I would hope so and would have expected it but after the Fire TV release I am questioning it. Amazon put a quad-core CPU, 2GB RAM and powerful GPU into that device but no H.265 decoder or support for UHD 4K so that makes me if the technology is still a couple years away from being ready for Apple, a couple that isn't usually an early adopter.
The difference between Apple and Amazon is that Amazon designs their stuff but they don't have the resources yet to design their own silicon. An old friend of mine is the VP at Kindle (the Kindle Fire is his baby) and I'm pretty comfortable in saying that. Even iFixit commented in their teardown of the device that the Fire TV has a lot of "battle tested" chips in the case...things that are off the shelf and have been seen in other designs. Apple designs its own silicon which means that there is nothing keeping them from adding H.265 decoding to the existing A7 or future A8. Also, HDMI 2.0 is available now for manufacturers but the biggest issue is that not all modes dealing with color properties (12 and 16 bit color) are supported in silicon just yet and may not be this year. Still, you could easily go to market with what is available now and even HDMI 1.4a has some support of 4K at 24/30 fps (good enough for TV applications).
Digital is better in every conceivable way. Except that some people who don't understand it convince themselves that it must be worse than vinyl and go on to perform poorly or not-at-all controlled comparisons which - surprise, surprise - reinforce their original viewpoint.
...whilst it (vinyl) is worse in every way as a medium compared to CD (dynamic range, frequency response, wow & flutter, distortion) vinyl masters do not usually have their dynamic range compressed into oblivion.
Wholeheartedly agree. If a vinyl recording sounds better it's because the source was mastered better, not because of the media.
How much will they charge me to "upgrade" the songs I've already purchased this time? Last time it was $.69 per song or $.33 per song I think...
Then there was the aggravating issue where songs I had purchased were no longer available on the iTunes Store for whatever reason.
I hope it's a free upgrade if your a current iTunes Match subscriber.
It was .30 cents per song to upgrade. Songs no longer available "for whatever reason" was due to licensing agreements with the recording industry. Free upgrade, unlikely. iTunes Match is a joke. Does it surprise you that Apple no longer talks about iTunes Match?
iTunes Match is a joke. Does it surprise you that Apple no longer talks about iTunes Match?
1) In what ways is it a joke? I personally think it's great and can't imagine going back to having every single song I own be locally stored if I ever want to play them. I store, maybe, 500 songs on my iPhone and none on my iPad or Macs but I have access to them all.
2) It surprises me you'd say "Apple no longer talking about iTunes Match" when they just talked about iTunes Match when they announced and launched iTunes Radio.
Instead of comparing the quality of recordings with other recordings, shouldn't the real comparison be with the actual performance of the music that is being recorded?
Originally Posted by Lorin SchultzDepends how you define that.
Early anti-aliasing filters were not very good. It's hard to make a good, cheap, steep filter, and easier to make a good, cheap, SHALLOW filter. Raising the sampling frequency allowed the use of cheaper anti-aliasing filters that also sounded better. So systems with higher sample rates sounded better, but NOT because of the higher sampling rate. It was because the filters were better.
None of that is relevant anymore. Today the only benefit of higher sampling rate is an increase in the highest frequency that can be recorded. Thus the only argument is whether or not there is any benefit to recording frequencies higher than 22 KHz.
That was in response to the sampling rates in use with recorders at the time of the CD's introduction. I don't recall those higher sampling frequencies getting implemented and appearing in consumer grade equipment until later.
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Reasonable statement, but I would ask you what you expect to hear at 96/24 that you wouldn't at 44/16? Further, what deleterious effects do you believe occur when down converting from 96/24 to 44/16?
I don't know what kind of magic people think is going on in recording studios that will be masked by a 44/16 release and only revealed by way of 96/24 media. The laws of physics exist in the studio the same way they do at home. There's nothing going on behind that glass that mysteriously results in sounds so quiet or high in frequency that they can only be heard at 96/24.
I'm thinking back to statements I recall from Bob Ludwig several years ago indicating how high res PCM simplifies the mastering process by allowing for a more direct transfer. With vinyl you're obviously having to account for the medium, but Ludwig indicated that the CD was not entirely transparent to the master either. This something I've heard from a few professional audio engineers as well. In the few cases where I have a CD and a high res track that I know were created under truly comparable conditions, the A-B comparisons I've done fare quite well for the CD, although I have observed some subtle differences.
If anything, my own A-B comparisons confirm that the actual practices employed during the mixing and mastering process will matter a helluva lot more than the release format (comparing the 5.1 SACD tracks with the two-channel tracks on Concord Jazz's SACD releases provides an excellent illustration of what happens when layers of processing and compression used in the original stereo mixdown are removed). David Chesky of HDTracks.com indicated that good or bad sound quality is still dictated by the artists and labels who provide the original source tracks. Even with a high res master, most pop tracks are still dynamic range compressed. OTOH, other tracks provided to them are indeed transferred straight from the archival digital master. And for those higher quality tracks, making high res lossless tracks available to consumers puts this entire issue to bed by eliminating all of the supposed sins that occur during the mastering process. "This is the master source that you're listening to, now shut up and move on."
At a pragmatic level, a small niche outfit like HDTracks isn't in any position to pressure record labels or artists into getting away from heavy-handed compression or other sound sapping practices. However, if Apple makes a big marketing push with the lossless tracks, it would certainly be in their best interests to pressure the labels and artists into providing them with better master sources, and they certainly have the muscle to put real pressure in this area if they choose. And to me, that would hopefully fix the breaks in the chain that result in lousy sound quality with so many of the tracks I've purchased through the iTunes Store. I don't know who or what is at fault (the original source provided to Apple, the conversion to lossy AAC, artistic decisions, etc.), and frankly I don't care -- I just know the often subpar results.
This article is music to my ears (excuse the pun) and I really hope there's truth to it. I've been waiting for Apple to do something like this for years!
It would be just so much more convenient to be able to download Studio Master quality tracks from iTunes using my Apple ID than what I have to do now.
I'm also very glad to see that I'm not the only audiophile on these forums and that there are many others here that want this to happen too!
PS. I have purchased a number of lossy tracks and albums on iTunes because it was just too difficult to find them elsewhere, and while the sound quality on some were passable the majority were pretty bad under scrutiny. So if this does happen I hope Apple give me the option to upgrade them to a higher resolution format for a reasonable premium.
It's harder to tell higher fidelity music from compressed music on the equipment that most people have in their homes or cars. Let's face it, most consumer grade music playback equipment out there isn't that good (but still better than 20-30 years ago). But if you've invested in top quality equipment that is either audiophile or near audiophile, you can certainly tell the difference. I have some music purchased from HD Tracks and Linn. Nearly all of it sounds a lot sweeter and prettier on my two channel audiophile rig in my living room (which includes a tube amp) but it also sounds better on my home theater setup which has awesome tower speakers I acquired a decade ago.
