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When is Apple Lossless coming to iTunes Store?

R

Ranchdip

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 6, 2008
69
0
To me it's a shame that I spend .99 cents on a crappy compressed audio file. I want ALAC so I can burn a CD of the music and also listen to my iPod in the car without the inherent distortion associated with the crappy iTunes files we get.

Sorry I just had to let it out.
 
Maybe never? Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a huge demand for it and I'm sure the labels are also dragging their heels. Most people seem to happy with what's there now... let's see where we are in a couple of years.

Of course, through the decades, we've almost all been convinced to upgrade formats as new ones are released so that the industry can line its pockets all over again. God knows how many versions of Life in the Bush of Ghosts I've bought; cassette, vinyl, CD, CD again when the first was stolen... and now there's a new remaster, of course.

Funny thing is, we're almost always seeing constant advances in visual technology and quality... but a hell of a lot of people are entirely happy with 128AACs... it's like going back to cassettes again.
 
Same here. Or at least 320KBps standard (I realize that 256 makes more sense, but 320 is the highest value after all). Lossless... I don't know. I'm thinking it might take some more time. What I'd really like to see is Apple changing their capacity estimates. Meaning they don't base their estimates on 4-minute 128KBps AAC files, but Lossless encoded songs.
But then again, I doubt it would be smart to advertise something like "The new 500GB iPod Über - 23 songs in your pocket!"
 
I agree... It's very unfortunate that they don't offer the consumer a full value for their money. I've got $60 up there at the itunes store that will probably take a year to spend because I would rather spend a couple extra bucks and buy the CD. At least then you have a backup with full docs and even the ability to rip it down and make mix CD's etc.

Most people don't realize that they are buying an inferior product over itunes. If you took 100 people and played them a CD and compared it to 128AAC I'm willing to bet 80% would be shocked. To me iTunes is a rip off.

I'm a recording studio owner and engineer. I always thought the music medium would improve not take a huge leap backwards.

Actually, cassettes sounds much better in my opinion than what's downloaded off iTunes. At least you get that really nice tape compression sound that we all love. I could do without the noise on cassettes though.

Sorry for the rant..
 
I simply won't buy from the iTunes music store because the music is not lossless.

I want to make my purchase, but I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of audio because the studios are too ignorant to provide the best quality option to their customers.
 
Before Apple sell lossless music on iTunes, I think we'll need to see 100GB+ flash iPods.
 
Tom B. said:
Before Apple sell lossless music on iTunes, I think we'll need to see 100GB+ flash iPods.
Click to expand...

4GB nano can hold at least 148 lossless songs (13-14 albums based on a typical wav file @44.1). I'd be very happy with that. Correct me if my math's wrong.

For those who want 100 albums on their 4GB Nano doesn't really care about audio quality or is completely mislead into thinking there isn't a difference.

Burning a CD from iTunes is a joke. Of course Apple would be crazy to put up a disclaimer (like they should) stating that music downloaded from the itunes store is not up to CD audio standards.
 
Ranchdip said:
4GB nano can hold at least 148 lossless songs (13-14 albums based on a typical wav file @44.1). I'd be very happy with that. Correct me if my math's wrong.

For those who want 100 albums on their 4GB Nano doesn't really care about audio quality or is completely mislead into thinking there isn't a difference.
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly. I always have 10 albums or less on my 4GB nano. That way, I can concentrate on individual albums. If I wanted my music library to go, I'd need a 250GB iPod Classic. But those don't even exist yet. Oh well, let's see what next Tuesday brings :rolleyes:
 
Also, for some reason lossless through my alpine car stereo doesn't sound as good as the CD and it's a digital connection.

Is the power/audio connection a digital connection?
 
It's almost always cheaper to buy the CD here in the UK, but if Apple were to offer the same quality as that CD, i.e. lossless, then I would reconsider where I purchased my music from.

I'd rather buy a cheaper CD with higher quality audio and import it into iTunes myself at whatever quality I chose at this moment.
 
At least lets have the option to purchase Lossless, its only a click or two and you can create an MP3 to put on your'e mobile devices and keep the lossless file on the computer.
I'am now using Songbird for my "HQ Music" FLAC files, then convert to Mp3 using Max and these go into iTunes for loading to mobile devices.
 
The current sound quality of music from the iTunes store is good, but it's definitely not the best.

I think what Apple tried to do here is balance out sound quality and file size. I'm amazed that I have purchased 100+ songs from the iTunes store, and that amounts to only 1GB of space.

I would say better sound quality from the iTunes store is needed, but you would have to sacrifice the very low-size file system currently in use.

I have not bought a single CD (just blank CDs!) since I started using iTunes. It really is the best way to purchase music, especially when you only want a single song or select songs from an album.

I used to hate how before, I had to buy an entire CD just for one song. Now, I can buy just that one song for a buck. Great concept.
 
applefan289 said:
The current sound quality of music from the iTunes store is good, but it's definitely not the best.

I think what Apple tried to do here is balance out sound quality and file size. I'm amazed that I have purchased 100+ songs from the iTunes store, and that amounts to only 1GB of space.

