Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? 421
pinchhazard writes "Randall Stross of the New York Times offers his opinion on iTunes Music Store's decision to offer downloads at only 128 kbps, and that decision's potential to affect collectibility of the songs. The article says that Apple makes the claim on its web site that "you'll get the full quality of uncompressed CD audio using about half the storage space."
Rhapsody, which offers encoding at 192 kbps, is compared."
whoa, MP3s use... lossy compression!? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:whoa, MP3s use... lossy compression!? (Score:2)
(yes, quite a few will probably troll back that you really can't hear the difference, but that's not the point. quite a few people are 'happy' with atrac3 as well... but then again I knew a guy who said that
Re:whoa, MP3s use... lossy compression!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:whoa, MP3s use... lossy compression!? (Score:2)
Re:whoa, MP3s use... lossy compression!? (Score:2)
Re:whoa, MP3s use... lossy compression!? (Score:3, Informative)
The official date now is October 14th. They originally wanted to close it July 13th, but a lot of Half.com sellers complained about their plans for selling textbooks on the site before it shut down, so eBay switched the date to October 14th. On that date, Half.com will no longer exist and sales will be done using eBay's auction format or by eBay Stores for those sellers who can justify the cost.
Re:Apple Lossless (/. contibutor misleads again) (Score:4, Informative)
Apple Lossless (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apple Lossless (Score:2)
Re:Apple Lossless (Score:5, Insightful)
THe "Half the size" bit is about Apple Lossless, not about AAC, and is in the fanciful segment wherein the author envisions his own version of iTMS offerings. He has no understanding of the expensive nightmare that housing and providing CD-sized tracks over the Internet presents. I believe he twists Derick Mains words in the last paragraph of the first page; paraphrasing his "reasoning". He doesn't seem to realize that offered lossless compression would need to be more expensive.
The author of the article makes no mention of the different codecs used for the iTMS and Rhapsody, leaving the comparison to a linear scale of bit-rate between the two services and CD-quality, but neglects his own findings later. If the bit-rate were the only difference to him, the article would have been much shorter.
He refers to comments from Sterophile twice to bash Apple - but never Rhapsody - and refers to 128kbps as "the low end of the bit rate range", clearly unaware that smaller MP3 players compress music down to 96 or 64kbps. He refers to an "apples to Apple" comparison of 192 to 128kbps, saying, "the companies use the same software standard for compression" when, in fact, they don't.
He muses, "we should have the option to collect with true CD quality". Well, sir, you do. It's called a CD. If you don't wish to make use of the online music stores, don't. No one is forcing you to type in your credit card number.
Re:Apple Lossless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple Lossless (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apple Lossless (Score:3, Informative)
Archive.org [archive.org] does it for free. Magnatune allows you to download flacs for $5 an album. Allofmp3.com [allofmp3.com] charges $5 for 500 MB, be it FLAC, Vorbis or whatever. Apple is just being cheap.
Re:Apple Lossless (Score:3, Informative)
Re:flac (Score:3, Informative)
Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the real reason this nonsense keeps coming up: Competitors to iTMS are so far behind in terms of downloads it's laughable. So, what do they do? Smear the competition.
That's all this is, plain and simple. It's nothing more than competing download services spreading FUD to try and knock down the market leader, and folks here just drink it right down and think they're intelligent and discerning consumers for doing so.
Re:Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I got my iPod, I was hoping to replace my CD player by hooking it up to my receiver. This was trivial to do technically, but the sound quality was always poor. I experimented with many, many different sampling schemes (i.e., AAC and mp3 at various bit rates). I finally settled on AAC at 224 kbps, but the output from my iPod was still inferior to what I got from CDs. Then, one day I plugged in my Powerbook to my receiver via the exact same cables that I use to connect my iPod to my receiver. Low and behold, the sounds coming out were PERFECT. (FWIW, I have a Harmon/Kardan receiver with JBL speakers. Good shit.) That's when I realized that the iPod was not designed to be connected to high fidelity equipment. It's output was designed for earphones.
