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Price hike hits Apple's iTunes Store - Page 4

post #121 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by iBill View Post

Not me. I will not pay money for music encoded in the legacy mp3 format.

Why? Perceivable audio quality is nearly identical between the two formats at the higher bit rates.

Proud AAPL stock owner.

 

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GOA

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post #122 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truntru View Post

Why don't more people use the zune pass? For $15/month (up to 3 zunes and 3 computers) you can download as much temporary music as you would like, and also keep in your collection forever 10 songs. You can't find a better deal anywhere.

It's not a good deal if I have to use a Zune.
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post #123 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonComstock View Post

It is not a creative choice. It's about the psychoacoustic effect of things that are louder being perceived as better. It's also about record industry people not wanting to adjust the volume when listening to a collection of music from different sources. It's about radio stations getting compilation discs/previews and wanting your music to stand out by being louder. This has been discussed many times in professional settings by the industry's top mastering engineers. It's also been demonstrated that highly compressed/limited music sounds WORSE after passing through radio station processing (multi-band compression, phase flipping, limiting, etc.) than music that is less compressed/limited. The godfather of on-air processing, Mr. Orban has written about this and it's available online. Some FM pop stations simply sound horrid in their efforts to be the loudest station on the air --we're back to the psychoacoustic effect we started with.

It's rather inherent to digital formats because they can be pushed to a clearly defined limit: 0 dBFS.

I don't disagree that you CAN do it with CD when it wasn't possible with vinyl. I'm just saying that with CD you have the choice of mastering that way or not. And that's evidenced by CD's that sound great because they choose NOT to master that way.
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post #124 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post

Did a quick comparison...

The Black Eyed Peas' song, "Boom Boom Pow" is $1.29 on iTunes, and still $.99 on Amazon.

Where do you think people are going to go for music from now on?

I think that pretty all the people that were shopping at iTunes will continue to shop there. If you didn't jump to Amazon when the bitrate was double that of iTS and DRM-free, I don't think that people will jump now because of 30¢ on some tracks. In other words, the convenience of buying on iTS within the iTunes app that manages your iTunes library and syncs to your iDevice is more compelling than going to another source to save 30¢. But I could be wrong...
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post #125 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post

Did a quick comparison...

The Black Eyed Peas' song, "Boom Boom Pow" is $1.29 on iTunes, and still $.99 on Amazon.

And it has been at that price at iTunes for what, less than a day? The real question is whether amazon chose not to raise prices on as many tracks, or if they just haven't got around to it yet.

Frankly, I'm surprised they raised any prices this fast, it really blunts the criticism of higher prices on iTunes.
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post #126 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sapporobabyrtrns View Post

I doubt it as Amazon is not nearly as large a threat nor as arrogant as Steve-o. Sometimes you reap what you sow. Anyone with half a brain knew that this was not going to last forever, and I am sure that Apple is getting a larger slice of the newly price increased pie.

It was Steve Jobs who wanted to sell DRM free music for $0.99 long time ago but the labels refused demanding that Apple charge more.

Anyone with half a brain knows that the only reason Amazon sells cheaper DRM free music is because the labels wanted to force Apple into accepting their terms. Now that Apple accepted their terms expect them to force Amazon to similar terms very very soon. Why very soon? because now they make more money if you buy music from iTunes not Amazon.

It is about the labels love for money not Amazon.
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post #127 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by iBill View Post

It's not a good deal if I have to use a Zune.

The Zune isn't a bad device. MS got it right on v2 of the firmware. I much prefer my iPhone's iPod for many reasons, but if I couldn't have an iDevice I would consider a Zune over other PMPs.
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post #128 of 203
4/7/09 at 11:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post

Frankly, I'm surprised they raised any prices this fast, it really blunts the criticism of higher prices on iTunes.

