In an age when Apple has become the top music retailer without selling a single physical disc, audio engineers are increasingly creating specially mastered versions of songs and albums designed to counteract the audio degradation caused by compression. Though audiophiles typically scoff at paying for compressed audio, preferring vinyl or high-end digital formats such as DVD-A, mastering engineers are doing their best to create digital masters that can pass through Apple’s iTunes algorithms with minimal sonic corruption.
Great article. Hate that iTunes wont provide loss-less formats and Amazon music downloads, which do provide loss-less, are not available down under.
I remember vinyl records. Still got some. They’re amazing.
Can you imagine someone today pitching an invention that requires dragging a diamond needle through a soft plastic wiggily groove multiple times (and surviving)?
Hi-fi, Wi-fi, Sci-fi.
I have wondered if if someone would make a laser player for LPs. I’m sure it can be done. The advantage being you could play your disks without them wearing out.
When/if Amazon can get the music companies to agree it will offer loseless. Um, maybe I’m wrong because start ups should already be around willing to offer loseless in an effort to get an audience.
It uses two lasers and tracked both sides of the groove. No media wear, no induced sonics, zero signal to noise. $12,00o – way too expensive for some but chump change for your average audiophile.
More vinyl records are sold now than in any time since the early 1990s.
Actually, a soft piezoelectric needle in a hard glass grove sounds like a good idea. If unique, I release this to the pubic domain.
Nice thinking outside the box!
How about reflecting a laser off the side walls and use the modulated reflection to drive a photo resistor / op amp device. No AD/DA conversion. Pure analog, baby!
Ars Technica has an article about the new “Mastered for iTunes” format. Not lossless; but, may be closer to what you’re looking for.
I understand it’s been endorsed by Jermaine Defoe.
http://tinyurl.com/7bsjjkk
Recently heard Stravinsky’s Firebird symphony on vinyl through valve amplified electrostatic speakers. It is a different world.
I hate MP3, it is like looking at a work of art through a screen.
In a about 5 years audio compression will mostly be a thing of the past.
now if music was just mixed right.. my brother would complain of this all the time. most in the studio just dont know what they are doing.
While I admit that I’m not the gold standard on what other people want I’ve bought music where I wanted to hear the Devi and all I could hear was the blasted drummer! If I want an instrumental I’ll buy and instrumental!
I am one physically fit specimen of the hooman species. Better than normal/average vision, hearing, spatial orientation, depth perception, color seperation, night vision, balance etc.
I don’t hear “any” difference between my mp3 and other sourced music. compared to records with the scratches and background noise, a clean mp3 is quite superior.
Now, I don’t doubt for a second that “some” people can hear something different==but “superior?” Same dildo’s who say the music sounds better when played thru Monster Cables while sipping red wine from the NE exposure of the grape field–you know the grapes that get the morning sun==only kind of wine an real expert will tolerate.
Expert = Poser.
MP3′ s have trouble reproducing sibilants. I don’t know what the musical term for a sibilant-like sound is but it’s audible.
“SSSSSSSS” turns into “SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHS”
staticky
even with the best mawnster cables and stereophile approved sand-free amplifiers.
The sad thing is that almost two generations have grown
up never knowing what recorded music is actually supposed
to sound like. -even at 320kbs many mp3’s still exhibit
sibilance and sometimes you’ll catch the pumping of
various normalization algo’s and the like.
find someone with an old triode tube amp to listen through for
added fun..
As for digital media, i think the music (CD) masters that were
pressed by Polygram out of West Germany at the begining of
the digital craze were the most faithful, best sounding and quality. (consumer grade) -almost everything has been downhill since..
-s
I wonder of this development at Apple will put an end to the loudness war.
Once more into the breach: Irrelevant Expertise.
How is most “sound testing” done? Best equipment, best speakers, sound proof room, no pets, no kiddies, no porn, no traffic noise>>>>and then we concentrate on a piece of music we love.
How is music listened to in the real world? Ipod with earbuds while walking on a treadmill, or from a CD over the car radio.
Even if there are significant worthy differences between mp3 and wav recordings of music that can be tested and proven==of what application are they in the “real world?”
and after that, what recording ever does justice to a real instrument being played?
Yeap. Reality. Stings like a biatch! Can’t we all just get real?
mp3 is just fine for most people most of the time. Everything else is posing.
Bobbo, I gotta sadly agree with you. If an MP3 has been ripped at a decent bit rate, I simply can’t tell the difference. I know it’s a failure of my ears because I have friends who can seriously go crazy at earbud music. I said “sadly” but, in the end, maybe I’m the lucky one.