So, I complained and complained to Apple, and sure enough, one of the improvements in the last iPod update was "improved playback." And, I heard the difference as soon as I installed the update. It's still not quite hi-fi, but it makes my trips in my car much more pleasant. At home, I still use either CDs or my Powerbook, but I think complaining some more will get more results from Apple.
I have complained to Apple about the bitrate, also, but for $0.99, one does get a good bargain.
Re:Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have bought about 30 songs since iTunes started. They were all singles.
I usually only like 1-3 songs per CD. So, in reality, I'm spending
Personally, I find the codec and bit rate fine, except for oldies. Some of those songs sound rather tinny. But more modern songs are good enough to warrant the
AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that 128kbps is a little shortsighted from Apple, there will be losses in the audio at that rate. 192 kbps AAC would be preferable of course.
Then again, most people listen to music on cheap headphones, speakers, etc, or just want music in the background. In that respect 128 kbps AAC is way more than necessary, and beats a cheap FM radio totally (if only in that you don't have a retard DJ wittering on between tracks).
Music is just part of life these days.
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's still a tradeoff, but going from the original DATs means no frequency aliasing, which is a Good Thing.
RD
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:4, Interesting)
If you find iTunes store tracks at 48KHz, my bet is that it was from a master much higher than 48, like 96/24 or even higher, which is not uncommon these days. Because of the vastly higher bitrates, downsampling to 44.1 for CD is possilble without degradation but 48 could arguably even be better.
That said, no matter how it's sampled, my 256Kbit MP3s (Fraunhofer "Pro" codec) from my own CDs will blow away any AAC at 128, not matter if they came straight from the master or not.
Frequency Myths! (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe for older folks whose hearing has degraded somewhat. People usually cite an upper limit of around 20kHz. I can certainly hear a tone at 20kHz, from a good tone generator (not a cheap one with harmonic interference.) That alone puts the Nyquist rate at 40kHz.
What's more, although people may not consciously perceive higher frequencies, work has shown that people do subconsciously perceive them.
To quote (from the article I'm linking):
The author also notes such facts as that 40% of a set of cymbal's audio energy is above 20kHz. So a 96kHz audio recording (range=48kHz) is not unreasonable. But good luck finding equipment to really play it back on correctly
Article: There's Life Above 20kHz! [caltech.edu]
Re:Frequency Myths! (Score:5, Interesting)
The conlcusions I read in another paper were that the ear isn't the only receptor of sonic energy. Did you read the article a few months back regarding how extremely low frequencies (inaudible) produced a sense of paranoia and was pointed at as a possible explanation for people experiencing paranormal phenomena? It's the same sort of deal. We can't hear those higher frequencies, but we 'sense' them, most likely through the skin or some other as-yet-unknown process.
Re:Frequency Myths! (Score:3, Informative)
There's no short answer, unfortunately. But, if there was, it would be "yes". Why? Because the microfone membrane has mass and it has elasticity. It doesn't matter if it's a "dynamic" (that is, voice-coil type) or piezoelectric or electrostatic or electret or ribbon type. If you do the math, you'll find that mass is the mechanical equivalent of an electric capacitance and elasticity is the mechanical equivalent of an electric i
Re:Frequency Myths! (Score:4, Informative)
Expensive studio mics reproduce the full range 20-20,000 Hz and leave it to the sound engineer to filter out high frequencies if necessary. Here's a real studio mic, a Neumann U89 [neumann.com], -4 dB at 20 kHz (see PDFs under "Documents"). Good for about $3000. Or, an order of magnitude cheaper, Audio-Technica AT853a [audio-technica.com].
I sometimes use the latter type for making live recordings of chorus performances on minidisc and apparently, the white-noise background also extends to 20 kHz. It seems that the Atrac-compression (350 kbit/sec) has a hard time with the noise because you don't need golden ears to hear the compression artifacts.