I'm pretty sure that Apple had a deadline to raise prices in agreement with the music cartel finally allowing Apple to offer higher bitrate DRM-free audio.
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post #129 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GMHut View Post

For all intents and purposes, CDs are loss-less. I know, I know, some audiophiles will claim they can hear EVERYTHING on the original recording. In reality, the human ear won't perceive the amount of data "lost" due to digitalization. Most (if any) won't hear the difference between 256 and anything above. Anyone who thinks they can is either the first human/canine hybrid or has delusions of grandeur.

Guess me and hundreds of millions of other people are the first human/canine hybrids. Good thing there is a multi-trillion dollar industry to support us man/dog freaks.
Hmmmm, in fact, I've not met a single person in the last 5 years who listened to my system and couldn't tell a difference between 328kps mp3 and a CD. The difference is huge, everyone can hear it.
Maybe it's just you on your Sony micro system that you picked up at Walmart that can't tell the difference. Or maybe your hearing is gone?

Seriously dude, get help.
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post #130 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:06pm
Folks

The only thing lossless by any stretch is the analog waveform from instrument to your ears.

The CD format is lossy.

Even a bump to a 20-bit word length will yield differences you can hear. Increase the sampling rate and it'll cause differences you can hear. This is of course provided you have proper AD/DA conversion.

This sounds better than a CD
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post #131 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galapagos View Post

I do hear a difference in sound quality between a CD and a lossless file. I have converted my CD collection to the AIFF format which has no compression from the original CD file. An average song in the AIFF format weighs about 50 megs, the lossless equivalent is about half of that. I don´t think that bandwith or hard disk space is the main reason uncompressed songs are not offered through iTunes or other vendors, since today large files (dvds, movies) are being regularly downloaded and hardware real state is getting cheaper. Your point about replacing cds is compelling though, but again record companies are missing the boat "again" since they could sell uncompressed material at premium prices.

You might hear a difference because the DAC on your CD player is better then the one your using for streaming lossless.
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post #132 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post

... listening to the AAC and MP3 version side-by-side, the MP3 can even sound better (yes. I tried it). ...

You may *believe* this, but it isn't true.

You are taking your subjective discovery that *some* high-bitrate songs sound better in MP3 (to you), than they do in AAC (and I don't actually believe you found identical songs and compared them anyway), and extrapolating it to a factual realm where it doesn't belong.

All tests done by unbiased groups, especially in "blind" listening studies say that AAc sounds better at the same bitrate than an equivalent MP3 file. It's true the difference gets slighter as you move up the bitrate scale, but there is still a difference. It's logically impossible for a file encoded using MP3 to come out better than AAC, (you only have to look at the specs to see that), and all actual tests with live human beings support this as well.
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post #133 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by iBill View Post

It's not a good deal if I have to use a Zune.

You don't....
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post #134 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by John.B View Post

So you are the one guy in the whole thread who still wants DRM'ed music? That goes away the day the license service gets shut down? You'd have to be a major league Ballmer fanboi to take that stance. Or be one of the two guys that bought a Zune. LOL!

Well, setting all my emotional ties to Microsoft aside, I still think the zune pass and zune is an awesome deal.... beats the iPod and iTunes hands down. Zune of course can't even touch the iPhone or touch...

The 10 songs you get every month are DRM free. For $2.50 / month / person (splitting between 2 people) for unlimited amount of music, you can't even touch the price.
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post #135 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

The Zune isn't a bad device. MS got it right on v2 of the firmware. I much prefer my iPhone's iPod for many reasons, but if I couldn't have an iDevice I would consider a Zune over other PMPs.

What about the fact that Zunes are butt ugly?

Really, I wouldn't use anything but an iPod, but if I had to, I'd probably get something from Creative..
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post #136 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post

You may *believe* this, but it isn't true.

You are taking your subjective discovery that *some* high-bitrate songs sound better in MP3 (to you), than they do in AAC (and I don't actually believe you found identical songs and compared them anyway), and extrapolating it to a factual realm where it doesn't belong.

All tests done by unbiased groups, especially in "blind" listening studies say that AAc sounds better at the same bitrate than an equivalent MP3 file. It's true the difference gets slighter as you move up the bitrate scale, but there is still a difference. It's logically impossible for a file encoded using MP3 to come out better than AAC, (you only have to look at the specs to see that), and all actual tests with live human beings support this as well.