One thing’s for sure – no matter how good the sound quality gets, I’ll never buy from iTunes.
Pedro: I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool then to open it and leave no doubt.” Simply put (for your convenience), if you don’t have something cogent to say, you should just shut up.
The music is the final arbiter.
You listen to a CD of The Ramones and then you listen to a 192kbps of the same track and you will not tell the difference.
Because it is THE RAMONES! Not that musically talented.
No one one listens to The Ramones thinking, my word these boys are gifted.
You will get pretty much the same from any punk/garage/Death Metal band. They are NOT going for intricate melodies and harmonies in their stuff. 192 is good enough.
BUT If you go for the London Philharmonic. Now there is where you will see the difference. If you must be portable and must have their riff on a song, then go 320kbps at the bare minimum.
This goes for all symphonic/chorale/uplifting trance.
As for CDs. Anyone that thinks they are the best must try Audio DVD. Much better by far. Even better than vinyl as you will not get the scratches and pops.
But with any music, like with video, the better the base file the better the copy.
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Though I would pay money to hear the London Philharmonic do a version of Blizkrieg Bop.
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What about Super Audio CD (SACD)? Do you think DVD-Audio or SACD is the more viable presently?
pedro stretches his comfort zone beyond animal congress and says:
2/24/2012 at 6:54 am
The thing about embiggened self important people like you is that you think you know a lot when in reality you know squat /// I’m shocked you would post as if my point was not just the opposite. But I accept you are fixating on others when Dallas is not posting to draw your dull wit into complete detumescence. Pedro–you really should take every opportunity to educate yourself, obviously, such opportunities have been few and too far inbetween for you.
Just a starting review of some of the many variables without even getting negative about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiophile
Knowledgeable Audiophiles know that NO DECENT AUDIIO can get out of iTunes !!! AAC stands for Apple Audio Crap !!! For the Best Audio Performance, Engineers need to STOP LIMITING AND COMPRESSING AUDIO – AS RECORDED IN THE STUDIO !!! Too many albums come through with compression so tight that the dynamic range is very close to 0 dB – all the way through !!! Such tracks have absolutely no dynamics and are nothing more than NOISE !!!
Neil Young tells it like it is. We’re in the 21st Century, with the worst sound ever.
http://mtv.com/news/articles/1677694/sundance-film-festival-neil-young.jhtml
As a true audiophile, I can attest than nothing beats the rendition quality of wax cylinders.
My opinion about modern audio: http://youtube.com/watch?v=a8BpimhJOzI
On the other hand, when you’re doing 70 with the windows open and cranking it loud enough to mask the road noise, it doesn’t really matter that much. Depends on the time and place, doesn’t it?
Polygram was owned by Philips who co-developed the compact disc with Sony. The compact disc players upon release in the early 1980s were marketed to audiophiles. Classical music was the genre of music that best demonstrated the capabilities of the Compact Disc format.
Remember the codes “DDD”, “ADD” and “AAD”? “A” was analog, and “D” was digital. The first letter meant how the first generation of sound was recorded in the studio. The second letter meant either digital or analog editing, and the third letter meant either an analog or digital final version delivered to the purchaser.
By the mid 1980s, compact discs of popular music were being released; often containing “bonus tracks” – extra material on a compact disc version of a recording that wasn’t included on vinyl or tape.
There hasn’t been a successful high-end audiophile format since that time.
Those were the SPARS codes. Cool.
T-Bone Burnett is working on this very issue. It doesn’t get much press because it is geeky insider stuff but I read an interview with him about it in some producer magazine.
It can be solved with standards for production and education for producers and technicians.
The bigger issue is consumer stereos.
Anyone remember the 70s when consumers took their stereos seriously? Many average people had awesome sound systems back then. Dedicated amps, big wood speakers, etc.
Even “ghetto blasters” had decent speakers.
Now people listen to music with their ear buds. Or worse! They listen through that tinny speaker on their speakerphone.
So, T-Bone Burnett can get companies to produce sell files with good quality but how many consumers will have sound systems that are good enough to play them?
Apple does actually support a lossless format… It’s called Apple Lossless (ALAC) and was recently released as an open source format.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/28/apples-lossless-alac-goes-open-source-its-like-flac-for-ipods/
I don’t however remember that format being offered as a purchase option in the iTunes store, but it is definitely supported by iTunes. I guess maybe server space and bandwidth issues would keep artists from selling it through iTunes? Not sure.
Apple dont offer lossless on iTunes, although you can rip CDs to ALAC. I think the bandwidth argument is bogus. Amazon seem to have the bandwidth to offer FLAC, so why not Apple?