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:5, Informative)
1. The Nyquist Theorem states the maximum possible encoded frequency in a digitized waveform. It says nothing about how the waveform may or may not suffer aliasing as the frequency approaches half the sample rate. I.e. a rate of 44.1khz is necessary (but may not be sufficient) to encode a 22.05khz tone. I'm not sure this was clear in your reply.
2. "Human ears listen up to about 16kHz." Leaving aside the variance between ears (which is huge- some can hear above 20khz), nigh-subconscious overtones depend on these frequencies. Even if you can't hear these high frequencies alone very well, they do (measurably, and meaningfully) add something to music. Just crop everything above 16khz on a song and listen critically.
3. "A CD delivers audio at 1411.2kbps. The CD audio format was created to conform to what is the best that human ears need." Yes, based on 1980s research. We've come a long way in audio theory, though. Also, all bits are not created equal- I guarantee you that a DVD-A stream compressed into 1411.2kbps would sound better than a CD.
I think my points still stand.
Best,
RD
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, this is simply not true. The Nyquist theorem states that you can completely reproduce a band-limited signal if you evenly sample at twice the bandwidth of the signal. If the signal is not band-limited, the content at frequencies above the half-Nyquist rate will be aliased back into the lower frequency spectrum.
A tone, by definition, is a sinusoid and has no higher harmonic content. Therefore, by your example, a 22.05kHz tone (i.e. a sinusoid) can be reproduced with no aliasing by a 44.1kHz sampling rate. However, when your signal is very near the half-Nyquist rate, the phase of the signal becomes important. In practical terms, that is why you usually slightly over-sample your band-limited signal if phase information (i.e. exact reproduction of the signal) is important. For CD audio, the goal was to accurately reproduce 20kHz signals, therefore, the slight oversampling to 44.1kHz (Note: low-pass filter responses also contributed to the need to slightly oversample).
Bottom line, the aliasing in your example comes about because you are not talking about a band-limited signal since you have a non-sinusoidal waveform with its fundamental at 22.05kHz but higher harmonic content at integer multiples of 22.05kHz.
Two inaccuracies here as well (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Phase is not important IF you have a perfect band limiting filter when doing ADC conversion and perfect sinc(x) filter on the output. Of course building a perfect noncausal filter (sinc(x)) is physically impossible, thus the higher sampling frequency. Only dogs can hear imperfections near 20KHz anyway.
The biggest problem with CDs right now is not their sampling frequency (although raising it to 96KHz would allow engineers to not pay so much attention to band-limiting - the aliasing would be well above 20KHz anyway which you can't hear, and sinc(x) filter could be simply omitted on the DAC end).
The biggest problem is that the samples themselves are 16 bit, so any kind of digital processing in your stereo that goes before DAC can screw up things pretty dramatically. The problem becomes especially bad for low-level signals.
It's not just about frequencies (Score:3, Interesting)
I see what you are saying about introduction of artifacts going from a 48 kHz digital copy to a 44 khz digital copy and then compressing. What some posters don't seem to get is that processing digital is not the same as working with analog - you get essentially digitization artifacts of digitization artifacts if you are not careful.
However, I have a problem with your test a
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:3, Funny)
YEAH, WHEN IT'S LOUD ENOUGH. Most people are actually unable to hear higher frequencies at normal loudness because they listened to music far too loud for far too long. And when they are lucky, they don't "hear" a high frequency sound constantly that others can't.
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:2)
(although I'm unsure what Rhapsody uses, maybe it uses MP3Pro which is pretty good)
From TFA:
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:3, Interesting)
So the article is incorrect. They are comparing 128kbps AAC to 196kbps WMA. WMA isn't that bad quality wise, but it certainly isn't "the same software standard for compression".
I was also looking at the FAQ for Rhapsody. You can't burn lots of tracks, you can only burn if you pay extra per track and you are subscribing to their service. It is a DRM nightmare compared to Apple's rea
Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 (Score:2)
For many people, they cannot tell the difference. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, there most definatly are people who can tell the difference, and I am one of them. Personally, I like 200+ mpc (MusePack) files - MusePack seems to do a good job preserving the crispness, and "body" (don't know a better term for it) of the audio.