Well, as for example this one: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=36465? If you looks at lab tests (e.g. http://www.soundexpert.info/coders256.jsp) you can see that there is almost no difference between AAC CBR and MP3 CBR at 256 kbps, only AAC VBR is achieving a significantly better result (but MP3 VBR was not tested).
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post #137 of 203
4/7/09 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post

Why? Perceivable audio quality is nearly identical between the two formats at the higher bit rates.

Because it's compressed, using legacy compression technology. I actually prefer lossless compression such as FLAC or SHN. I do sometimes buy compressed audio, for convenience, but prefer to stick with the newer AAC. I perceive that format to be better, even if it requires a waveform analyzer to prove that it is better.

I also refuse to buy digital music from Amazon because the record companies are giving them a better deal in order to harm iTunes.
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post #138 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:03pm
Am I the only one who's noticed the lack of free downloads today? I look forward to Tuesday to see what Apple's posted as free downloads (there are usually two or three music tracks, one music video--which there is today, and several TV shows [usually pilot episodes] and movie clips). What used to be 2-3 pages now takes up about half a page...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Halvri View Post

As to cell phone companies, I find their cancellation fees alot more insane. The idea that switching to another carrier because of terrible service should cost one the next six months of what they would have otherwise paid is downright insulting.

Keep in mind that the device you carry has been subsidized by the carrier, and that fee is there to prevent the loss associated with early cancelation.

While I agree that shoddy service is certainly a factor in most cases when one cancels their contract, I believe that every carrier offers a 30-day period during which you can cancel without incurring the early penalty...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Truntru View Post

Why don't more people use the zune pass? For $15/month (up to 3 zunes and 3 computers) you can download as much temporary music as you would like, and also keep in your collection forever 10 songs. You can't find a better deal anywhere.

'cause that involves buying a Zune for one thing, and booting into Windows to use the Zune. While the Zune itself is a perfectly fine device, I don't think most of us are willing to go through the added expense and inconvenience of running Windows to use one (or three)...

I do, however, disagree with the earlier poster who slammed the idea of renting music. I used to have a Rhapsody account and absolutely loved it. I don't really see the difference between a music rental program, and a service such as Netflix...
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post #139 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

I'm pretty sure that Apple had a deadline to raise prices in agreement with the music cartel finally allowing Apple to offer higher bitrate DRM-free audio.

Sorry I wasn't clear, I was talking about Amazon raising their prices this fast.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rain View Post

Guess me and hundreds of millions of other people are the first human/canine hybrids. Good thing there is a multi-trillion dollar industry to support us man/dog freaks.
Hmmmm, in fact, I've not met a single person in the last 5 years who listened to my system and couldn't tell a difference between 328kps mp3 and a CD. The difference is huge, everyone can hear it.
Maybe it's just you on your Sony micro system that you picked up at Walmart that can't tell the difference. Or maybe your hearing is gone?

Seriously dude, get help.

While there are people who can hear minute differences, there are also many people who fall victim to the placebo effect and think they are hearing a difference when they really can't. I've learned to be skeptical of people who claim to be able to hear tiny differences unless they are doing blind comparisons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

The only thing lossless by any stretch is the analog waveform from instrument to your ears.

The CD format is lossy.

Sorry, but you're just making up your own definition for "lossy". No, CD's aren't the highest resolution available. But that doesn't make them lossy, which means data compression that throws out audio that is in the original digital recording.

If you're going to define "lossy" as anything that isn't absolutely perfect, then not only would every recording format in existence be lossy, so would even live listening since the atmosphere and listening environment change the sound as well.

This redefining of "lossy" to mean whatever people want it to mean reminds me of the incessant "Apple is a monopoly!" comments you see on boards like this.

lossy |ˈlôsē; ˈläsē|
adjective
Computing of or relating to data compression in which unnecessary information is discarded.