Most people have to deal with a lot lower quality music playback sources, or what they hear from their earbuds on mobile devices (as opposed to high end planar headphones played through a quality amp). HD Music isn't going to take the world by storm and frankly, there are plenty of good reasons to have compressed music (mobile devices, in car reproduction, etc). But if you have the right equipment, you can tell the difference.
Your right, a better sound system makes a difference, as does the dynamic range of the music and (especially) the recording quality and AD conversion.
I used a DDD CD and a good quality mp3 encoder. The sound system I tested it with was pretty good but was not as good as some high end systems I listened to.
So you could be right but 190 kbps (or so) extra should be enough to capture the difference between the sound systems.
Instead of comparing the quality of recordings with other recordings, shouldn't the real comparison be with the actual performance of the music that is being recorded?
In principle, yes. In practice, this is pretty problematic.
The first issue is venue. Recording studios often have their own unique acoustics that ordinary people can't visit. Also many live performances occur in places that the average listener will never visit, whether it be the Musikverein in Vienna or some concert arena in London. Also, the room in which you're playing a recorded performance (like your living room) may have vastly different acoustics than where it was recorded.
The second issue is the performance itself. Each performance, whether it be live or a studio recording is a unique performance. For example, take a simple piece that may have been recorded several times over a performer's career, like Arthur Rubinstein playing a Chopin nocturne or Miles Davis playing "Kind of Blue."
I've been to plenty of live rock/pop concerts where the songs played are considerably different than the studio versions. As a matter of fact, the artist often wants the live performance to be different than the studio recording. That's part of the draw of a live rock/pop performance. For classical performances, the nuances are far more subtle, but they are there as well.
If one really wants to judge recordings to actual performances, one is pretty limited in the type of material that can be used for the assessment. Basically, it will come down to simple vocal music and/or a small number of unamplified musical instruments: things like piano recitals, violin sonatas, a cappella choral music, acoustic guitar/vocals, etc. by living artists who are still performing.
For example, I can assess a Murray Perahia recording of Bach solo piano works because he still performs live and I know what a piano sounds like because I have sat down in front of one and played.
Once you get into archival/historic recordings, all bets are off the table since the original performer is no longer around and typically the original recording shows its age in terms of its acoustic limitations. Maybe Murray Perahia could play some Chopin on Artur Rubinstein's piano, but you can't really compare the live Perahia performance with the historic Rubinstein recording.
I understand the crap the digital techno guys spread. I trust the opinions of the musicians who have compared the Pono to other digital music players. I'll side with them. They get to hear the master tracks that they create. When they say that Pono is better quality than other formats they've heard I believe them.
I've seen the video technical explanations about how humans can't tell the difference because of certain parameters and how the rounding of the steps between each digital sample makes digital just as good as analog. It just isn't true. I don't care if people think of me as a "wacked out audiophile".
The hardware used in digital music reproduction does have a huge effect on the quality of the sound. If Apple just adopts a higher quality file it will sound better but it just won't be anywhere near as good as a high end Pono music player.
For some years now, every time one of you golden ears pops up and claims you can hear a pin drop on the far side of the moon, I have posted a wav file that I created that contains 223 kbps aac segments spliced in to the lossless original and asked them to identify the time codes corresponding to the splices. No one has ever been able to discern which bits are compressed and which aren't.
So until someone can do that, I will continue to believe that very few people, if any, can hear any quality difference between 16 bit 44.1 Khz and higher resolution formats.
Instead of comparing the quality of recordings with other recordings, shouldn't the real comparison be with the actual performance of the music that is being recorded?
NO!!! Don't! You'll be sorry!
Seriously. I came home from a night at the symphony orchestra all excited about one of the pieces I'd heard so I put it up on the stereo.
ew...
The stereo system I love sounded as much like that orchestra as a photograph looks like a person. Blech. I was so disappointed.
In many cases, especially for catalog product, the labels will first convert from a 16 bit 44.1KHz redbook master anyway, because it's either all they have or because it's too costly to remaster the original recording for a relatively small number of sales, so converting to a higher bit rate will accomplish absolutely nothing. It's like when your TV or player up-resses a DVD to HD. It only looks very slightly better than watching the DVD natively.
Secondly, even if the labels do have source 96/24 masters, 99% of consumers either don't care or can't hear the difference, especially when listening with ear buds or plugging their player into one of those table-top boxes with a 3" speaker, aside from the fact that an iPhone or iPod puts about only about 1/4 watt of power.
I'm an ex-recording engineer. Years ago, I bought a standalone CD recorder that had 96/24 capability. I was really excited about that, especially for transferring vinyl to CD-R. But I couldn't hear any difference whatsoever and no one who I ever demonstrated the results to could ever hear the difference either, not even young people who still had all their hearing.
If Apple offered such hi-res recordings at the same price, then they'd have a competitive advantage over other sites, even if it didn't actually sound any better - people would go for it anyway. But at a higher price, the vast majority of consumers don't give a crap. That's why DVD-Audio, Blu-ray Audio and other hi-res formats all failed.
The other issue is that most pop recordings today are mixed and mastered with almost no dynamic range. Everyone wants their recordings to sound the loudest and they want every note to sound the loudest. If you watch the recordings play on a waveform monitor, they are basically "flatlined". Decades ago, only recordings from The Who looked like that. Compare that to most recordings of the 50's-70's. The ridiculousness is that vinyl had a dynamic range of about 35db, regular CD has a dynamic range of about 96db, but there's actually less dynamic range on most pop CDs than there was on vinyl recordings. When there's no dynamic range, an increased recording bit rate is almost a moot point. While the increased bit rate reduces quantization errors, it's unlikely it would ever be audible. Increased sampling rates only matter if you think you can hear above 22KHz. Very few adults can. It's only likely if you live in the country, don't work in a noisy environment, haven't listened to music with headphones and attend few, if any, live music shows.
Well, the difference between a 16 bit version of a Redbook CD and a 24 Bit HD Tracks version of the same song is VERY noticeable that even your average Joe can hear on a pair of headphones or a decent low end stereo system. It's VERY noticeable.
Trust me. It's VERY noticeable without having "trained ears". Actually musicians don't always have better ears, they just know what the original masters sound like compared to what the compressed, down sampled versions sound like. it's VERY noticeable. 24 bit is actually much closer to the original analog tape or 24 bit original tracks recorded if they were recorded at 24 bit, which a lot of recordings have been done lately. But you probably can't tell much difference if the original recording was tracked at 16 bit, THOSE you might not hear much of a difference.