Re:For many people, they cannot tell the differenc (Score:2)
I only ask (and sincerely, not sarcastically!) because I'm a student doing research on auditory perception in birds, and audio compression might be extremely interesting to test them with.
Meh.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I would only buy 128 kpbs songs from itunes if they had some kind of system where I could download FLAC versions later, when I have more HD space. You've paid for 'mechanical rights', just like with full quality CS's, so why not?
Re:Meh.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Meh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Meh.. (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, who knows- Apple has the originals, and might offer, once bandwidth gets cheaper, downloads of the music you've bought, at lossless quality.
Of course, the original recording and mastering probably risk more quality loss than the difference between a well-done VBR encoding and the original. Lossless dow
More music industry FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people forget the Beatles, Beach Boys, Motown , Phil Spector, etc. recorded music for *transister radios* In most cases, high fidelity is a red herring argument concocted by the music industry to sell more music.
The not-good-enough-for-home-stereo argument is nonsense. I play MP3s and AACs through my home stereo all the time--the sound quality is indistinguishable between CDs. And that
Reference not to 128 kbps (Score:4, Informative)
Bad article! (Score:5, Insightful)
Music from the iTunes Store, they say, sounds extra-crummy since it's compressed to only 128 kbps. (The distinction between AAC and MP3 is never even mentioned.) The implication is that consumers will rebel someday when they discover they've bought a bunch of music that isn't "true CD quality". Clutching torches and pitchforks, they'll storm the ramparts at Cupertino.
Maybe I'm just a tin-eared old goat, but the difference between a CD and a 128 kbps MP3 track doesn't leap out at me in casual listening. When it comes to 128 kbps AAC or 192 kbps MP3 tracks, they sound like CDs to me -- even when I listen closely, with headphones. Maybe if I had audiophile speakers or better headphones (or younger ears) it would make more difference, but honestly. . . This is not a distinction that keeps me up laying awake at night, wondering if my music collection is subtly flawed.
At the other extreme, the true golden-eared stereophiles of our world have complained since CDs first appeared about *their* low sampling rate. What, only 44,000 samples per second? You can't capture sonic detail at the high frequencies that way! But given the difference in sales between iPods on the one hand, and SACD or DVD-Audio players on the other hand, I think anyone can see which way the wind is blowing.
Re:Bad article! (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with your earlier points, but:
Maybe I'm just a tin-eared old goat, but the difference between a CD and a 128 kbps MP3 track doesn't leap out at me in casual listening.
It does to me. It doesn't matter most of the time because I'm listening to the iPod over not great earphones in the gym, or on the bike, or running, or through the cassette adapter in the car (why don't car audio manufacturers put an input jack on the front panel?). But when I listen through my good headphones at work, or through
Re:Bad article! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a 40GB iPod. I started ripping using the default encoding (AAC at 128kbps). For background listening or on the cheap ear buds, it's fine. Through my Headroom amp and Sennheiser HD580s, or played through the hi-fi (NAIM equipment, ProAC speakers), it is not such a pleasant experience - the artifacts of encoding are not at all subtle. The point being made is that it's advertised as CD quality, and you can't obtain a higher quality encoding from the iTMS store, ye
In a word, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Flac (Score:5, Informative)
Player Storage Sizes? (Score:2, Insightful)
sound quality (Score:3, Insightful)
the art or repeat selling (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the promise way back when the first CD's came out. You'd then buy your the complete discography of your favorite band, thinking that even though you were shelling out $15 a disk, you were getting top quality recordings that were on indestructable media.
Then, five years later, guess what? The record companies remastered and re-released those same tracks. It doesn't matter if your favorite artist is Rush or Cat Stevens or Miles Davis, it all got re-mastered. Doesn't it ever strike you as odd, and perhaps intentional, that the first release of every popular CD was mastered so poorly it needed to be redone just five years later?