CD simply doesn't fit that definition.
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post #140 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djames42 View Post

'cause that involves buying a Zune for one thing, and booting into Windows to use the Zune. While the Zune itself is a perfectly fine device, I don't think most of us are willing to go through the added expense and inconvenience of running Windows to use one (or three)....

Do you really need to have purchased a Zune or can install the Zune software on a Windows PC and create an account?

Quote:
I do, however, disagree with the earlier poster who slammed the idea of renting music. I used to have a Rhapsody account and absolutely loved it. I don't really see the difference between a music rental program, and a service such as Netflix...

I know some people love the idea of renting music, but I think that most people do not. I have no problem with the service existing for those that want it, but I can't see it ever becoming widely popular. The main difference between video and music rental is that most people only watch a movie or TV show once (or once in a while at most), but with music you enjoy you want to hear often, sometimes in repetition. The only audio that fits into the video-style of entertainment are audiobooks. I would much rather be able to rent audiobooks than to buy them since I will only listen to them once before retiring them. Does Rhapsody have a good collection of audiobooks?
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post #141 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post

Sorry I wasn't clear, I was talking about Amazon raising their prices this fast.

Gotcha. I, too, am surprised that Amazon raised them this quickly, but now that they have nothing to hold over iTunes to attempt to weaken it they may not see a point in having lower prices for the same bandwidth.
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post #142 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

The only thing lossless by any stretch is the analog waveform from instrument to your ears.

Yup. the mic, the pre, the desk, the headstack, the tape formulation, the transport, the playback compensation, the amp, and the speakers to name a few things that adulterate the original signal in the "analog" world of reproduction (and we haven't even gotten to the lathe).

gc
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post #143 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Halvri View Post

They come from a loss-less sample and that's it. Compressing the file for CDs inherently causes loss. It does the same thing even at higher bitrates. Stop trying to justify your error and just move on. Physical media is dead one way or another so this entire argument is ultimately irrelevant.

"loss-less sample" is an oxymoron. As soon as you've taken a sample, you have introducted loss, from a purely technical perspective.

But from a practical perpective, for the purposes of this discussion, and as far as 99.99% of the humans on this planet are concerned, CDs are considered lossless (because that is the highest quality generally available).

Now can we all stop pissing in the wind and get back to how the record labels are the embodiment of pure evil?
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post #144 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post

Well, as for example this one: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=36465? If you looks at lab tests (e.g. http://www.soundexpert.info/coders256.jsp) you can see that there is almost no difference between AAC CBR and MP3 CBR at 256 kbps, only AAC VBR is achieving a significantly better result (but MP3 VBR was not tested).

You know what? I don't really care except for the fact that if I see someone saying something (like your original post), that is inaccurate, I have to point it out. I really think people who obsess over tiny details like this are missing the whole point of life in general.

That being said, all you have done here is put a link to a site that proves my point. I agreed with you that the differences at high rates are small, but I've said all along that your perception that MP3's "sound better" than equivalent AAC files is false. The graph you point to (I assume this is your "best case" argument), shows that ...

... at high bitrates the difference is small but AAC still sounds better to most ears.

I'm not sure what your point is with all this, and as I said, I really don't care enough about it to continue arguing especially when all your evidence seems to prove me right.
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post #145 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post

I don't disagree that you CAN do it with CD when it wasn't possible with vinyl. I'm just saying that with CD you have the choice of mastering that way or not. And that's evidenced by CD's that sound great because they choose NOT to master that way.

Mastering engineers have very little choice in the matter and most "artists" don't either (or don't know enough to care) when faced with a corporate behemoth that is cranking out the next manufactured hit.

I've attended more than one mastering panel discussion at AES and witnessed the head hanging, foot shuffling, and weak excuse making by the finest mastering engineers in the business. They all finally admit that it comes down to this: the client has the money and calls the shots whether they know what's good or not for the music. 99% of the time at the mass appeal level, the decision is not at "artistic" one made by someone with artistic sensibilities. I'd be willing to bet that after a few drinks, more than a few mastering engineers would be willing to admit that they are a bit embarrassed by what they're forced to do.

gc
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post #146 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post

This is a lose-lose proposition for everyone but the labels.
...