HD Tracks is only releasing mostly analog tape conversions to 24 Bit and you should be able to hear a noticeable difference and it really doesn't take "Golden Ears" or a ripping expensive system to notice that difference. You could hear those differences with a $190 DAC and a pair of $575 powered speakers or just about any decent pair of speakers, like Paradigm, Polk, PSB, JBL, etc. that cost in the $400 a pair or higher running through a decent receiver. A decent set of headphones is also easy to tell the difference. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to investigate it further. It's too bad I couldn't have you come over to my place and I would put a blind fold on you for you to see for yourself that it is VERY noticeable. But you just have to see for yourself. Go to a local stereo shop that sells the less expensive stereo equipment (NOT Best Buy), and ask them to play a 24 Bit HD Tracks file through an inexpensive DAC vs a 16 Bit CD or !6 Bit MP3/AAC file. See for yourself and see what you can hear. The problem with the big box stores is they have bad listening rooms and are just too noisy, so I always hate listening to anything in those types of stores. A great, but VERY inexpensive USB DAC is made by iFI and only costs $189 and it's battery powered, has a headphone jack, can be installed into your existing stereo, or pair of powered speakers (Paradigm Shift A2's) are great powered bookshelf speakers.
Be as skeptical as you can, but at least open minded enough to try. That's all it takes. Make it an expedition in sound for an Saturday afternoon. It doesn't cost you anything to try other than some gas money and time to go to a decent audio store. But call ahead and make sure you they have something along the lines of what i'm suggesting. But be careful, the audio bug hits you when you least expect it, and once hooked, it's hard habit to break. But at least it's legal. :-)
Well, the difference between a 16 bit version of a Redbook CD and a 24 Bit HD Tracks version of the same song is VERY noticeable that even your average Joe can hear on a pair of headphones or a decent low end stereo system. It's VERY noticeable.
Then the word length is NOT the only difference between the two, because if it were, it would NOT be "very noticeable."
If what you claim is true, I will confidently bet my car that the HD Tracks version has been remastered. There's just plain no way that an extra 48dB of headroom is gonna make a lick of difference to a recording that never drops more than 6-10 dB below 0 dBFS. In other words, if the ONLY difference between two recordings is 16 vs. 24 bit, you won't hear any difference at all. Well, unless the level is really, really low, like -40 dBFS. Then the 24 bit version will sound better, but that's not really a "real-world" comparison.
This is what I mean about letting the results of uncontrolled comparisons lead to erroneous conclusions.
Well, the difference between a 16 bit version of a Redbook CD and a 24 Bit HD Tracks version of the same song is VERY noticeable that even your average Joe can hear on a pair of headphones or a decent low end stereo system. It's VERY noticeable.
Unless you can verify that the CD and the 24-bit tracks were transferred under comparable conditions, you cannot assert that any differences you observe are due more to the resolution than differences in the settings, levels, etc. used during the mastering process. In my experience, when the CD and high res tracks are mastered under the same conditions, the differences are not "VERY" noticeable. If anything, my A-B listenings illustrate just how far general mastering practices have strayed away from the CD format's optimal capabilities.
Even David Chesky, who owns HDTracks, indicates that their tracks are limited to what the labels provide. They are just a distributor and exercise limited quality control over the tracks themselves. If the labels give HDTracks the same highly compressed masters that were used on the CD transfers, there won't be enough dynamic range to hear much of a difference.
That's why outfits like Mobile Fidelity should be used more as a reference point, because they control the entire chain between the archival master and the release track. MoFi also happens to use a highly customized analog-to-digital playback and encoding system, which they use for both the CD and high res encoding. Because of this, their CD/SACD hybrid releases are truer comparisons, and if anything, demonstrate just how good a CD can sound if proper care is taken during the mastering process and a reference quality analog playback setup is used. In comparing a MoFi CD track against a 96/24 PCM track issued by Classic Records, I found that I preferred the MoFi track. And that's solely on MoFi's playback chain and their editorial decisions taken during the mastering process.
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Originally Posted by drblank
Trust me. It's VERY noticeable without having "trained ears". Actually musicians don't always have better ears, they just know what the original masters sound like compared to what the compressed, down sampled versions sound like. it's VERY noticeable. 24 bit is actually much closer to the original analog tape or 24 bit original tracks recorded if they were recorded at 24 bit, which a lot of recordings have been done lately. But you probably can't tell much difference if the original recording was tracked at 16 bit, THOSE you might not hear much of a difference.
HD Tracks is only releasing mostly analog tape conversions to 24 Bit and you should be able to hear a noticeable difference and it really doesn't take "Golden Ears" or a ripping expensive system to notice that difference. You could hear those differences with a $190 DAC and a pair of $575 powered speakers or just about any decent pair of speakers, like Paradigm, Polk, PSB, JBL, etc. that cost in the $400 a pair or higher running through a decent receiver. A decent set of headphones is also easy to tell the difference. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to investigate it further. It's too bad I couldn't have you come over to my place and I would put a blind fold on you for you to see for yourself that it is VERY noticeable. But you just have to see for yourself. Go to a local stereo shop that sells the less expensive stereo equipment (NOT Best Buy), and ask them to play a 24 Bit HD Tracks file through an inexpensive DAC vs a 16 Bit CD or !6 Bit MP3/AAC file. See for yourself and see what you can hear. The problem with the big box stores is they have bad listening rooms and are just too noisy, so I always hate listening to anything in those types of stores. A great, but VERY inexpensive USB DAC is made by iFI and only costs $189 and it's battery powered, has a headphone jack, can be installed into your existing stereo, or pair of powered speakers (Paradigm Shift A2's) are great powered bookshelf speakers.
Some of the issues that you cite are valid, but again, you have attributed this to the 24-bit resolution without any other basis of comparison.
Like I've said before, if Apple does go through with issuing lossless tracks and it results in better master sources, then I have no problem with paying more for them. The generally better mastering practices (along with multichannel) are the primary reason why I purchase SACDs when given a choice. But, my listenings have led me to conclude that resolution is way down the list when trying to zero in on factors that contribute to better sound quality. There are far more urgent issues in the post production chain, such as excessive dynamic range compression and clipping, that need addressing before we tackle the bit depth and sampling rates.
It was .30 cents per song to upgrade. Songs no longer available "for whatever reason" was due to licensing agreements with the recording industry. Free upgrade, unlikely. iTunes Match is a joke. Does it surprise you that Apple no longer talks about iTunes Match?
Hmmm, I recall that the purchased songs in my iTunes library were all upgraded to 256k AAC in the background. No charge. No intervention on my part at all. Of course, I originally paid $0.99 for them, and the price after the 256k upgrade stayed the same.
As far as iTunes Match being joke, are you joking? Or rather, do you actually use iTunes Match? I use it everyday, on my work computer and my iPhone. 10,000+ songs available anytime. When I add new music to my home media server, those tracks show up on my other devices shortly afterwards. The initial match took a long time, but iTunes Match managed to match up close to 3/4 of my music collection on the first pass. The rest of my collection took five days to upload, but it's certainly a lot faster than other music locker services.