So along comes the iTunes store, and we're seeing the same damned thing. Once again, there's promises of how great the music sounds. But instead of crappy mastering, they are using crappy bit rates. And you know exactly where this is leading. Five years from now, they'll bump up their sampling rates to 192 kps or something. And even though you've already bought and paid for all your favorite songs, you're going to be asked to buy them all again if you want the best sound. And in another five years they'll probably jump to uncompressed SACD quality downloads, and you'll feel this big incentive to buy the same songs yet again.
Not that I care. I stopped buying CDs a long time ago. The entire business is run by dishonorable people, and now it looks like that mentality is dragging down one of the computer industry's more principled companies.
Re:the art or repeat selling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the art or repeat selling (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if rhapsody starts really competing, they'll ramp up their bitrates. Until then, I think it's unlikely.
Apple is smart (Score:5, Interesting)
Collectability? (Score:2)
Allofmp3... :) (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no idea how legal the site is where I live, but it's definitely legal in Russia.
Re:Allofmp3... :) (Score:3, Informative)
MP3 != AAC (Score:5, Interesting)
In my experience in using my iPod, I'm more than happy with 128kbps AAC encoded rips of my CDs and am very happy with the audio quality of the stuff I've bought off iTunes.
Let's not go down this path (Score:4, Interesting)
I say boycott any format that is any worse than the modern 192k (preferably better). If they can really do 128k without sounding any worse, that's fine. But based on the reviews I've seen, they haven't, so it's not.
320 mp3 is what it takes (Score:3, Interesting)
I cannot tell the difference between CD and 320 mp3. There is a very subtle difference between CD and 192. 128 is a joke.
For AAC, I've found that importing the song at 192 is about the same as 320 mp3.
Give it a shot. Take some song that has some subtle sounds, like accoustic guitar, and listen to it. Import it from the original CD and listen to all the formats. It's surprising. I used the song "Battery" from Metallica because it has a mix of sounds. Specifically at the beginning where they're using 1 or 2 accoustic guitars.
No! No compressed music is worth purchasing... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Immediate gratification.
Now, let's look at the disadavatages of purchasing compressed online music:
1. Lower sound quality. Everyone I have compared them for has asked "What's wrong with it?" after listening to the CD and then the AAC verison.
2. Codecs are changing very rapidly. You are investing a a fleeting software phenomenon that depends on the current and rapidily changing technology and the marketing whims of the computer and music industries. Soon there could be much better quality or with increased bandwidth CD quality. SOme sights now sell 24 bit flacs which you can burn using you regualr old DVDs and burner into DVD-A for BETTER THAN CD QUALITY.
3. Commercial CDs are inherently more stable than CD-Rs.
4. It is extremely difficult and time concuming to archive digital files for very long periods of time.
5. In most cases you get no liner notes or cover art.
6. You invite DRM.
7. For all the above, at a lot of stores, particularly iTMS, you PAY MORE for all these problems than a fine sounding CD, or a much better sounding DVD-A or SACD.
Re:No! No compressed music is worth purchasing... (Score:3, Informative)
This is true mostly if you have very good headphones or are in a very quiet room. If you are in a room with other random noises, cars passing, people chattering, yourself typing, it probably matters less. Even so, you start to suffer the waterfall effect. You stop listening for the waterfall, but for the sound you want to hear.
Re:No! No compressed music is worth purchasing... (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, you get a lot more than "immediate gratification" when buying music off iTunes. You get the largest selection of music for immediate gratification -- . You don't have to pay HUGE CD store warehousing prices nor high online shipping costs. You also get the ability to buy a single song. A CD single will run you $5-$8. One track on iTunes is $1. That's a savings of 80%, a savings of 93% off the cost of buying the whole album and discovering it is shi
oh no (Score:5, Insightful)
Stereophile is also well known for shunning proper ABX sound listening tests because with such a test they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a $5000 amp and a $200 amp. link [stereophile.com]
The fact that the article doesn't even go into how AAC compression works, makes it pretty obvious that its a sham. This article seems to be written from a elitist, anti-logical stance. Sigh.