I suspect it's even a lose for them too. The record labels have fought against their own interest since the Napster years when it took 1.5 years for them to accept Steve Jobs' advice that they give up trying to sue teenagers and housewives and instead compete with piracy by offering a better service.

They forced a DRM agreement, but have always opposed the simple price model of iTunes that Steve Jobs insisted upon. Again, I think Jobs understands the market better than the labels and his stubbornness was to the benefit of the labels and artists, but the labels just don't get it. So they made variable-pricing the cost of DRM-free music.

I think the reason Steve Jobs insisted on a delay between DRM-free music and the start of variable pricing is so that he could separate the public approval of the DRM removal from the public condemnation of variable pricing. So complain really loudly and help make Steve's case against variable pricing.

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post #147 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by realmike15 View Post

CDs are lossless my friend. i don't know who told you that but they have not a clue what they're talking about

CDs are 16-bit 44.1kHz sample rate. there is no compression of any kind.

Well...technically, they could be compressed from their original studio sample rate but why split hairs?
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post #148 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truntru View Post

The 10 songs you get every month are DRM free. For $2.50 / month / person (splitting between 2 people) for unlimited amount of music, you can't even touch the price.

I won't buy into another DRM scheme. What if I want more than 10 songs in a month? Not interested, not in the slightest. Its 180° backward of what everyone else (Apple, Amazon, etc.) are doing. I'm glad you like your Zune, but there is no way I'd buy one just so I could get DRM'ed music from Microsoft. Even if they give me 10 DRM-free songs, like an allowance or something...

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post #149 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by csdg View Post

You are right. I should have said that iTunes could offer AIFF and WAV formats in the store. Maybe they could borrow some storage from Google.

Two issues:

1. Do either AIFF or WAV file formats support metadata fields? I honestly don't know. If they don't, that might be a consideration for using those formats for online music purchases.

2. Apple is moving away from hard drive based music players. Flash based players have not caught up to hard drives in capacity. Selling music in uncompressed AIFF/WAV files would require many users to recompress the music files in order to get more than a handful of albums loaded onto their portable devices.

Apple is about delivering what would be sufficient for 80% of customers. I don't see them going the extra mile by adding AIFF/WAV formats that would beneift only a few users. This philosophy is througout Apple. Look at the iPods, Mac OS, iCal, Addresse Book, the iLife applications, web services, etc. Apple does a beautiful job getting the basics down, but they seldom deliver those last few features that would make their products truly great. It's as if they get close, and then lose interest in finishing the job.
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post #150 of 203
4/7/09 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post

It was Steve Jobs who wanted to sell DRM free music for $0.99 long time ago but the labels refused demanding that Apple charge more.

Anyone with half a brain knows that the only reason Amazon sells cheaper DRM free music is because the labels wanted to force Apple into accepting their terms. Now that Apple accepted their terms expect them to force Amazon to similar terms very very soon. Why very soon? because now they make more money if you buy music from iTunes not Amazon.

It is about the labels love for money not Amazon.

I never said they loved Amazon, but they hated Steve Jobs and Apple. Sometimes things are simply done for personal reasons. Time will tell. In my part of the world it is night so tomorrow when I wake up we will see if suddenly Amazon tunes are now higher priced.

Either way, I could not care less. If a song is $1.69 or $10.69, or $169.00 and I want it, I will simply buy it. Luckily I can usually afford what I want to purchase. It is about the record companies pushing crap music (BEP's new song) on us and wanting consumers to pay a premium for it. It was like when Jay-Z got pissed at iTunes and decided to pull his American Gangster trax. Who suffered? He did. Then Jermaine the Midget Dupree actually had the gall to call consumers stupid and say that we should be thankful for the music they make. What a bunch of arrogant effers.
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post #151 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post

While there are people who can hear minute differences, there are also many people who fall victim to the placebo effect and think they are hearing a difference when they really can't. I've learned to be skeptical of people who claim to be able to hear tiny differences unless they are doing blind comparisons.