When I did a new iTunes install and also when I played iTunes Radio, one of the first things that showed up was the iTunes Match screen. I don't know where you have this idea that Apple doesn't talk about iTunes Match, given how often it shows up on iTunes and iTunes Radio.
Unless you can verify that the CD and the 24-bit tracks were transferred under comparable conditions, you cannot assert that any differences you observe are due more to the resolution than differences in the settings, levels, etc. used during the mastering process. In my experience, when the CD and high res tracks are mastered under the same conditions, the differences are not "VERY" noticeable. If anything, my A-B listenings illustrate just how far general mastering practices have strayed away from the CD format's optimal capabilities.
Even David Chesky, who owns HDTracks, indicates that their tracks are limited to what the labels provide. They are just a distributor and exercise limited quality control over the tracks themselves. If the labels give HDTracks the same highly compressed masters that were used on the CD transfers, there won't be enough dynamic range to hear much of a difference.
That's why outfits like Mobile Fidelity should be used more as a reference point, because they control the entire chain between the archival master and the release track. MoFi also happens to use a highly customized analog-to-digital playback and encoding system, which they use for both the CD and high res encoding. Because of this, their CD/SACD hybrid releases are truer comparisons, and if anything, demonstrate just how good a CD can sound if proper care is taken during the mastering process and a reference quality analog playback setup is used. In comparing a MoFi CD track against a 96/24 PCM track issued by Classic Records, I found that I preferred the MoFi track. And that's solely on MoFi's playback chain and their editorial decisions taken during the mastering process.
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Some of the issues that you cite are valid, but again, you have attributed this to the 24-bit resolution without any other basis of comparison.
Like I've said before, if Apple does go through with issuing lossless tracks and it results in better master sources, then I have no problem with paying more for them. The generally better mastering practices (along with multichannel) are the primary reason why I purchase SACDs when given a choice. But, my listenings have led me to conclude that resolution is way down the list when trying to zero in on factors that contribute to better sound quality. There are far more urgent issues in the post production chain, such as excessive dynamic range compression and clipping, that need addressing before we tackle the bit depth and sampling rates.
All I know is that if the original recordings were done in analog and they were transferred to 24 Bit (AIFF), I've compared plenty to 16 bit Redbook, AIFF and ACC files and 24 bit kicked the living crap out of everything else. It wasn't even a contest. But what do I know, I'm just listening to it and even on a decent stereo, nothing super fancy. It's OBVIOUSLY better. Better bass definition, better ability to hear subtleties of the original recording, much better clarity, etc. etc. Everything you want. Obviously, there are a lot of recordings that were done originally in 16 Bit digital and there isn't much they can do to improve it that.
I did read that several top mastering engineers thought Mastered For iTunes is totally acceptable and there really isn't much of a difference in that and lossless. They newer software is better than the original process.
I've done some listening tests between the newer 16 bit AAC (Mastered for iTunes) and Redbook 16 bit ripped to AIFF and I couldn't hear any noticeable difference. But when you get into 24 bit vs 16 bit, they are typically very noticeable. I talked to and read interviews of top mastering engineers that do mastering of HD Tracks and they have mentioned they have updated their converters to what they used to use and they much better s/n ratio, dynamic range, etc. so the converters are getting far better than they used to use. I know there were a few bad recordings that got onto HD Tracks in the beginning, but I think they pulled those. But everything I've downloaded is far better than 16 Bit where I ripped a CD to my mac to AIFF. But I'm talking in generalities. Yeah, I'm sure if the mastering studio had a crappy 24 bit converter compared to a high end 16 Bit converter, but that generally does't happen. A lot of earlier 16 Bit CDs really sucked. I mean they were horrific and sometimes they remastered them using better converters and they sounded better, but I have yet to hear a 24 bit recording that isn't better than 16 bit from HD Tracks. I'm sure there are some that are out there, but I haven't heard it yet. I have about 20 recordings from them so far and a growing collection from B&W's site. The biggest problem is digital recordings originally done in 16 bit. They can't do much with those.
I just do the listening test on my system, if there is a difference and it's noticeable then it's noticeable, if it's not then it's not. For every single 24 bit download I've done so far from HD Tracks, i heard a VERY noticeable difference than a AIFF from CD. And the different was night and day. Once I download the 24 bit version and it's that much better, then I just delete the old or just keep for listening to on my iPad or iPhone since they only do 16 bit. But for my computer based stereo? 24 bit is the way to go. go listen to Santana Abraxis. much better than 16 bit lossless.
All I know is that if the original recordings were done in analog and they were transferred to 24 Bit (AIFF), I've compared plenty to 16 bit Redbook, AIFF and ACC files and 24 bit kicked the living crap out of everything else. It wasn't even a contest. But what do I know, I'm just listening to it and even on a decent stereo, nothing super fancy. It's OBVIOUSLY better. Better bass definition, better ability to hear subtleties of the original recording, much better clarity, etc. etc. Everything you want. Obviously, there are a lot of recordings that were done originally in 16 Bit digital and there isn't much they can do to improve it that.
I did read that several top mastering engineers thought Mastered For iTunes is totally acceptable and there really isn't much of a difference in that and lossless. They newer software is better than the original process.
I've done some listening tests between the newer 16 bit AAC (Mastered for iTunes) and Redbook 16 bit ripped to AIFF and I couldn't hear any noticeable difference. But when you get into 24 bit vs 16 bit, they are typically very noticeable. I talked to and read interviews of top mastering engineers that do mastering of HD Tracks and they have mentioned they have updated their converters to what they used to use and they much better s/n ratio, dynamic range, etc. so the converters are getting far better than they used to use. I know there were a few bad recordings that got onto HD Tracks in the beginning, but I think they pulled those. But everything I've downloaded is far better than 16 Bit where I ripped a CD to my mac to AIFF. But I'm talking in generalities. Yeah, I'm sure if the mastering studio had a crappy 24 bit converter compared to a high end 16 Bit converter, but that generally does't happen. A lot of earlier 16 Bit CDs really sucked. I mean they were horrific and sometimes they remastered them using better converters and they sounded better, but I have yet to hear a 24 bit recording that isn't better than 16 bit from HD Tracks. I'm sure there are some that are out there, but I haven't heard it yet. I have about 20 recordings from them so far and a growing collection from B&W's site. The biggest problem is digital recordings originally done in 16 bit. They can't do much with those.
I just do the listening test on my system, if there is a difference and it's noticeable then it's noticeable, if it's not then it's not. For every single 24 bit download I've done so far from HD Tracks, i heard a VERY noticeable difference than a AIFF from CD. And the different was night and day. Once I download the 24 bit version and it's that much better, then I just delete the old or just keep for listening to on my iPad or iPhone since they only do 16 bit. But for my computer based stereo? 24 bit is the way to go. go listen to Santana Abraxis. much better than 16 bit lossless.
