I hope they also offer higher res files for download too, not just streaming. Be nice if I could have the option to upgrade all the music I've purchased from iTunes.
Very, very little back catalogue analogue 1st generation master recordings are now left since most of the record companies transferred over to digital under heavy pressure and sponsorship from Phillips and Sony using the early 16bit 44Khz Red-Book standard. Those recordings are lost forever. Most of Decca's catalogue was destroyed. A conversation I had with a head honcho from Decca UK back in the 80's, clearly pointed to the fact Digital would allow them to re-release their back catalogue on a new and far more profitable format. He didn't care one jot for the valuable history captured on those wonderful early Decca tapes and pressings. One of the most depressing conversations I ever held when I worked in the music industry.
Being someone who was in that industry, and manufactured equipment for it, did recordings for London and work with RCA on restoring old masters, I can give some info there.
in the old days, that is the mid 1960's and earlier, companies thought that the new recordings would go on for ever. They actually took masters already recorded, and recorded over them. They just weren't very concerned about most of them because they thought they would keep recording new material forever, and so who would want old re-released material, except in a very few particular recordings?
so all of these companies had little regard for their masters. It was very rare for them to keep them in heated and air conditioned warehouses. When, in the 1970's, I worked with RCA to restore some earlier masters, we found a lot of them to be unusable. Sometimes we would call around to executives of the company, including retired ones, to see if they had taken some masters home with them, or whether they had an unblemished Lp of the work we could use.
we're just talking of the short time between when tape began to be used widely, in the early 1950's through the late 1970's when I was working with them. That's not a very long time, but they had already lost a fair amount of works. Phillips was no different. No one other than a remastering engineer really cared much about these things, sadly.
Toslink is a digital output. Are you suggesting audio goes from digital through the DAC and is redigitized? I think you are wrong.
I dont believe that the headphone out is TOSLINK on iOS devices. They are on the Mac. Can you site evidenced or this? I found nothing.
The only way to get pure digital out of an iOS device since iOS7 is through the Lightning connector to a USB input and not through the headphone connector. Do the research.
btw the only way earlier than iOS7 to get pure digital out of an iOS device was through purchase of a special MFI licence from Apple and with that license it was possible to get pure digital audio out through the 30 pin connector.
The internal DAC is EXCELLENT, even compared to the high-end professional DACs on the market. Read the link I posted above to the Ken Rockwell site.
There is no significant advantage to be gained from external DAC.
Ken is, shall we say, somewhat controversial?
In what regard? Seriously, I have no idea. Please enlighten me.
His testing and methodology on iOS audio quality seems absolutely sound.
Edit: He appears to have riled some people up by claiming that JPEG storage makes more sense than RAW for most any non-commercial use, given that amateurs don't really utilise the benefits of RAW, and are better served by being able to take more pictures than tweaking them indefinitely. This seems perfectly reasonable, and I see absolutely no bearing on his statements about audio quality — which, BTW, are just straight-up measurements. Unless one has legitimate gripes about equipment or methodology (both of which he clearly details), all they're doing is ad hominem argument. At which point, there's really no point in arguing.
... and there is also no such thing as 24/44.1. There Is 24/48, 24/88.2, 24/96, 24/176.4 and 24/192. There are even higher Rez formats, but these are the mist common.
Hi melgross - 24/44.1 is one of the most popular recording formats today and has been for over a decade. For example, see Pearl Jam's newest album Lightning Bolt - http://www.hdtracks.com/pearl-jam-lightning-bolt
Hi melgross - 24/44.1 is one of the most popular recording formats today and has been for over a decade. For example, see Pearl Jam's newest album Lightning Bolt - http://www.hdtracks.com/pearl-jam-lightning-bolt
Chris Connaker
Founder Computer Audiophile
Is this spam? 1 post and it's advertising Pearl Jam's latest album?
24/48 is absolutely the professional standard in film/TV. The music business is all about experimenting with formats (Bruce Springsteen famously recorded the Nebraska album on a 4-track cassette deck). But professional audio records in 24/48. Aspiring film composer Mike McCready ought to know better ...
Hi melgross - 24/44.1 is one of the most popular recording formats today and has been for over a decade. For example, see Pearl Jam's newest album Lightning Bolt - http://www.hdtracks.com/pearl-jam-lightning-bolt
Chris Connaker
Founder Computer Audiophile
Is this spam? 1 post and it's advertising Pearl Jam's latest album?