Just to clarify... (Score:3, Informative)
ITMS uses 128kbps AAC, wrapped with Apple DRM
Real Music Store uses 192kbps AAC, wrapped with Helix/Real DRM
As of a year ago, Rhapsody used 128kbps WMA, which is only streamed to you in a protected format, so that it is only cached and not in a saveable format. I doubt this has changed much.
The underlying idea behind Rhapsody is kinda cool. Think of the entire ITMS minus the exclusives, and then think of that being streamed to you at $10/month. That's basically what you have. It's an awesome service for discovering new music (just like any CD store, who's going to put down a lot of money on music that sucks? Just use the subscription service to give it a try before buying the CD-quality, well, CD).
Of course, the giant and huge drawback of Rhapsody is that you don't to keep any of the music if you cancel your subscription. In this respect, it's a bit like cable TV or the premium movie channels.
Re:Just to clarify... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can view them as complementary services. Use Rhapsody to discover new stuff, iTMS to buy what you want to keep.
buy a vowel (Score:5, Insightful)
The author of this article shows no understanding of signal processing or how music data is compressed, so his conclusions are silly. Comparing lossy music compression to 8-track tapes is silly.
He complains about lossy compression, but saving signal data (like photos or music) is always a lossy process, because there no exact digital representation of them. You decide to save a certain amount of data, let's say, 3 megabytes (or 30 megabytes) for 3 minutes of music, and then you decide what to put in those megabytes. You will always be able to get more/better data into the same space if you use signal processing compressors than if you just use uncompressed samples saved at some sampling rate and width per sample.
People who don't understand signal processing have a problem with the concept of "lossy." Signal processing engineers are not idiots. They don't design algorithms saying "I want to lose information and make a lower quality signal." They're just saying, "I want to save the data in this much space, which part of the data do I want to lose?" If you're saving recorded music, you are always losing data. The goal is to lose the least important part. The idea is slightly subtle, and it is apparently confusing to some people.
Consider the source: Randall Stross (Score:5, Informative)
So, aside from the fact that Stross is a completely non-technical writer, take his views on Apple strategy and products with a grain of salt the size of Gibraltar.
Apples AACs are equal to 192khz MP3 files. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have recorded the same tracks at varying rates and it is very hard to tell the 128khz ACC files from the uncompressed songs. Listening to them on most car stereos and on iPods in places that have even modest noise and you can't tell the difference.
If I really cared about the music I would buy the CD but having so many CD's in my collection I might not ever listen to again the iTMS is simple, fast and easy. What I like this month I might not like next month and who wants a large file on an iPod when you don't listen to it.
Unless some online store offers tracks over 192khz then they really don't compare with 128khz AAC tracks. Slashdot readers should check out the results of the online listening test.
http://www.rjamorim.com/test/index.html
Apple encodes from the master tapes (Score:3, Interesting)
High Tech For Non Tech (Score:4, Insightful)
-Chris
Records, Tapes, and MP3s, Oh My! (Score:5, Insightful)
Next, I bought cassettes. Cassettes had an always present hiss in the background and after several plays, the music on the cheaply made cassettes would start to fade. What's worse, the tapes would eventually stretch and snap after overuse. That was fine too. I could listen to my music.
Then I bought CDs. These were okay too. They were bulkier than cassettes--sort of. They were also prone to scratches, but far less so than records. The problem was that they were digital and not analog, which meant that I wasn't getting to hear all the sound that was being played by the artists (as we obviously were with LPs and cassettes since they had infinite information storage capabilities). Oh dear. Where's my tape hiss? Where's the fullness of my phonograph? Well, whatever. I can still hear the music.
Now I have lossless MP3s and AACs. The horror. They don't scratch. They don't add tape hiss. They don't wear out at all and are incredibly portable. However, they don't store all the information that our CDs do. They even distort some of that sound. Oh no! Oh, wait, I can still hear the music. That's okay.