And again, you're ascribing a lot of importance to 24-bit, when you have no basis of comparison other than CDs that were likely mastered under completely different conditions. A remastered CD can produce the exact same results that you describe. Lower frequencies depend the least on high resolution, so any differences you observe with bass performance can almost assuredly originate with differences in EQ or other processing used in the mastering.
The true basis of comparison is when you can find a CD and high res track that were transferred at the same time or under very similar conditions. I've done those comparisons and it's not a "night and day" difference. Yes, I have observed differences when doing these comparisons, but they pale by comparison with the mastering and other post production steps.
Comments
I would hope so and would have expected it but after the Fire TV release I am questioning it. Amazon put a quad-core CPU, 2GB RAM and powerful GPU into that device but no H.265 decoder or support for UHD 4K so that makes me if the technology is still a couple years away from being ready for Apple, a couple that isn't usually an early adopter.
The difference between Apple and Amazon is that Amazon designs their stuff but they don't have the resources yet to design their own silicon. An old friend of mine is the VP at Kindle (the Kindle Fire is his baby) and I'm pretty comfortable in saying that. Even iFixit commented in their teardown of the device that the Fire TV has a lot of "battle tested" chips in the case...things that are off the shelf and have been seen in other designs. Apple designs its own silicon which means that there is nothing keeping them from adding H.265 decoding to the existing A7 or future A8. Also, HDMI 2.0 is available now for manufacturers but the biggest issue is that not all modes dealing with color properties (12 and 16 bit color) are supported in silicon just yet and may not be this year. Still, you could easily go to market with what is available now and even HDMI 1.4a has some support of 4K at 24/30 fps (good enough for TV applications).
Digital is better in every conceivable way. Except that some people who don't understand it convince themselves that it must be worse than vinyl and go on to perform poorly or not-at-all controlled comparisons which - surprise, surprise - reinforce their original viewpoint.
...whilst it (vinyl) is worse in every way as a medium compared to CD (dynamic range, frequency response, wow & flutter, distortion) vinyl masters do not usually have their dynamic range compressed into oblivion.
Wholeheartedly agree. If a vinyl recording sounds better it's because the source was mastered better, not because of the media.
How much will they charge me to "upgrade" the songs I've already purchased this time? Last time it was $.69 per song or $.33 per song I think...
Then there was the aggravating issue where songs I had purchased were no longer available on the iTunes Store for whatever reason.
I hope it's a free upgrade if your a current iTunes Match subscriber.
I just want to know what is the best way to listen to Mylie Cyrus and Justin Bieber. (expecting some fun answers)
With plugs in your ears and Gravol in your tummy.
1) In what ways is it a joke? I personally think it's great and can't imagine going back to having every single song I own be locally stored if I ever want to play them. I store, maybe, 500 songs on my iPhone and none on my iPad or Macs but I have access to them all.
2) It surprises me you'd say "Apple no longer talking about iTunes Match" when they just talked about iTunes Match when they announced and launched iTunes Radio.
Instead of comparing the quality of recordings with other recordings, shouldn't the real comparison be with the actual performance of the music that is being recorded?
Early anti-aliasing filters were not very good. It's hard to make a good, cheap, steep filter, and easier to make a good, cheap, SHALLOW filter. Raising the sampling frequency allowed the use of cheaper anti-aliasing filters that also sounded better. So systems with higher sample rates sounded better, but NOT because of the higher sampling rate. It was because the filters were better.
None of that is relevant anymore. Today the only benefit of higher sampling rate is an increase in the highest frequency that can be recorded. Thus the only argument is whether or not there is any benefit to recording frequencies higher than 22 KHz.
That was in response to the sampling rates in use with recorders at the time of the CD's introduction. I don't recall those higher sampling frequencies getting implemented and appearing in consumer grade equipment until later.
Reasonable statement, but I would ask you what you expect to hear at 96/24 that you wouldn't at 44/16? Further, what deleterious effects do you believe occur when down converting from 96/24 to 44/16?
I don't know what kind of magic people think is going on in recording studios that will be masked by a 44/16 release and only revealed by way of 96/24 media. The laws of physics exist in the studio the same way they do at home. There's nothing going on behind that glass that mysteriously results in sounds so quiet or high in frequency that they can only be heard at 96/24.
I'm thinking back to statements I recall from Bob Ludwig several years ago indicating how high res PCM simplifies the mastering process by allowing for a more direct transfer. With vinyl you're obviously having to account for the medium, but Ludwig indicated that the CD was not entirely transparent to the master either. This something I've heard from a few professional audio engineers as well. In the few cases where I have a CD and a high res track that I know were created under truly comparable conditions, the A-B comparisons I've done fare quite well for the CD, although I have observed some subtle differences.
If anything, my own A-B comparisons confirm that the actual practices employed during the mixing and mastering process will matter a helluva lot more than the release format (comparing the 5.1 SACD tracks with the two-channel tracks on Concord Jazz's SACD releases provides an excellent illustration of what happens when layers of processing and compression used in the original stereo mixdown are removed). David Chesky of HDTracks.com indicated that good or bad sound quality is still dictated by the artists and labels who provide the original source tracks. Even with a high res master, most pop tracks are still dynamic range compressed. OTOH, other tracks provided to them are indeed transferred straight from the archival digital master. And for those higher quality tracks, making high res lossless tracks available to consumers puts this entire issue to bed by eliminating all of the supposed sins that occur during the mastering process. "This is the master source that you're listening to, now shut up and move on."
At a pragmatic level, a small niche outfit like HDTracks isn't in any position to pressure record labels or artists into getting away from heavy-handed compression or other sound sapping practices. However, if Apple makes a big marketing push with the lossless tracks, it would certainly be in their best interests to pressure the labels and artists into providing them with better master sources, and they certainly have the muscle to put real pressure in this area if they choose. And to me, that would hopefully fix the breaks in the chain that result in lousy sound quality with so many of the tracks I've purchased through the iTunes Store. I don't know who or what is at fault (the original source provided to Apple, the conversion to lossy AAC, artistic decisions, etc.), and frankly I don't care -- I just know the often subpar results.
It would be just so much more convenient to be able to download Studio Master quality tracks from iTunes using my Apple ID than what I have to do now.
I'm also very glad to see that I'm not the only
audiophile on these forums and that there are many others here that want this to happen too!
PS. I have purchased a number of lossy tracks and albums on iTunes because it was just too difficult to find them elsewhere, and while the sound quality on some were passable the majority were pretty bad under scrutiny. So if this does happen I hope Apple give me the option to upgrade them to a higher resolution format for a reasonable premium.
I used a DDD CD and a good quality mp3 encoder. The sound system I tested it with was pretty good but was not as good as some high end systems I listened to.