24/48 is absolutely the professional standard in film/TV post. The music business is all about experimenting with formats (Bruce Springsteen famously recorded the Nebraska album on a 4-track cassette deck. But professional audio records in 24/48. Aspiring film composer Mike McCready ought to know better ...
Hi Mac_128 - Yes, the film and TV industry always uses a multiple of 48 (48, 96, 192 kHz). However, melgross stated that "there is also no such thing as 24/44.1" and I wanted to let him know that 24/44.1 is a very popular format for recording.
I have no connection with Pearl Jam other than thy are my favorite band and Lightning Bolt is an album I used as an example of a format that melgross said doesn't exist. Not spam :~)
I concur. 48 kHz is Standard for video work, 44.1 kHz for everything else. 24 bits are the regular standard, regardless of sample rate, that everything is produced in. It's only dithered down to 16 bits for Red Book and derived formats.
Higher resolution won't help unless remastering is done for an album at those higher bit and sample rates. With few exceptions, I wouldn't hedge my bets on that happening. Same with piping audio via a lightning cord. And frankly, speaking as a professional audio engineer, none of it is necessary. Apple knows this already. I'll give a few reasons:
1. Only high end headphones, with a high-end amps connected to high-end DACs (we're talking about systems in excess of $2G's) in a critical listening environment, can begin to resolve the differences between lossless encoded 96kHz/24-bit audio and music that is properly encoded for 256kbps HE-AAC using Apple's Mastered for iTunes guidelines. Even then, only highly trained listeners can hear what very minuscule differences there are.
2. The iPhone is a PORTABLE listening device, that many people use in sub-optimal listening environments. (Noise cancellation circuitry carries a slight fidelity penalty in order work its "magic".) Also consider that the headphones which are most capable of resolving high resolution audio are almost always open-backed (which lowers cavity resonances and improves fidelity), and have no noise isolation whatsoever. Almost all iPhone headphones are closed-back. The listening environment factor alone negates any possible advantage that high resolution audio can offer.
3. No sub-$300 headphones (the most money most people are willing to spend on a set of cans) will be able to resolve high resolution audio in an audible way, even with higher-end DACs built into the headphones and amps power from the iPhone. And as it turns out, bluetooth headphones already have these electronics in them, albeit for 44.1k/16-bit audio in most cases. In fact, many of the customers who buy higher-end headphones usually opt for bluetooth, preferring a cordless experience.
4. The data overhead of lossless 96/24 audio is often 10 times (or more) what 256 kbps AAC is. Distributing that to millions of listeners requires pretty significant infrastructure. Which may or may not already be in place as far as Apple in concerned. Again, all this would be for a very negligible increase in fidelity that only a very small percentage of customers can actually take advantage of.
In much more brief terms, encoding algorithms and data rates are far from being the weakest link in the audio delivery chain - past a certain point (which is, surprise-surprise, 256 kbps AAC). Most important is the listening environment; followed by the transducers (headphones), amp and DAC; followed by PROPER encoding (no re-encoding 128 kbps AAC, which is still an issue for a significant amount of iTunes Store/Apple Music content); and then, going up to 96/24 helps that last 0.00001% of fidelity.
In other words, Apple will almost certainly not change their current trajectory when it comes to audio delivery.
But if they do, they'll do it because it will be a selling point to differentiate themselves, which is fine. They have billions in the bank to do it. Pretty much NOBODY will hear the difference, but they will THINK they hear a difference, which is all that matters in marketing. :-)
Sorry if anybody is rubbed the wrong way by my not citing any references... I'm lazy, I'll admit it. So you'll just have to take my word for it that I know this field and market very, very well.
In what regard? Seriously, I have no idea. Please enlighten me.
His testing and methodology on iOS audio quality seems absolutely sound.
Edit: He appears to have riled some people up by claiming that JPEG storage makes more sense than RAW for most any non-commercial use, given that amateurs don't really utilise the benefits of RAW, and are better served by being able to take more pictures than tweaking them indefinitely. This seems perfectly reasonable, and I see absolutely no bearing on his statements about audio quality — which, BTW, are just straight-up measurements. Unless one has legitimate gripes about equipment or methodology (both of which he clearly details), all they're doing is ad hominem argument. At which point, there's really no point in arguing.