Minute??? How about the difference of taking off earmuffs. Would you call that minute?
I've had many people come over who were complete skeptics, only to leave complete believers.
Mind you, this is on an audiophile system:
Paradigm Studio 100's V.3 speakers
Bi-wired with 14/16 gauge Ultralink cables
Marantz CD player with SACD Grade Cirrus Logic CS4392 DAC
Yamaha high current HTR 5760 receiver
Airport express and gold plated connections on everything
And most importantly... walls covered with sound panels.

This is a low/mid range system as far as audiophile systems go. Sub $6000.
On a system this precise thou, nuances become mountains. And of the 15 - 20 people that have come and auditioned the system expecting to hear minute detail changes, were completely blown away from the first 5 seconds of listening. Literally, it's like taking off earmuffs.

I also have a $350 JVC micro system with exceptional sound. The difference between 320 AAC and CD is, well... nothing.

This whole argument is ridiculous. It's no different then someone with a standard TV watching a VHS cassette, looking at an HD 1080p Plasma playing a blue-ray movie and saying... "I don't see any difference... the human eye can only see so many colors, HD is a placebo".

The only difference I guess is that it's tougher to do a 'blind' comparison of TV resolution.
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post #152 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post

1. Do either AIFF or WAV file formats support metadata fields?

AIFF does, WAV doe snot.

Quote:
I don't see them going the extra mile by adding AIFF/WAV formats that would beneift only a few users.

Agreed. If they did offer huge files, many, many users would complain they can only get 2 dozen songs on their iPods, without understanding anything about file size vs. quality.
iTunes and iPod are meant to be simple with very little interaction required by the average schmoe.

A majority of users will settle for mediocre products. Doesn't necessarily mean the mediocre products are bad.
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post #153 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Halvri View Post

Agreed, go listen to a DVD-Audio disc and see if you still think CDs are lossless.

Blind tests have in the past proven no difference between DVD-Audio and CD. For that matter, the same holds true between 256kbps mp3's and CD's on very expensive and highly respected setups. People who say otherwise need to prove it in a blind test before they go boasting how they are audiophiles and they have superior ears or trained ears that can hear the difference.

Having said that, yes, TECHNICALLY, 24 bit 96khz audio SHOULD produce better quality audio. We certainly won't be able to hear it though.

Same goes for SACD - all marketing.

For all practical purposes, CD's are lossless - and even by popular definition.

EDIT: I wrote the above post after reading only the first page of posts - I take it back as there are a few ppl claiming they can easily tell the difference on high end equipment and a good treated room, however I personally cannot tell on my low end dynaudio (sub $2000) or sennheiser HD600's.
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post #154 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:23pm
All those screaming about Amazon, they also have 1.29 songs, but it's less noticeable than on itunes because itunes has 10 million songs compared to 5 for Amazon.
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post #155 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by csdg View Post

256 kbps AAC is a "lossy" compression scheme, only a better one than MP3. If Apple were allowed to do away with DRM ie. iTunes + they could offer the same quality download found on a store bought CD.
This loss can be heard in most any current consumer sound system.

I can tell you from experience that (depending on the song) 256 vs. pulling the song uncompressed from a CD can mean the difference of going from 4 megs to 50 megs. Multiply that by every song on itunes and think what that would mean to server strain. I'm not an IT person but I'm guessing that would cost some money. I try to keep my bit rate to 256 except for the original itunes stuff I bought that isn't being offered at a discount to upgrade.

There is a noticeable difference going from 128 ACC to 256 (many 128 bit songs have perceptible tunneling or cell phone-ish SQ) I bring in CDs at 320. For most people I would venture to say they won't hear the difference from 256 to 320.