So you could be right but 190 kbps (or so) extra should be enough to capture the difference between the sound systems.
Instead of comparing the quality of recordings with other recordings, shouldn't the real comparison be with the actual performance of the music that is being recorded?
In principle, yes. In practice, this is pretty problematic.
The first issue is venue. Recording studios often have their own unique acoustics that ordinary people can't visit. Also many live performances occur in places that the average listener will never visit, whether it be the Musikverein in Vienna or some concert arena in London. Also, the room in which you're playing a recorded performance (like your living room) may have vastly different acoustics than where it was recorded.
The second issue is the performance itself. Each performance, whether it be live or a studio recording is a unique performance. For example, take a simple piece that may have been recorded several times over a performer's career, like Arthur Rubinstein playing a Chopin nocturne or Miles Davis playing "Kind of Blue."
I've been to plenty of live rock/pop concerts where the songs played are considerably different than the studio versions. As a matter of fact, the artist often wants the live performance to be different than the studio recording. That's part of the draw of a live rock/pop performance. For classical performances, the nuances are far more subtle, but they are there as well.
If one really wants to judge recordings to actual performances, one is pretty limited in the type of material that can be used for the assessment. Basically, it will come down to simple vocal music and/or a small number of unamplified musical instruments: things like piano recitals, violin sonatas, a cappella choral music, acoustic guitar/vocals, etc. by living artists who are still performing.
For example, I can assess a Murray Perahia recording of Bach solo piano works because he still performs live and I know what a piano sounds like because I have sat down in front of one and played.
Once you get into archival/historic recordings, all bets are off the table since the original performer is no longer around and typically the original recording shows its age in terms of its acoustic limitations. Maybe Murray Perahia could play some Chopin on Artur Rubinstein's piano, but you can't really compare the live Perahia performance with the historic Rubinstein recording.
I understand the crap the digital techno guys spread. I trust the opinions of the musicians who have compared the Pono to other digital music players. I'll side with them. They get to hear the master tracks that they create. When they say that Pono is better quality than other formats they've heard I believe them.
I've seen the video technical explanations about how humans can't tell the difference because of certain parameters and how the rounding of the steps between each digital sample makes digital just as good as analog. It just isn't true. I don't care if people think of me as a "wacked out audiophile".
The hardware used in digital music reproduction does have a huge effect on the quality of the sound. If Apple just adopts a higher quality file it will sound better but it just won't be anywhere near as good as a high end Pono music player.
For some years now, every time one of you golden ears pops up and claims you can hear a pin drop on the far side of the moon, I have posted a wav file that I created that contains 223 kbps aac segments spliced in to the lossless original and asked them to identify the time codes corresponding to the splices. No one has ever been able to discern which bits are compressed and which aren't.
So until someone can do that, I will continue to believe that very few people, if any, can hear any quality difference between 16 bit 44.1 Khz and higher resolution formats.
Instead of comparing the quality of recordings with other recordings, shouldn't the real comparison be with the actual performance of the music that is being recorded?
NO!!! Don't! You'll be sorry!
Seriously. I came home from a night at the symphony orchestra all excited about one of the pieces I'd heard so I put it up on the stereo.
ew...
The stereo system I love sounded as much like that orchestra as a photograph looks like a person. Blech. I was so disappointed.
In many cases, especially for catalog product, the labels will first convert from a 16 bit 44.1KHz redbook master anyway, because it's either all they have or because it's too costly to remaster the original recording for a relatively small number of sales, so converting to a higher bit rate will accomplish absolutely nothing. It's like when your TV or player up-resses a DVD to HD. It only looks very slightly better than watching the DVD natively.
Secondly, even if the labels do have source 96/24 masters, 99% of consumers either don't care or can't hear the difference, especially when listening with ear buds or plugging their player into one of those table-top boxes with a 3" speaker, aside from the fact that an iPhone or iPod puts about only about 1/4 watt of power.
I'm an ex-recording engineer. Years ago, I bought a standalone CD recorder that had 96/24 capability. I was really excited about that, especially for transferring vinyl to CD-R. But I couldn't hear any difference whatsoever and no one who I ever demonstrated the results to could ever hear the difference either, not even young people who still had all their hearing.
If Apple offered such hi-res recordings at the same price, then they'd have a competitive advantage over other sites, even if it didn't actually sound any better - people would go for it anyway. But at a higher price, the vast majority of consumers don't give a crap. That's why DVD-Audio, Blu-ray Audio and other hi-res formats all failed.
The other issue is that most pop recordings today are mixed and mastered with almost no dynamic range. Everyone wants their recordings to sound the loudest and they want every note to sound the loudest. If you watch the recordings play on a waveform monitor, they are basically "flatlined". Decades ago, only recordings from The Who looked like that. Compare that to most recordings of the 50's-70's. The ridiculousness is that vinyl had a dynamic range of about 35db, regular CD has a dynamic range of about 96db, but there's actually less dynamic range on most pop CDs than there was on vinyl recordings. When there's no dynamic range, an increased recording bit rate is almost a moot point. While the increased bit rate reduces quantization errors, it's unlikely it would ever be audible. Increased sampling rates only matter if you think you can hear above 22KHz. Very few adults can. It's only likely if you live in the country, don't work in a noisy environment, haven't listened to music with headphones and attend few, if any, live music shows.
Well, the difference between a 16 bit version of a Redbook CD and a 24 Bit HD Tracks version of the same song is VERY noticeable that even your average Joe can hear on a pair of headphones or a decent low end stereo system. It's VERY noticeable.
Trust me. It's VERY noticeable without having "trained ears". Actually musicians don't always have better ears, they just know what the original masters sound like compared to what the compressed, down sampled versions sound like. it's VERY noticeable. 24 bit is actually much closer to the original analog tape or 24 bit original tracks recorded if they were recorded at 24 bit, which a lot of recordings have been done lately. But you probably can't tell much difference if the original recording was tracked at 16 bit, THOSE you might not hear much of a difference.
HD Tracks is only releasing mostly analog tape conversions to 24 Bit and you should be able to hear a noticeable difference and it really doesn't take "Golden Ears" or a ripping expensive system to notice that difference. You could hear those differences with a $190 DAC and a pair of $575 powered speakers or just about any decent pair of speakers, like Paradigm, Polk, PSB, JBL, etc. that cost in the $400 a pair or higher running through a decent receiver. A decent set of headphones is also easy to tell the difference. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to investigate it further. It's too bad I couldn't have you come over to my place and I would put a blind fold on you for you to see for yourself that it is VERY noticeable. But you just have to see for yourself. Go to a local stereo shop that sells the less expensive stereo equipment (NOT Best Buy), and ask them to play a 24 Bit HD Tracks file through an inexpensive DAC vs a 16 Bit CD or !6 Bit MP3/AAC file. See for yourself and see what you can hear. The problem with the big box stores is they have bad listening rooms and are just too noisy, so I always hate listening to anything in those types of stores. A great, but VERY inexpensive USB DAC is made by iFI and only costs $189 and it's battery powered, has a headphone jack, can be installed into your existing stereo, or pair of powered speakers (Paradigm Shift A2's) are great powered bookshelf speakers.