I've known Ken for more than a few years. While a lot of what he does is fine, a lot is below what many consider to be useful standards. His listening setup can't enable more than a few things mine can decern. Listening is more complex than just the numbers indicate.
Hi melgross - 24/44.1 is one of the most popular recording formats today and has been for over a decade. For example, see Pearl Jam's newest album Lightning Bolt - http://www.hdtracks.com/pearl-jam-lightning-bolt
Chris Connaker
Founder Computer Audiophile
24/44.1 is a very odd format. If you said 24/48, I would agree. In fact, most post equipment in use today is 24/48. Recording at 24/96 or 24/192, and then bringing that down to 2448 in post is more common that you would think. But 24/44.1, not so common.
Is this spam? 1 post and it's advertising Pearl Jam's latest album?
24/48 is absolutely the professional standard in film/TV post. The music business is all about experimenting with formats (Bruce Springsteen famously recorded the Nebraska album on a 4-track cassette deck. But professional audio records in 24/48. Aspiring film composer Mike McCready ought to know better ...
Hi Mac_128 - Yes, the film and TV industry always uses a multiple of 48 (48, 96, 192 kHz). However, melgross stated that "there is also no such thing as 24/44.1" and I wanted to let him know that 24/44.1 is a very popular format for recording.
I have no connection with Pearl Jam other than thy are my favorite band and Lightning Bolt is an album I used as an example of a format that melgross said doesn't exist. Not spam :~)
Unless you're buying a cheap digital recorder, 24/44.1 is NOT a very popular format for recording. 24/48 is a popular format. But 24/44.1 is a very odd format.
Hi Mac_128 - Yes, the film and TV industry always uses a multiple of 48 (48, 96, 192 kHz). However, melgross stated that "there is also no such thing as 24/44.1" and I wanted to let him know that 24/44.1 is a very popular format for recording.
I have no connection with Pearl Jam other than thy are my favorite band and Lightning Bolt is an album I used as an example of a format that melgross said doesn't exist. Not spam :~)
Unless you're buying a cheap digital recorder, 24/44.1 is NOT a very popular format for recording. 24/48 is a popular format. But 24/44.1 is a very odd format.
I guess we'll just disagree. Audio is based on 44.1 for 99.9% of recordings and most are done in 24 bit. Hence the releases in 24/44.1.
Higher resolution won't help unless remastering is done for an album at those higher bit and sample rates. With few exceptions, I wouldn't hedge my bets on that happening. Same with piping audio via a lightning cord. And frankly, speaking as a professional audio engineer, none of it is necessary. Apple knows this already. I'll give a few reasons:
1. Only high end headphones, with a high-end amps connected to high-end DACs (we're talking about systems in excess of $2G's) in a critical listening environment, can begin to resolve the differences between lossless encoded 96kHz/24-bit audio and music that is properly encoded for 256kbps HE-AAC using Apple's Mastered for iTunes guidelines. Even then, only highly trained listeners can hear what very minuscule differences there are.
2. The iPhone is a PORTABLE listening device, that many people use in sub-optimal listening environments. (Noise cancellation circuitry carries a slight fidelity penalty in order work its "magic".) Also consider that the headphones which are most capable of resolving high resolution audio are almost always open-backed (which lowers cavity resonances and improves fidelity), and have no noise isolation whatsoever. Almost all iPhone headphones are closed-back. The listening environment factor alone negates any possible advantage that high resolution audio can offer.
3. No sub-$300 headphones (the most money most people are willing to spend on a set of cans) will be able to resolve high resolution audio in an audible way, even with higher-end DACs built into the headphones and amps power from the iPhone. And as it turns out, bluetooth headphones already have these electronics in them, albeit for 44.1k/16-bit audio in most cases. In fact, many of the customers who buy higher-end headphones usually opt for bluetooth, preferring a cordless experience.
4. The data overhead of lossless 96/24 audio is often 10 times (or more) what 256 kbps AAC is. Distributing that to millions of listeners requires pretty significant infrastructure. Which may or may not already be in place as far as Apple in concerned. Again, all this would be for a very negligible increase in fidelity that only a very small percentage of customers can actually take advantage of.