I would say better sound quality from the iTunes store is needed, but you would have to sacrifice the very low-size file system currently in use.

I have not bought a single CD (just blank CDs!) since I started using iTunes. It really is the best way to purchase music, especially when you only want a single song or select songs from an album.

I used to hate how before, I had to buy an entire CD just for one song. Now, I can buy just that one song for a buck. Great concept.
Click to expand...

But 256 kbps AAC is not the best balance of quality and size. One can use lame encoder and create VBR MP3 version of a lossless song. Even tough file size is half of 320 kbps MP3, difference will not be noticeable. Of course, Apple will not use it lol.
 
Most people don't know the quality they are missing. That's probably why "HD" streaming via PS3, Apple TV, Roku, etc, is so popular. It doesn't even come close to matching HDDVD or Blu Ray. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
 
Id guess never, its not even an issue for most people. Arnt there other download services that offer lossless for those that want it?
 
Because nobody cares. Unless you're using somewhat high end headphones (over 100 for on ear and 200 for in ear), you won't be able to tell the difference.

Aside from that, that's a lot of extra bandwidth they'd have to provide to service those lossless downloads; and you KNOW that people are going to automatically think (bigger is better) when they get the option of ALAC or mp3(?whatever they sell now).

I sold all of my equipment a year ago (Shure SE535, AKG K702, portable amp, source, components, etc.) because I couldn't justify having it as a college student and needing to rely on a slow netbook as my main.

Sold it all, the smartphone (getting an iPHone 5 later) and got myself a Macbook Pro.
 
My entire library is lossless that I ripped from CDs. I have only bought one album from the iTunes store because certain songs were only available there.
 
I'm all for lossless, especially since iTunes can already transcode to a lower bitrate on the fly when syncing if desired. Many people are moving to PC audio or portable devices for high-end rigs. Every year I've been to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (very high end audio show, think $40k speakers, $10k turntables, etc.) there is always more vendors doing some kind of digital media-less audio (USB DACs, etc.)

To the person that said lossless doesn't sound as good as CD, that's likely due to the poor DACs in the iPod/iPhone. There are more products coming out that allow you to extract an SPDIF digital signal from the i device such as Wadia's iPod transport. I guarantee there are people out there with a lossless library on an iPod classic, plugged into this Wadia dock, going into a $1500 DAC feeding another $10k of equipment.

There are inherent advantages to lossless files over CD (lack of jitter and other timing errors).

Or think about from a home perspective, run an ATV into a DAC and control it from your iPhone/iPad, instant lossless media server!

Finally to the studios. These guys have been stepping on their own dicks for decades. If most people really don't care about quality, then allowing lossless downloads really isn't going to change the equation. And audiophiles aren't typically very likely to pirate. And even if there were, you can find entire artist catalogs in FLAC on torrent sites already. Studios have no reason to not allow ALAC downloads directly from iTunes other then their own ignorance of the current market which, as I said, has been holding them back for decades.
 
I don't consider myself a full out Audiophile, but I do like my high quality lossless music. And to the above poster, yes, all of it had to be torrented. It's not like I care if I have to pay for it, just give me the damn option TO pay for it. I'm not going to settle for some ****** 128k aac files that sound awful.

My library of 530 albums, or roughly 100GB library is all lossless. I got the FLAC converted to ALAC with Max and a lot of it is from my cd collection too. But it's become too time consuming to enter in all the artist/album/year/etc details so i just resort to the internet.

They're losing a market by not allowing lossless audio as an option. We shouldn't have to pay as much as an actual CD at a store for the low quality you get from it. lower the cost of regular 128k to something that will make people jump for joy for but advertise how the full price is full CD quality. I bet people would want that more.

And the space requirements, that's not even an issue at this point. I bet the people with libraries over 50GB are the vast minority in this day and age, so does it really matter anymore? I don't think so. For most people 4 gigs is plenty even in lossless.

It's about damn time and I refuse to buy any audio from Apple until they give full quality.

Anyway I'm going to stop here before I go into a rant or something.
 
I'm 20 and have a collection of 12000 tracks mostly lossless some even higher (24bit, 96hz). I always loved music and bought into a proper hifi worth over £1000 (Arcam amp and rDAC) ran by macbook and iTunes. People are always wanting better quality, it seems to me more people are buying better equipment and hence the need for an iTunes store with lossless.

I don't buy from the store due to quality, just use the player.
I wish they would make it lossless soon!
 
Lossless/CD/MP3, etc

For me, coming from a recording engineering background, the absolute most important thing is the source quality. Virtually every mp3 i've downloaded from itunes has been of high quality, ie no clicks, pops or other artifacts. Yes, its lossy, but also clean. I prefer to rip a cd in .wav or alac, but I don't own every cd on the planet.
The worst trend in digital audio, IMO, is the advent of the loudness wars and the ruination of dynamic range during playback. I'd rather play a lossy, but clean, 128 kbps version of the original Rush Signals album than uber-compressed louder-than-hell 2012 remaster.

just my two cents...
 
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