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 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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
... 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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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
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
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...
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
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
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.
'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?
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.
Comments
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
... 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.
It's not a good deal if I have to use a Zune.
You don't....
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.
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..
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).
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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.
'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?
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?
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.