In much more brief terms, encoding algorithms and data rates are far from being the weakest link in the audio delivery chain - past a certain point (which is, surprise-surprise, 256 kbps AAC). Most important is the listening environment; followed by the transducers (headphones), amp and DAC; followed by PROPER encoding (no re-encoding 128 kbps AAC, which is still an issue for a significant amount of iTunes Store/Apple Music content); and then, going up to 96/24 helps that last 0.00001% of fidelity.
In other words, Apple will almost certainly not change their current trajectory when it comes to audio delivery.
But if they do, they'll do it because it will be a selling point to differentiate themselves, which is fine. They have billions in the bank to do it. Pretty much NOBODY will hear the difference, but they will THINK they hear a difference, which is all that matters in marketing. :-)
Sorry if anybody is rubbed the wrong way by my not citing any references... I'm lazy, I'll admit it. So you'll just have to take my word for it that I know this field and market very, very well.
I basically free with what you're saying. I've often said similar things myself here. My system costs about $80,000. It consists of very carefully matched components. I've built my own turntable plinth for my SP-15, and my own anti-vibration base, my speakers, which I reworked myself, and completely redid the crossovers and wiring on my main units. It helps that I've done professional electronics design and speaker design.
Nevertheless, often I've done 256k VBR CD-Rs of recordings, both cd and LP, and fooled others who thought it was 16/44.1. But you can't do that all the time. Some recordings have too much high frequency signal for compression to remain hidden. And on a very revealing system, you can definitely hear the differences. But once we get beyond 164|/44.1, it becomes problematic as to whether we're hearing difference due to the higher rates, or rather the greater care in mastering.
Hi melgross - 24/44.1 is one of the most popular recording formats today and has been for over a decade. For example, see Pearl Jam's newest album Lightning Bolt - http://www.hdtracks.com/pearl-jam-lightning-bolt
Chris Connaker
Founder Computer Audiophile
24/44.1 is a very odd format. If you said 24/48, I would agree. In fact, most post equipment in use today is 24/48. Recording at 24/96 or 24/192, and then bringing that down to 2448 in post is more common that you would think. But 24/44.1, not so common.
Every studio I know records at 24 bits.
None of them records at 48 kHz unless working specifically for video. There is zero sonic gain to 48 kHz, and SRC to 44.1, while very good these days, still runs a risk of introducing artefacting (depending upon the software doing it) and is just an additional step that needs to be done for every single working bounce — rough mix, demo, pre-master, etc.
Higher resolution won't help unless remastering is done for an album at those higher bit and sample rates. With few exceptions, I wouldn't hedge my bets on that happening. Same with piping audio via a lightning cord. And frankly, speaking as a professional audio engineer, none of it is necessary. Apple knows this already. I'll give a few reasons:
1. Only high end headphones, with a high-end amps connected to high-end DACs (we're talking about systems in excess of $2G's) in a critical listening environment, can begin to resolve the differences between lossless encoded 96kHz/24-bit audio and music that is properly encoded for 256kbps HE-AAC using Apple's Mastered for iTunes guidelines. Even then, only highly trained listeners can hear what very minuscule differences there are.
2. The iPhone is a PORTABLE listening device, that many people use in sub-optimal listening environments. (Noise cancellation circuitry carries a slight fidelity penalty in order work its "magic".) Also consider that the headphones which are most capable of resolving high resolution audio are almost always open-backed (which lowers cavity resonances and improves fidelity), and have no noise isolation whatsoever. Almost all iPhone headphones are closed-back. The listening environment factor alone negates any possible advantage that high resolution audio can offer.
3. No sub-$300 headphones (the most money most people are willing to spend on a set of cans) will be able to resolve high resolution audio in an audible way, even with higher-end DACs built into the headphones and amps power from the iPhone. And as it turns out, bluetooth headphones already have these electronics in them, albeit for 44.1k/16-bit audio in most cases. In fact, many of the customers who buy higher-end headphones usually opt for bluetooth, preferring a cordless experience.
4. The data overhead of lossless 96/24 audio is often 10 times (or more) what 256 kbps AAC is. Distributing that to millions of listeners requires pretty significant infrastructure. Which may or may not already be in place as far as Apple in concerned. Again, all this would be for a very negligible increase in fidelity that only a very small percentage of customers can actually take advantage of.