Unless you are listening to mega expensive high-end audio equipment and speakers most listeners don't need over 320, probably not over 256 for many.
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post #156 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonComstock View Post

Mastering engineers have very little choice in the matter and most "artists" don't either (or don't know enough to care) when faced with a corporate behemoth that is cranking out the next manufactured hit.

While that choice is in the hands of the artist, the mastering engineer, or the president of the record company, the point is that SOMEONE has a choice. It's not an inherent quality of the CD medium.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffhrsn View Post

Well...technically, they could be compressed from their original studio sample rate but why split hairs?

Wrong. Technically, they can't be data compressed AT ALL, the CD technology simply doesn't support compression. If you put compressed audio files on a CD, the CD player won't play it back. CD's are by definition an uncompressed format, period.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rain View Post

Minute??? How about the difference of taking off earmuffs. Would you call that minute?

Have you done a blind comparison or not?

Because many of the people who think they hear a night and day difference can't pick out which is which once they switch to blind comparison.

I also hope if you're comparing mp3 with lossless you are doing it on the same playback hardware (both mp3 and wav or aiff via the airport), otherwise you're comparing the differences in hardware, not in the formats themselves.
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post #157 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post

Wrong. Technically, they can't be data compressed AT ALL, the CD technology simply doesn't support compression. If you put compressed audio files on a CD, the CD player won't play it back. CD's are by definition an uncompressed format, period.

You don't understand because you're not in the business. There are two uses of the word "compression" and I failed to make it clear that I wasn't talking about data compression, although I think I used it in conjunction with "limiting" more than once as in "compression/limiting."

see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression
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post #158 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post




Sorry, but you're just making up your own definition for "lossy". No, CD's aren't the highest resolution available. But that doesn't make them lossy, which means data compression that throws out audio that is in the original digital recording.

If you're going to define "lossy" as anything that isn't absolutely perfect, then not only would every recording format in existence be lossy, so would even live listening since the atmosphere and listening environment change the sound as well.

This redefining of "lossy" to mean whatever people want it to mean reminds me of the incessant "Apple is a monopoly!" comments you see on boards like this.

lossy |ˈlôsē; ˈläsē|
adjective
Computing of or relating to data compression in which unnecessary information is discarded.

CD simply doesn't fit that definition.

No I'm not defining lossy. I'm merely stating that any recording medium that takes what is often an analog signal records it and replays it is lossy by nature.

CD

16 bit word length that requires dithering algorithms to reproduce an accurate waveform.

44, 100, 000 samples per second.

= lossy

The only debate remaining is the level of data that is lost.
He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.
- SolipsismX
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He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.
- SolipsismX
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post #159 of 203
4/7/09 at 2:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonComstock View Post

You don't understand because you're not in the business. There are two uses of the word "compression" and I failed to make it clear that I wasn't talking about data compression, although I think I used it in conjunction with "limiting" more than once as in "compression/limiting."

Don't make assumptions about me or what I understand, you're just going to make a fool of yourself.

That comment was in response to jeffhrsn (as should be obvious since my comment followed the quote of his I was responding to) - it seems pretty obvious he was talking about DATA compression, but if he wasn't, he should be the one who clarifies what he was saying.

I'm perfectly aware that you were talking about compression of dynamic range in your earlier posts...but that comment wasn't responding to you.
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post #160 of 203
4/7/09 at 3:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

No I'm not defining lossy. I'm merely stating that any recording medium that takes what is often an analog signal records it and replays it is lossy by nature.

And that's not what "lossy" means, did you miss the dictionary definition I quoted?

EVERY recording format in existence (and playback hardware) is going to do the best it can to try and capture the live sound...but will inevitably fail. But that doesn't mean that every recording format is "lossy", it just means that every recording format is imperfect.

And for that matter, data is lost between a violin playing a note and those vibrations getting to your ear.

In a nutshell "lossy" doesn't mean "not as good as some other format". Nor does a format being lossy mean that it necessarily sounds worse than a particular lossless format. It's an actual word with an actual definition, and if you are going to ignore the meaning of the word and just use it to mean whatever you want, you will be saying something that is incorrect.
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