So, my point is, what the hell does it matter? There's no perfect recording medium. If there were no choices we'd be happy with whatever we had. Now that the common consumer has a choice, she frets day and night over how many bits she's losing. Talk about a waste of time. Freedom of choice isn't always a blessing. It can distract you from those other freedoms that are slipping away.
Re:Records, Tapes, and MP3s, Oh My! (Score:3, Informative)
DIY AB Test (Score:3, Informative)
iTunes compression issues, NYT editorial (Score:3, Insightful)
QT 128 vs QT 192 (Score:3, Insightful)
So the bottom line: if Apple claims that QT128 is as good as the original source without qualifying 'on iPod and similar portable device, but *not* on high quality stereo', it's just a marketing BS.
Re:128kbps MP3s (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd expect them to be roughly equal to 160 bit MP3s, but I'd expect 192 bit MP3s to be superior. That's just opinion, though.
Re:Have you ever tried AAC at 128? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd say 128 AAC WAS like 160 mp3, which is FINE for me, I can't tell on most music; HOWEVER, since the update, I'd say 128 AAC is more like 192 mp3. I can no longer hear the stuff I used to be able to hear at 128. Not that I have perfect hearing, but there was a very noticable change when the updated the encoder...
More importantly, would be to ask if Apple re-encodes their music store music when they get encode
Re:128kbps MP3s (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple, realizing that disk space is cheap, that bandwidth should be cheap, and that "128" is so entrenched in the minds of the consumer, has wisely decided not to offer smaller downloads. Perhaps 128 kbs AAC is equivalent 160 kbs MP3. Perhaps not. It's all dependent on the ears of the listener, the audio hardware, the quality of the original
Re:128kbps MP3s (Score:2)
Re:128kbps MP3s (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds a bit like the Megahertz Myth, all over again.
Article writer is moron (Score:2)
Then he quotes a bunch of people talking about 128KBS MP3s as not sounding good, and assumes that that's all he needs to know and AAC and MP3 at 128 are the same.
finally he praises rhasphody for using 192 bits per second and says they use the same compression software. Again not understanding the difference bet
Re:Article writer is moron (Score:3, Interesting)
The quote about using half the space refers to Apple Lossless Com
Re:128kbps MP3s (Score:2)
Re:128kbps MP3s (Score:2)
That is exactly why I won't put a sub in my car. I'd rather listen to better sounding music than rattle my car apart.
Re:Quick... (Score:5, Informative)
Real FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really surprised the New York Times allows this blantant advertising within its editorial content, done through the guise of one interviewee's quote. I know the NYT is trying to appeal to a younger hipper audience, but damn! if this is the best they can probe the problems with music distribution, they should stick to covering opera.
Could the reporter not do a few back-of-the-envelope calculations? How much would it cost pay a small subscription fee the rest of your life, starting at $10 a month and working upwards over the years.
My parents bought 4 Simon & Garfunkel albums in the late 60s. Cost? Maybe $16 for the whole lot. They then enjoyed them for the 30 years. Then I transferred them to CD. That $16 has lasted them the better part of a century. They, like most people, do not own a *lot* of music, maybe 70 albums total (most of which I listen to now, actually). The cost of that collection is *far* cheaper than what they would have had to pay in subscription fees, would such a subscription service been in place in the 1970s. Now they enjoy the msuic they bought years ago without paying anybody anything!
joab
That was a "column," not an "article." (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that the "reporter" did not want to do any back-of-the-envelope calculations. The column gives the reader a strong impression that there's something wrong with the iPod and iTMS. Stross gives a flawed explanation of music compression, and then proceeds to single out Apple as though they're the only ones that distribute compressed music. He never bothers to explain that all the online music distributors sell music compressed to about the same degree with lossy techniques. He doesn't mention that iTMS sells tracks compressed with AAC as opposed to the WMA tracks everyone else sells, and that AAC arguably gives better fidelity than WMA.