In much more brief terms, encoding algorithms and data rates are far from being the weakest link in the audio delivery chain - past a certain point (which is, surprise-surprise, 256 kbps AAC). Most important is the listening environment; followed by the transducers (headphones), amp and DAC; followed by PROPER encoding (no re-encoding 128 kbps AAC, which is still an issue for a significant amount of iTunes Store/Apple Music content); and then, going up to 96/24 helps that last 0.00001% of fidelity.
In other words, Apple will almost certainly not change their current trajectory when it comes to audio delivery.
But if they do, they'll do it because it will be a selling point to differentiate themselves, which is fine. They have billions in the bank to do it. Pretty much NOBODY will hear the difference, but they will THINK they hear a difference, which is all that matters in marketing. :-)
Sorry if anybody is rubbed the wrong way by my not citing any references... I'm lazy, I'll admit it. So you'll just have to take my word for it that I know this field and market very, very well.
I basically free with what you're saying. I've often said similar things myself here. My system costs about $80,000. It consists of very carefully matched components. I've built my own turntable plinth for my SP-15, and my own anti-vibration base, my speakers, which I reworked myself, and completely redid the crossovers and wiring on my main units. It helps that I've done professional electronics design and speaker design.
Nevertheless, often I've done 256k VBR CD-Rs of recordings, both cd and LP, and fooled others who thought it was 16/44.1. But you can't do that all the time. Some recordings have too much high frequency signal for compression to remain hidden. And on a very revealing system, you can definitely hear the differences. But once we get beyond 164|/44.1, it becomes problematic as to whether we're hearing difference due to the higher rates, or rather the greater care in mastering.
I agree as well.
The one thing you both omit, as does everyone who brings up similar points, is why would the record labels so concerned about piracy agree to give Apple the highest quality recording masters available? Especially if they have to go to some expense to remaster their original analogue masters?
And that brings up a point -- how many original analogue masters of catalogue material remain that haven't been destroyed by being baked for a digital transfer, or suffer signal degradation from duplicated archival masters over the years to preserve them? And how many masters were even recorded at these higher standards? In the end, it all costs money, and for what gain? How much can Apple sell these HQ recordings for to what is presumably a niche market of audiophiles, and a few gullible amateurs that want them?
No, the biggest obstacle I see to this is content. And that brings me back to my original point, which ironically you planted in my mind by your comments -- Apple is doing this to allow the pro-sumer and audiophiles to record in professional standards, just like they are selling 16GB iPhones that can record in 4K video, and offering apps that will edit 4K video, but no practical way to view those movies, or transfer such massive files. Now they can add 96k/24bit audio to that impressive list of features, and play them back. That's going to make he iPhone 7 far more desirable, for a relatively small investment, than a minimal list of available HQ content on iTunes. Maybe it will spur a whole new movement in bootleg HQ audio recordings. I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but with all the hurtles to jump with the labels, which must fully on board to make is happen, I just can't see it as the driving motivation behind this move, assuming it pans out as more than just a rumor.
Comments
Toslink is a straight out digital signal. It doesn't go through the the DA.
in the old days, that is the mid 1960's and earlier, companies thought that the new recordings would go on for ever. They actually took masters already recorded, and recorded over them. They just weren't very concerned about most of them because they thought they would keep recording new material forever, and so who would want old re-released material, except in a very few particular recordings?
so all of these companies had little regard for their masters. It was very rare for them to keep them in heated and air conditioned warehouses. When, in the 1970's, I worked with RCA to restore some earlier masters, we found a lot of them to be unusable. Sometimes we would call around to executives of the company, including retired ones, to see if they had taken some masters home with them, or whether they had an unblemished Lp of the work we could use.
we're just talking of the short time between when tape began to be used widely, in the early 1950's through the late 1970's when I was working with them. That's not a very long time, but they had already lost a fair amount of works. Phillips was no different. No one other than a remastering engineer really cared much about these things, sadly.
His testing and methodology on iOS audio quality seems absolutely sound.
Edit: He appears to have riled some people up by claiming that JPEG storage makes more sense than RAW for most any non-commercial use, given that amateurs don't really utilise the benefits of RAW, and are better served by being able to take more pictures than tweaking them indefinitely. This seems perfectly reasonable, and I see absolutely no bearing on his statements about audio quality — which, BTW, are just straight-up measurements.
Unless one has legitimate gripes about equipment or methodology (both of which he clearly details), all they're doing is ad hominem argument. At which point, there's really no point in arguing.
