my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » iTune Sound Quality? (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: iTune Sound Quality? Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-10-2008 11:06 AM                        I have been recording all of my music to my iPod from Cds all these years but I just recently started to download some music from the Apple iTune store online and have been very pleased with the sound quality. When I was checking out a title I was interested in buying yesterday, I decided to read customer's reviews of the album first before I bought it and one customer said he was considering buying the CD instead of downloading because he wanted to get the best sound quality from that album. He decided to download after all and was pleased. Can anyone tell me if there is a difference in sound quality from downloaded music from Cds and iTunes? I have noticed a great price difference between the two. A CD normally costing about $18.00 can be downloaded for about $10.00 or less and that is one of the reasons I have used iTunes recently. If there is a great difference in the sound between the two? -Claude  |  IP: Logged Bruce Hansen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 847 From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-10-2008 11:49 AM                     Most itunes stuff is compressed. The more compression that is used, the poorer the sound quality. Compression is the process of throwing away information that you hope will not be badly missed. The more info you throw away, the more you miss it. Personaly, I do not like to go lower than a 256K data rate. CDs do not use compression. A BIG problem I have had with the music industry in recent years, is that each company wants their stuff to sound the loudest on KTLA, and have been cranking up the record levels for years. This causes clipping distortion, and I find that I cannot even stand to listen to anything that has been recorded in recent years. I have not bought a new CD or downloaded anything in years, and will not, until the greedy music companies get their heads out of their behinds and learn how to record properly again.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2008 11:51 AM                     It should sound at least as good as Looney Tunes!  |  IP: Logged Mark Strube Master Film Handler Posts: 322 From: Milwaukee, WI, United States Registered: Feb 2007 posted 02-10-2008 05:07 PM                        Personally, I don't care for the audio quality in iTunes. They use 128kbps AAC compression. While better than 128 MP3, it's not great by any means... I hear most of the lost detail in the higher frequencies. I've found I prefer Amazon's new MP3 download store... same price as iTunes and in many cases cheaper, they use 256kbps MP3 without any DRM (copy protection).  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 02-10-2008 06:11 PM                        Why not 320kbps?  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-10-2008 11:33 PM                     Most iTunes tracks are 128 AAC. Some tracks are 256 AAC. Those tracks have a plus symbol next to the buy song button. 256 AAC is very good, however very critical listeners will be able to hear a difference. iTunes Plus tracks are also free of DRM and can be played on any device that supports AAC wheras iTunes standard tracks can only be played on iTunes or Apple devices such as iPods. AAC is vastly supirior to MP3 compression, nearly twice as good according to some, though I'm really not sure who or what is used to quantify this. If you are ripping your own CDs, iTunes has a compression seting called Apple Lossless, which is able to reproduce CD quality sound at only half the file size.  |  IP: Logged Mark Strube Master Film Handler Posts: 322 From: Milwaukee, WI, United States Registered: Feb 2007 posted 02-11-2008 12:52 AM                        The claim of AAC being twice as good is ridiculous. If this was true, a 64kbps AAC file would be comparable to a 128kbps MP3 file, and they're not even close. I prefer AAC to MP3 since it is better, but far from twice as good. Unfortunately the iTunes plus service is twice the price with hardly any labels signed on. AllTunes is really the way to go, since you choose your own format and bitrate, encoded from a PCM source... however it's "gray" in its legality. So, I generally recommend the Amazon service as a happy medium for people worried about using AllTunes (aka. allofmp3), but want better quality and/or no DRM.  |  IP: Logged Max Biela Film Handler Posts: 89 From: Dortmund, Germany Registered: Sep 2003 posted 02-11-2008 01:27 AM                     Both (the 128 and 256) songs are the same price (99 Euro cent) - at least in Germany. It depends on the label which quality you will get.  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-11-2008 11:00 AM                     When iTunes plus was introduced, tracks were $1.29 vs $.99. Now all tracks are $.99 cents. The labels will come around soon. Songs are encoded by the label, not Apple.