Be as skeptical as you can, but at least open minded enough to try. That's all it takes. Make it an expedition in sound for an Saturday afternoon. It doesn't cost you anything to try other than some gas money and time to go to a decent audio store. But call ahead and make sure you they have something along the lines of what i'm suggesting. But be careful, the audio bug hits you when you least expect it, and once hooked, it's hard habit to break. But at least it's legal. :-)
Well, the difference between a 16 bit version of a Redbook CD and a 24 Bit HD Tracks version of the same song is VERY noticeable that even your average Joe can hear on a pair of headphones or a decent low end stereo system. It's VERY noticeable.
Then the word length is NOT the only difference between the two, because if it were, it would NOT be "very noticeable."
If what you claim is true, I will confidently bet my car that the HD Tracks version has been remastered. There's just plain no way that an extra 48dB of headroom is gonna make a lick of difference to a recording that never drops more than 6-10 dB below 0 dBFS. In other words, if the ONLY difference between two recordings is 16 vs. 24 bit, you won't hear any difference at all. Well, unless the level is really, really low, like -40 dBFS. Then the 24 bit version will sound better, but that's not really a "real-world" comparison.
This is what I mean about letting the results of uncontrolled comparisons lead to erroneous conclusions.
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Well, the difference between a 16 bit version of a Redbook CD and a 24 Bit HD Tracks version of the same song is VERY noticeable that even your average Joe can hear on a pair of headphones or a decent low end stereo system. It's VERY noticeable.
Unless you can verify that the CD and the 24-bit tracks were transferred under comparable conditions, you cannot assert that any differences you observe are due more to the resolution than differences in the settings, levels, etc. used during the mastering process. In my experience, when the CD and high res tracks are mastered under the same conditions, the differences are not "VERY" noticeable. If anything, my A-B listenings illustrate just how far general mastering practices have strayed away from the CD format's optimal capabilities.
Even David Chesky, who owns HDTracks, indicates that their tracks are limited to what the labels provide. They are just a distributor and exercise limited quality control over the tracks themselves. If the labels give HDTracks the same highly compressed masters that were used on the CD transfers, there won't be enough dynamic range to hear much of a difference.
That's why outfits like Mobile Fidelity should be used more as a reference point, because they control the entire chain between the archival master and the release track. MoFi also happens to use a highly customized analog-to-digital playback and encoding system, which they use for both the CD and high res encoding. Because of this, their CD/SACD hybrid releases are truer comparisons, and if anything, demonstrate just how good a CD can sound if proper care is taken during the mastering process and a reference quality analog playback setup is used. In comparing a MoFi CD track against a 96/24 PCM track issued by Classic Records, I found that I preferred the MoFi track. And that's solely on MoFi's playback chain and their editorial decisions taken during the mastering process.
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Originally Posted by drblank
Trust me. It's VERY noticeable without having "trained ears". Actually musicians don't always have better ears, they just know what the original masters sound like compared to what the compressed, down sampled versions sound like. it's VERY noticeable. 24 bit is actually much closer to the original analog tape or 24 bit original tracks recorded if they were recorded at 24 bit, which a lot of recordings have been done lately. But you probably can't tell much difference if the original recording was tracked at 16 bit, THOSE you might not hear much of a difference.
HD Tracks is only releasing mostly analog tape conversions to 24 Bit and you should be able to hear a noticeable difference and it really doesn't take "Golden Ears" or a ripping expensive system to notice that difference. You could hear those differences with a $190 DAC and a pair of $575 powered speakers or just about any decent pair of speakers, like Paradigm, Polk, PSB, JBL, etc. that cost in the $400 a pair or higher running through a decent receiver. A decent set of headphones is also easy to tell the difference. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to investigate it further. It's too bad I couldn't have you come over to my place and I would put a blind fold on you for you to see for yourself that it is VERY noticeable. But you just have to see for yourself. Go to a local stereo shop that sells the less expensive stereo equipment (NOT Best Buy), and ask them to play a 24 Bit HD Tracks file through an inexpensive DAC vs a 16 Bit CD or !6 Bit MP3/AAC file. See for yourself and see what you can hear. The problem with the big box stores is they have bad listening rooms and are just too noisy, so I always hate listening to anything in those types of stores. A great, but VERY inexpensive USB DAC is made by iFI and only costs $189 and it's battery powered, has a headphone jack, can be installed into your existing stereo, or pair of powered speakers (Paradigm Shift A2's) are great powered bookshelf speakers.
Some of the issues that you cite are valid, but again, you have attributed this to the 24-bit resolution without any other basis of comparison.
Like I've said before, if Apple does go through with issuing lossless tracks and it results in better master sources, then I have no problem with paying more for them. The generally better mastering practices (along with multichannel) are the primary reason why I purchase SACDs when given a choice. But, my listenings have led me to conclude that resolution is way down the list when trying to zero in on factors that contribute to better sound quality. There are far more urgent issues in the post production chain, such as excessive dynamic range compression and clipping, that need addressing before we tackle the bit depth and sampling rates.
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It was .30 cents per song to upgrade. Songs no longer available "for whatever reason" was due to licensing agreements with the recording industry. Free upgrade, unlikely. iTunes Match is a joke. Does it surprise you that Apple no longer talks about iTunes Match?
Hmmm, I recall that the purchased songs in my iTunes library were all upgraded to 256k AAC in the background. No charge. No intervention on my part at all. Of course, I originally paid $0.99 for them, and the price after the 256k upgrade stayed the same.
As far as iTunes Match being joke, are you joking? Or rather, do you actually use iTunes Match? I use it everyday, on my work computer and my iPhone. 10,000+ songs available anytime. When I add new music to my home media server, those tracks show up on my other devices shortly afterwards. The initial match took a long time, but iTunes Match managed to match up close to 3/4 of my music collection on the first pass. The rest of my collection took five days to upload, but it's certainly a lot faster than other music locker services.
When I did a new iTunes install and also when I played iTunes Radio, one of the first things that showed up was the iTunes Match screen. I don't know where you have this idea that Apple doesn't talk about iTunes Match, given how often it shows up on iTunes and iTunes Radio.
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Unless you can verify that the CD and the 24-bit tracks were transferred under comparable conditions, you cannot assert that any differences you observe are due more to the resolution than differences in the settings, levels, etc. used during the mastering process. In my experience, when the CD and high res tracks are mastered under the same conditions, the differences are not "VERY" noticeable. If anything, my A-B listenings illustrate just how far general mastering practices have strayed away from the CD format's optimal capabilities.