Chris Connaker
Founder
Computer Audiophile
24/48 is absolutely the professional standard in film/TV. The music business is all about experimenting with formats (Bruce Springsteen famously recorded the Nebraska album on a 4-track cassette deck). But professional audio records in 24/48. Aspiring film composer Mike McCready ought to know better ...
I have no connection with Pearl Jam other than thy are my favorite band and Lightning Bolt is an album I used as an example of a format that melgross said doesn't exist. Not spam :~)
2. The iPhone is a PORTABLE listening device, that many people use in sub-optimal listening environments. (Noise cancellation circuitry carries a slight fidelity penalty in order work its "magic".) Also consider that the headphones which are most capable of resolving high resolution audio are almost always open-backed (which lowers cavity resonances and improves fidelity), and have no noise isolation whatsoever. Almost all iPhone headphones are closed-back. The listening environment factor alone negates any possible advantage that high resolution audio can offer.
3. No sub-$300 headphones (the most money most people are willing to spend on a set of cans) will be able to resolve high resolution audio in an audible way, even with higher-end DACs built into the headphones and amps power from the iPhone. And as it turns out, bluetooth headphones already have these electronics in them, albeit for 44.1k/16-bit audio in most cases. In fact, many of the customers who buy higher-end headphones usually opt for bluetooth, preferring a cordless experience.
4. The data overhead of lossless 96/24 audio is often 10 times (or more) what 256 kbps AAC is. Distributing that to millions of listeners requires pretty significant infrastructure. Which may or may not already be in place as far as Apple in concerned. Again, all this would be for a very negligible increase in fidelity that only a very small percentage of customers can actually take advantage of.
In much more brief terms, encoding algorithms and data rates are far from being the weakest link in the audio delivery chain - past a certain point (which is, surprise-surprise, 256 kbps AAC). Most important is the listening environment; followed by the transducers (headphones), amp and DAC; followed by PROPER encoding (no re-encoding 128 kbps AAC, which is still an issue for a significant amount of iTunes Store/Apple Music content); and then, going up to 96/24 helps that last 0.00001% of fidelity.
But if they do, they'll do it because it will be a selling point to differentiate themselves, which is fine. They have billions in the bank to do it. Pretty much NOBODY will hear the difference, but they will THINK they hear a difference, which is all that matters in marketing. :-)
Nevertheless, often I've done 256k VBR CD-Rs of recordings, both cd and LP, and fooled others who thought it was 16/44.1. But you can't do that all the time. Some recordings have too much high frequency signal for compression to remain hidden. And on a very revealing system, you can definitely hear the differences. But once we get beyond 164|/44.1, it becomes problematic as to whether we're hearing difference due to the higher rates, or rather the greater care in mastering.
None of them records at 48 kHz unless working specifically for video. There is zero sonic gain to 48 kHz, and SRC to 44.1, while very good these days, still runs a risk of introducing artefacting (depending upon the software doing it) and is just an additional step that needs to be done for every single working bounce — rough mix, demo, pre-master, etc.
24/44.1 is the bog-standard resolution.
The one thing you both omit, as does everyone who brings up similar points, is why would the record labels so concerned about piracy agree to give Apple the highest quality recording masters available? Especially if they have to go to some expense to remaster their original analogue masters?
And that brings up a point -- how many original analogue masters of catalogue material remain that haven't been destroyed by being baked for a digital transfer, or suffer signal degradation from duplicated archival masters over the years to preserve them? And how many masters were even recorded at these higher standards? In the end, it all costs money, and for what gain? How much can Apple sell these HQ recordings for to what is presumably a niche market of audiophiles, and a few gullible amateurs that want them?
No, the biggest obstacle I see to this is content. And that brings me back to my original point, which ironically you planted in my mind by your comments -- Apple is doing this to allow the pro-sumer and audiophiles to record in professional standards, just like they are selling 16GB iPhones that can record in 4K video, and offering apps that will edit 4K video, but no practical way to view those movies, or transfer such massive files. Now they can add 96k/24bit audio to that impressive list of features, and play them back. That's going to make he iPhone 7 far more desirable, for a relatively small investment, than a minimal list of available HQ content on iTunes. Maybe it will spur a whole new movement in bootleg HQ audio recordings. I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but with all the hurtles to jump with the labels, which must fully on board to make is happen, I just can't see it as the driving motivation behind this move, assuming it pans out as more than just a rumor.