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 02-11-2008 11:33 AM                        quote: A BIG problem I have had with the music industry in recent years, is that each company wants their stuff to sound the loudest on KTLA, and have been cranking up the record levels for years. This causes clipping distortion, Load one of those songs into a waveform editor, like Audition, and you can really see the processing... and it usually is very extreme.  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 02-11-2008 01:17 PM                     When Rhino released downloads of various artists, called the Rhino Hi-5's, they suggested purchasing these off the Rhino web site as they use WMA, which in their opinion sounds better than the format Apple uses in Itunes. (but for convience, the same titles will be available at the Itunes store.)  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-11-2008 11:50 PM                        I am currently using a Shure SE 210 headset with a 16 gb iPod Touch and I love the sound quality from both the music I had downloaded from Cds as well as selections from iTunes. Many of you had given me the impression that the way the music is compressed by iTunes, I would be losing quiet a bit of sound quality especially the higher range from iTune downloads but from what I have been hearing, I cannot tell the difference between music I had downloaded from my CD library and from iTunes. I appreciate good sound when I hear it and that it the reason I had invested in a pair of good headsets such as the Shure. As most of you know, I love classical music and to fully enjoy it, you need to hear the full range of sound and I am getting it. When buying CDs as well as music from iTines, I am very partial to recordings from European labels such as Harmonia Mundi, Delos, Hyperion, DGG, and from the American label Telarc. I also like the sound quality of the London Symphony LSO recordings -Claude  |  IP: Logged Greg Anderson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 766 From: Ogden Valley, Utah Registered: Nov 1999 posted 02-12-2008 07:54 PM                        Using Audition, I looked at the "Spectral" display on a brief piece of audio featuring a full orchestra. You can see how MP3 compression takes away some of the detail throughout the spectrum and nearly all of the audio above about 16,000 Hz. By looking at this display, I might know what to listen for and, therefore, I might be able to hear what's "wrong" with MP3 compression. But I'm not sure if I can really hear it or if I'm just imagining the problem. I'm wondering if I could really tell a difference in a blind comparison. Nevertheless, I think I prefer to have an "uncompressed" CD or, at the very least, the improved quality of iTunes Plus or Amazon's MP3 downloads.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-12-2008 08:27 PM                     Wasn't Apple supposed to start offering lossless compressed music via iTunes? quote: Bruce Hansen A BIG problem I have had with the music industry in recent years, is that each company wants their stuff to sound the loudest on KTLA, and have been cranking up the record levels for years. Agreed. Take any "old" CD (stuff released in the 1970s or 1980s) and load it into a digital audio editing program. Chances are you'll see a normal looking wave form with little, if any, clipping of peaks. Load up a pop or rock CD released in recent years. Not only is there clipping, there's so much decapitation of peaks on the disc that it's often difficult to make out the wave form unless you're zoomed way in tight on it. Total shit engineering of the audio track. This is probably one of the main reasons why many who love iTunes can't tell the difference between a severely compressed 128kb/s AAC file and a retail CD. Both have shitty, over-driven audio quality. Lots of tonal detail gets lost when you deliberately clip the hell out of an audio track. The only area where wave form clipping needs to happen at all is in the "lead" channel of a good guitar tube amp. I don't think it needs to be happening in many other places than that.  |  IP: Logged Greg Anderson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 766 From: Ogden Valley, Utah Registered: Nov 1999 posted 02-13-2008 12:01 AM                        A few weeks ago I downloaded a "free sample" from Amazon's MP3 collection. This is a jazzed-up Christmas song performed by Brian Setzer and presented at 320 Kbps. The top part shows you the spectral view of the right channel (for just a few seconds) and the bottom part shows the wave form of the same bit of audio. I remember when I first learned that CDs would have an amazing dynamic range. Little did I know that some 25 years later, engineers wouldn't want to use it.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.