I want it to be the highest/best quality it can be. How do I know "before" I purchase/download the music that it will be the best quality?
 
Everything is 256Kpbs AAC. The only way to get higher quality without DRM is to buy CDs (which are often cheaper than digital downloads).
 
The music you are downloading is not the best quality. Sorry.
 
The regular iTunes songs used to be 128 kbps and the iTunes Plus songs were 256 kbps, but now they are all iTunes Plus.

Greg
 
Don't know much about iTunes downloads but when I buy music I want it to be the highest/best quality it can be. How do I know "before" I purchase/download the music that it will be the best quality?

they are all not good enough.
i have a wadia 17 ipod dock into krell amp, the difference between compress music aac and lossless is night and day.
 
they are all not good enough.
i have a wadia 17 ipod dock into krell amp, the difference between compress music aac and lossless is night and day.

But let's be honest here, the amount of people who have good enough ears to distinguish between the two AND earphones/ headphones/ speakers good enough to play lossless music well are a very small proportion of the market. Most people I know find it hard to tell the difference between 128kbps and a CD, let alone 256kbps AACs.
 
they are all not good enough.
i have a wadia 17 ipod dock into krell amp, the difference between compress music aac and lossless is night and day.

Not for the vast majority of people.

Don't get me wrong, I have quite a few ALAC-encoded tracks in my library. But to use it for a lot of the music out there now is just wasteful. "Lord of the Rings: The Complete Collection" yes, the latest Jonas Brothers CD no.
 
If you are asking, what's the best quality music, then you probably do not need what you seek.

If you know what you want, you would know AAC (mp4) is much better quality than Mp3. AAC works fine for most people, unless you have the harddrive space for loseless music.
 
I have all my music converted to 128 AAC and that is good enough for me on cheap headphones.



Does the 30 second preview of a song come through in full quality or is it converted down?
 
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