Even David Chesky, who owns HDTracks, indicates that their tracks are limited to what the labels provide. They are just a distributor and exercise limited quality control over the tracks themselves. If the labels give HDTracks the same highly compressed masters that were used on the CD transfers, there won't be enough dynamic range to hear much of a difference.
That's why outfits like Mobile Fidelity should be used more as a reference point, because they control the entire chain between the archival master and the release track. MoFi also happens to use a highly customized analog-to-digital playback and encoding system, which they use for both the CD and high res encoding. Because of this, their CD/SACD hybrid releases are truer comparisons, and if anything, demonstrate just how good a CD can sound if proper care is taken during the mastering process and a reference quality analog playback setup is used. In comparing a MoFi CD track against a 96/24 PCM track issued by Classic Records, I found that I preferred the MoFi track. And that's solely on MoFi's playback chain and their editorial decisions taken during the mastering process.
Quote:
Some of the issues that you cite are valid, but again, you have attributed this to the 24-bit resolution without any other basis of comparison.
Like I've said before, if Apple does go through with issuing lossless tracks and it results in better master sources, then I have no problem with paying more for them. The generally better mastering practices (along with multichannel) are the primary reason why I purchase SACDs when given a choice. But, my listenings have led me to conclude that resolution is way down the list when trying to zero in on factors that contribute to better sound quality. There are far more urgent issues in the post production chain, such as excessive dynamic range compression and clipping, that need addressing before we tackle the bit depth and sampling rates.
All I know is that if the original recordings were done in analog and they were transferred to 24 Bit (AIFF), I've compared plenty to 16 bit Redbook, AIFF and ACC files and 24 bit kicked the living crap out of everything else. It wasn't even a contest. But what do I know, I'm just listening to it and even on a decent stereo, nothing super fancy. It's OBVIOUSLY better. Better bass definition, better ability to hear subtleties of the original recording, much better clarity, etc. etc. Everything you want. Obviously, there are a lot of recordings that were done originally in 16 Bit digital and there isn't much they can do to improve it that.
I did read that several top mastering engineers thought Mastered For iTunes is totally acceptable and there really isn't much of a difference in that and lossless. They newer software is better than the original process.
I've done some listening tests between the newer 16 bit AAC (Mastered for iTunes) and Redbook 16 bit ripped to AIFF and I couldn't hear any noticeable difference. But when you get into 24 bit vs 16 bit, they are typically very noticeable. I talked to and read interviews of top mastering engineers that do mastering of HD Tracks and they have mentioned they have updated their converters to what they used to use and they much better s/n ratio, dynamic range, etc. so the converters are getting far better than they used to use. I know there were a few bad recordings that got onto HD Tracks in the beginning, but I think they pulled those. But everything I've downloaded is far better than 16 Bit where I ripped a CD to my mac to AIFF. But I'm talking in generalities. Yeah, I'm sure if the mastering studio had a crappy 24 bit converter compared to a high end 16 Bit converter, but that generally does't happen. A lot of earlier 16 Bit CDs really sucked. I mean they were horrific and sometimes they remastered them using better converters and they sounded better, but I have yet to hear a 24 bit recording that isn't better than 16 bit from HD Tracks. I'm sure there are some that are out there, but I haven't heard it yet. I have about 20 recordings from them so far and a growing collection from B&W's site. The biggest problem is digital recordings originally done in 16 bit. They can't do much with those.
I just do the listening test on my system, if there is a difference and it's noticeable then it's noticeable, if it's not then it's not. For every single 24 bit download I've done so far from HD Tracks, i heard a VERY noticeable difference than a AIFF from CD. And the different was night and day. Once I download the 24 bit version and it's that much better, then I just delete the old or just keep for listening to on my iPad or iPhone since they only do 16 bit. But for my computer based stereo? 24 bit is the way to go. go listen to Santana Abraxis. much better than 16 bit lossless.
All I know is that if the original recordings were done in analog and they were transferred to 24 Bit (AIFF), I've compared plenty to 16 bit Redbook, AIFF and ACC files and 24 bit kicked the living crap out of everything else. It wasn't even a contest. But what do I know, I'm just listening to it and even on a decent stereo, nothing super fancy. It's OBVIOUSLY better. Better bass definition, better ability to hear subtleties of the original recording, much better clarity, etc. etc. Everything you want. Obviously, there are a lot of recordings that were done originally in 16 Bit digital and there isn't much they can do to improve it that.
I did read that several top mastering engineers thought Mastered For iTunes is totally acceptable and there really isn't much of a difference in that and lossless. They newer software is better than the original process.
I've done some listening tests between the newer 16 bit AAC (Mastered for iTunes) and Redbook 16 bit ripped to AIFF and I couldn't hear any noticeable difference. But when you get into 24 bit vs 16 bit, they are typically very noticeable. I talked to and read interviews of top mastering engineers that do mastering of HD Tracks and they have mentioned they have updated their converters to what they used to use and they much better s/n ratio, dynamic range, etc. so the converters are getting far better than they used to use. I know there were a few bad recordings that got onto HD Tracks in the beginning, but I think they pulled those. But everything I've downloaded is far better than 16 Bit where I ripped a CD to my mac to AIFF. But I'm talking in generalities. Yeah, I'm sure if the mastering studio had a crappy 24 bit converter compared to a high end 16 Bit converter, but that generally does't happen. A lot of earlier 16 Bit CDs really sucked. I mean they were horrific and sometimes they remastered them using better converters and they sounded better, but I have yet to hear a 24 bit recording that isn't better than 16 bit from HD Tracks. I'm sure there are some that are out there, but I haven't heard it yet. I have about 20 recordings from them so far and a growing collection from B&W's site. The biggest problem is digital recordings originally done in 16 bit. They can't do much with those.
I just do the listening test on my system, if there is a difference and it's noticeable then it's noticeable, if it's not then it's not. For every single 24 bit download I've done so far from HD Tracks, i heard a VERY noticeable difference than a AIFF from CD. And the different was night and day. Once I download the 24 bit version and it's that much better, then I just delete the old or just keep for listening to on my iPad or iPhone since they only do 16 bit. But for my computer based stereo? 24 bit is the way to go. go listen to Santana Abraxis. much better than 16 bit lossless.
And again, you're ascribing a lot of importance to 24-bit, when you have no basis of comparison other than CDs that were likely mastered under completely different conditions. A remastered CD can produce the exact same results that you describe. Lower frequencies depend the least on high resolution, so any differences you observe with bass performance can almost assuredly originate with differences in EQ or other processing used in the mastering.
The true basis of comparison is when you can find a CD and high res track that were transferred at the same time or under very similar conditions. I've done those comparisons and it's not a "night and day" difference. Yes, I have observed differences when doing these comparisons, but they pale by comparison with the mastering and other post production steps.