Yet, in the 9 to 5 mac article, there is something I find very interesting:
The document, titled “Music as the Artist and Sound Engineer Intended,” essentially asked publishers to submit high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz files, and not original CD masters to create the 256kbps files introduced with iTunes Plus in 2007.
That means Apple now asks for high-resolution digital recordings, a level of resolution higher than a regular CD, to create the 256kps cuts. If Apple keeps the original files, either CD quality, or high-resolution, it takes little day-dreaming to imagine a future sound quality upgrade to the entire iTunes catalog.
Lets hope so, because as of today this cartoon pretty much sums up the frustration of finding legal & lossless music online.
UPDATE: Ars Technica posted a very interesting article about this.
Mastering for iTunes was a different challenge," VanDette told Ars. "You can't get around it—when you throw away 80 percent of the data, the sound changes. It was my quest to make the AAC files sound as close to the CD as possible; I did not want them to be any more loud, hyped, or boomy sounding than the CD.UPDATE #2: Once again Ars Technica has a very thorough article on the subject: Does "Mastered for iTunes" matter to music? Ars puts it to the test.
We enlisted Chicago Mastering Service engineers Jason Ward and Bob Weston to help us out, both of whom were somewhat skeptical that any knob tweaking could result in a better iTunes experience. We came away from the process learning that it absolutely is possible to improve the quality of compressed iTunes Plus tracks with a little bit of work, that Apple's improved compression process does result in a better sound, and that 24/96 files aren't a good format for consumers.
