General Forum

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

Jeff — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:41:23 GMT

Oh I agree completely about Apple being great at marketing and making people think they are the 2nd coming. I'm not an Apple fan boy by any stretch, I have some Apple products, and generally find iTunes an OK music server s/w, but am not in love with them.

I can also agree that given a choice, even if only for "I wanna have all the bits" uncompressessed/unaltered is great. But sonically I doubt 256kbs VBR AAC is audible to most people.

One man's ears, but:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/itunes.htm

Interesting results. Recording engineer, listening on Quad ESLs, B&W 801's, and headphones, and the main thing he noticed at 96kbs was only the summation of hall ambient reverb from stereo to mono as the echo decayed, with simple 2 mic recordings. Like I said, one man's experiences, but I know I was unable to tell wav from 256kbs stuff even with headphones, once the order of the tracks was randomized and I didn't know which was playing. My ears, not everyone's, so your mileage may vary of course.

After conversations with a couple of people, if I ever repeat the test I know which track I'm going to use that will probably have the highest probability of showing any differences, opening of Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega, the solo vocal rendering. One of the hardest things for a perceptual encoder to handle, according to several people I have talked to who should know, is solo voice, particularly female. Nothing else to mask any anomalies, and the human ear is really attuned to the vocal range.

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

mbee — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:31:28 GMT

Jeff:
But, many who seem to be turning their noses up at 256kbs VBR AAC files, I wonder how many of you have actually experienced a double blind listening opportunity with this and the original wav files? I suspect you might find it illuminating, but not in the way you might expect.

I may not ear the difference on my BL3's... But what's the plus from compressed AAC from iTunes when I can get :
- 320kbps aac (vs 256kbps aac on iTunes) for less €
- Lossless (ALAC or FLAC or even WAV) for approximately the same price, frequently less
when I buy at Qobuz?

And who knows what the future will bring me : if a new improved codec comes, if I want to convert my iTunes AAC to this new codec, it will be lossy>>lossy=VERY poor sounding tracks. On the contrary, with a lossless track, I can re-convert it to whatever new compressed file without getting poor quality. Remember when iTunes made people RE-BUY their tracks just to improve from sh** 128 aac to cr** 26 aac? Second possibility : when I will buy BL5's, will I still struggle to hear differences on some tracks? I want to buy something futureproof, so I buy lossless.

With lossless you have the choice to buy only once (and with qobuz, if you want to go Studio Masters, a quality upgrade will just cost you the difference with the previously bought album), and recode your purchased music how you want. Not with iTunes.

Apple is good at marketing, but there are best (Apple-compatible) solutions out of their stores, just open your eyes (ears?). I'm eager to see their iTV, where they will find a way to make people buy TV shows that they used to view for free...

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

Jeff — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:18:33 GMT

Nothing new here, every studio used to have a pair of Horrortones (Auratone) speakers, crappy little boxes with small whizzer cone full range drivers. They tended to sound like crappy car or boom box systems, and most all pop music producers run the mix thru them to make sure it sounds decent on the low end systems. Substitute ear buds for Auratones...

But, many who seem to be turning their noses up at 256kbs VBR AAC files, I wonder how many of you have actually experienced a double blind listening opportunity with this and the original wav files? I suspect you might find it illuminating, but not in the way you might expect.

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

Puncher — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:10:34 GMT

A reasonable explanation of what it's all about.

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

mbee — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:21:32 GMT

I didn't saw it first, but THERE IS ALREADY THE "MASTERED FOR ITUNES" store on the iTunes store...

And...

It sells 16bit aac 256...

Adios iTunes, hello qobuz (for those who didn't know, Qobuz not only offers Studio Masters quality, they also have a functional "cloud" that allows you to listen to all your purchased songs in streaming/download from an iDevice, you don't have to synchronise with iTunes if you're on the go and want a song that you didn't synchronise)!

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

sjmcguckin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:15:56 GMT

And if you want to check how good your "Mastered for iPods" is, convert it to a WAV file; or so page 8 advises.

"However, if you want to do a more detailed examination.....decode the AAC data to uncompressed LPCM and store it to a WAV file."

Why not just stick with a WAV file?

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

mbee — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:26:19 GMT

Puncher:
Perhaps the marketing logo should be "Mastered for iPods".

"Mastered for deaf" maybe?

Just a quote from the Apple document linked here :

"Further, to ensure that your audience is hearing your intended sound, Apple
recommends listening to your masters on the devices your audience will be using. While
this doesn’t have to be done in real time, you should be confident that the sound will
hold up when heard on its intended listening device and in its intended environment."

So... That means that if producers listen to Apple recommendations, we will get tracks tweaked to sound good on iPod + Monster Beats headphones, or Tokai docks...I hope they will not listen to that kind of cr*p. They already killed dynamic range by putting the volume to the max on some mainstream recordings, just because owners of poor "hifi" stuff thought "wow, the volume is higher on that recording! Well done!", now they want to go even further...

Great... Owners of BL5's, you can sell everything!

The good thing is that they explain the problem of dynamic range and ask to avoid clipping...

We will see what comes to the iTunes store, but as this document is aimed at artists/producers, they are now requesting high quality files, which they don't have now. That's why they are not marketing "mastered for iTunes" to customers. Let's see if they will sell ALAC 24/96, or just something compressed that "should sound better".

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

Puncher — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:42:17 GMT

Puncher:

elephant:

Puncher:
No increase in bit depth, no increase in sample rate, no reduction in compression ratio - still 256kbps VBR

I tried to find the technical details ... thanks for digging that out ... a little disappointing

See Here

Actually, having read that again, although it doesn't claim that the new files are 24bit depth it does imply that they are. My only concern here is that if they really are I'd expect them to shout about it a bit more.

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

Puncher — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:59:43 GMT

elephant:

Puncher:
No increase in bit depth, no increase in sample rate, no reduction in compression ratio - still 256kbps VBR

I tried to find the technical details ... thanks for digging that out ... a little disappointing

See Here

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

elephant — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:20:07 GMT

Puncher:
No increase in bit depth, no increase in sample rate, no reduction in compression ratio - still 256kbps VBR

I tried to find the technical details ... thanks for digging that out ... a little disappointing

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

Puncher — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:38:33 GMT

No increase in bit depth, no increase in sample rate, no reduction in compression ratio - still 256kbps VBR. They claim improvement since the compressed file is generated from a 24bit 96KHz master and that it is tweaked for the "intended listening enviroment" i.e. iPods etc.

I agree with mbee, it certainly shouldn't be used as the basis of a home music library.

Perhaps the marketing logo should be "Mastered for iPods".

Re: FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

mbee — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:03:47 GMT

Why buying crappy compressed music when you can buy uncompressed ALAC/FLAC, even in 24bits, from other online shops?

Mastered for iTunes=tuned to sound good in their earphones? I would avoid that!

FYI ... Apple announces a new level of HiFi recordings in iTunes

elephant — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:49:54 GMT

Majority of what has been released this way are Classical Music, however there is a Pink Floyd special for AU$9.99 of a re-mastered "The Dark Side of the Moon"

Mastered for iTunes

Experience music as the artist and sound engineer intended. These albums have been specially tuned for higher fidelity to bring you the best possible listening experience on your computer, stereo and all Apple devices. Browse our selection of albums — the best in recent releases and classics — all now Mastered for iTunes.