After reading Stross' column last night, I did a little test. I listened several times to Cowboy Junkies' "Mining for Gold" on my copy of the "The Trinity Sessions" CD. The track is just Margo Timmins singing a capella for a minute and a half in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, and was recorded with a single microphone. Listening to the CD version with a good pair of headphones you can hear subtle echoes, lots of detail in Timmins' voice, and occasional soft ambient noises. I then ripped the track onto my PowerBook at 128 kbits/sec and listened to that. With a good pair of headphones, you could hear subtle echoes, lots of detail in Timmins' voice, and occasional soft ambient noises. I'm sure that an editor of Stereophile magazine would know better what to look for to discern the difference between the CD track and the compressed version, but for practical purposes the two versions are indistiguishable.
It's clear that Stross has some sort of bone to pick with Apple, or else is completely unqualified to write about these things. Either way, this is one column that certainly never should have been printed in the NY Times.
I think the thing that bothers me most about this piece is that the NY Times published it without making it clear whether it's news or opinion or what. It's published under the heading "Digital Domain," but that alone is not enough to tell me what the nature of the writing is.
Re:That was a "column," not an "article." (Score:3)
In the early days of the iTunes music store, apparently some of the 30-second samples were 64kbps. The first one I noticed this on was Michelle Branch's song "Everywhere". I'm not sure what went on as far as the decision-making process (since I don't work for the iTMS), but there was obviously a decision made at some point that 64 kbps was not good enough, so they were fa
Re:Quick... (Score:5, Informative)
First you say that 320 kbps is lossless because the waveform is "pretty much the same". Then you demonstrate your extreme ignorance of the very process you try to sound knowledgeable about by implying that all 256 kbps compression does is filter frequencies above 20Khz. This is wrong. Completely wrong. Not even close to how it works.
Your assertions about what people can hear or not hear are just that: assertions. It's totally meaningless. Just because audiophiles have not bothered to produce some kind of test to your satisfaction that proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that they can hear the difference does not mean that they cannot hear the difference.
I have done so called abx testing of my own using the software from hydrogenaudio, and I was not only able to correctly distinguish which tracks were compressed, but also which tracks were encoded with which codec (although not as accurately).
I am confident that I could personally pass any legitimate test you could come up with comparing 256 kbps material with the CDs. I will admit that 320 kbps would be more difficult, but given a sufficient amount of time and high enough quality source material, I could blindly identify those as well. So much for your 320 kbps is lossless theory.
There is one codec that I am not completely confident I can identify though: MPC. At a high vbr this codec tends to sound really good, even to me. The author of that proggy really did his homework when it came to psycho-acoustic compression. I haven't done a lot of testing with it. Maybe it really is transparent. I don't know.
I am poor and I can assure you that I do not buy CDs out of the goodness of my heart or because I feel sorry for the rich record company executives and "artists". I buy CDs because I can hear a very significant (varies based on source quality and bitrate) difference.
Re:Can you? (Score:5, Informative)
It should be noted that the defects of inferior recordings become increasingly apparent with better playback hardware. Limitations of consumer-grade hardware is a key limiting factor to the widespread adoption of higher quality audio recording formats (both physical media and encoding schemes).
Re:Can you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Kinda like the difference between 8bit and 16bit pcm data, there's less hiss, more clarity, better rounding of sound (128 has a very blocky bass sound where 192 smoothes it)
Re:Can you? (Score:2)
It could be argued that 160 is a nice trade off between space and quality, but i have recompressed all of my mp3s down to 128 because I have so many. People make fun of me though for doing it :(
Re:allofmp3.com (Score:3, Informative)
allofmp3.com songs are *not* legal under European or American terms, just under Russian terms.
Global Free trade (Score:3, Insightful)
I notice that corporations are now able to outsource their labour costs to effectively captive populations trapped in low-wage countries. Corporations also take advantage of manufacturing within countries with laxer environmental and social welfare laws.
What's the point of all this hoopla about "global free trade" if consumers are not equally able to outsource their media purchases to arbitrage price differe
Re:128 (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's a slightly different story. AAC beats MP3 in listening tests, but only by a little bit. (And Ogg Vorbis beats AAC, again by a little bit).