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Flashlight Enthusiast
I thought about titling this thread with something more general, to invite discussion of those into vinyl or lossless file formats, but I like the iTunes plus title better, and I figured others would chime in saying how awful digital is and how great vinyl is--and that's cool! Bring it on! And I'm going to talk about more than just 256kbps AAC files and their sound quality.
So, to start, let me just say that I think it's a very welcome and positive direction for downloadable/net purchased music that Apple's iTunes store has switched from 128kbps AAC files with DRM limitations (DRM=digital rights management, mostly in the form of burn limits and limits on sharing), to higher quality 256kbps AAC files with no DRM, no burn limits, no sharing limits. I never expected this would happen so fast.
Back tracking, let me mention that I just recently purchased both a Macbook Pro (pre-Oct 08 model, non-unibody) and a 16GB 2nd Gen iPod Touch. Or actually the iPod was a gift. Anyway, point is that I was worried about sound quality and space limitations and was unsure if 256kbps AAC files would be good enough for me, but didn't want to use the ALAC lossless format and really limit the amount of music I could keep on my iPod.
I initially had a problem with the DAC in the MBP, which, frankly, pretty much sucks, so I ended up buying a used Apogee Duet, which is a firewire DAC, and also a ADC with instrument and mic inputs and headphone and powered speaker line- outputs. That thing is magic--incredible--don't let anyone tell you the DAC doesn't matter. It really does. The DAC in the touch is a definite step up--or I should say the DAC plus headphone amp circuit--from the DAC/amp circuit in the MBP, but nowhere near as good as the one in the Duet.
In the process of dealing with all of this and experimenting, I ended up doing back and forth comparison listening with linear digital files--no compression--and the 256kbps AAC. I can barely tell the difference between the 256kbps and the linear. If I listen carefully to certain sections of music, I can hear a difference way up high, with the decay of cymbals and what not, but overall, the 256kbps AAC files are very, very good. And I do NOT have a tin ear. As a pianist, a piano tuner, an audiophile, and a music lover I have some amount of discernment and listening experience, and the 256kbps AAC files are, in my opinion, very very close to as good as lossless or linear, but take up a fraction of the storage space. And if you think about it, music isn't just random information! It's a wave. And human hearing isn't equally sensitive across the frequency spectrum either. So, the Advanced Audio Coding format takes advantage of these facts to reduce the size of the files, while largely maintaining the sound quality.
On various forums, headfi among them, and in the internet in general, you will find the attitude that no "true" audiophile would settle for anything less than linear of lossless, and maybe they're right--maybe I'm not a "true" audiophile--but to my ears, there's a MUCH bigger gain to be made in the DAC, headphone amp & headphones end of things, than in using lossless vs. 256kbps AAC. You have to have very good equipment to even notice the loss of fidelity in going from lossless to 256kbps AAC, in my opinion. In fact, I can't tell the difference when listening to my touch with Sennheiser PX100 headphones. I have to go to my MBP-->Duet-->Grado SR225's to hear it.
And I can carry SO much more music in 16GB using the iTunes Plus 256kbps AAC encoding than lossless. So far I have almost always purchased CD's and ripped them into my library in the 256kbps AAC format because I did NOT want to be restricted to the 128kbps AAC files sold on iTunes. Those just aren't good enough. They're not bad, but I believe it's not hard to tell that you're losing fidelity with those. Not much, to be sure, but definitely some. So, I never really wanted to buy directly from iTunes.
But now, I think I'll be buying more music directly from the internet, skipping over the CD entirely. I still like to have the liner notes and all that, though, so I'll probably still buy a lot of CD's, but the change over to the higher fidelity AAC files and the removal of the DRM restrictions is really great. A welcome and frankly (to me) unexpected change.
As for vinyl, I have no trouble believing that the sonic experience to be had from a really top notch table, arm, and cartridge is in many ways superior to digital music, but I've never heard such a system in person so I don't know this is the case. Further, the entry cost of such a system is steep. Finally, records are a royal PITA! Even if I had the money to burn on a good vinyl setup, and an incredible record collection, I still would chose the convenience and portability of my MBP/Duet/Grado or iPod/PX100 setups. For me, I can totally enjoy music from either setup, and that's all that matters to me. Once the sound quality is good enough for me to get lost in the music, that's like 99 percent of it for me. Or maybe 95 percent
Whatever!
So, I was curious to see what others here think of all of this stuff, and if anyone else is pleased with iTunes move to 256kbps AAC files as the new standard, DRM free?
So, to start, let me just say that I think it's a very welcome and positive direction for downloadable/net purchased music that Apple's iTunes store has switched from 128kbps AAC files with DRM limitations (DRM=digital rights management, mostly in the form of burn limits and limits on sharing), to higher quality 256kbps AAC files with no DRM, no burn limits, no sharing limits. I never expected this would happen so fast.
Back tracking, let me mention that I just recently purchased both a Macbook Pro (pre-Oct 08 model, non-unibody) and a 16GB 2nd Gen iPod Touch. Or actually the iPod was a gift. Anyway, point is that I was worried about sound quality and space limitations and was unsure if 256kbps AAC files would be good enough for me, but didn't want to use the ALAC lossless format and really limit the amount of music I could keep on my iPod.
I initially had a problem with the DAC in the MBP, which, frankly, pretty much sucks, so I ended up buying a used Apogee Duet, which is a firewire DAC, and also a ADC with instrument and mic inputs and headphone and powered speaker line- outputs. That thing is magic--incredible--don't let anyone tell you the DAC doesn't matter. It really does. The DAC in the touch is a definite step up--or I should say the DAC plus headphone amp circuit--from the DAC/amp circuit in the MBP, but nowhere near as good as the one in the Duet.
In the process of dealing with all of this and experimenting, I ended up doing back and forth comparison listening with linear digital files--no compression--and the 256kbps AAC. I can barely tell the difference between the 256kbps and the linear. If I listen carefully to certain sections of music, I can hear a difference way up high, with the decay of cymbals and what not, but overall, the 256kbps AAC files are very, very good. And I do NOT have a tin ear. As a pianist, a piano tuner, an audiophile, and a music lover I have some amount of discernment and listening experience, and the 256kbps AAC files are, in my opinion, very very close to as good as lossless or linear, but take up a fraction of the storage space. And if you think about it, music isn't just random information! It's a wave. And human hearing isn't equally sensitive across the frequency spectrum either. So, the Advanced Audio Coding format takes advantage of these facts to reduce the size of the files, while largely maintaining the sound quality.
On various forums, headfi among them, and in the internet in general, you will find the attitude that no "true" audiophile would settle for anything less than linear of lossless, and maybe they're right--maybe I'm not a "true" audiophile--but to my ears, there's a MUCH bigger gain to be made in the DAC, headphone amp & headphones end of things, than in using lossless vs. 256kbps AAC. You have to have very good equipment to even notice the loss of fidelity in going from lossless to 256kbps AAC, in my opinion. In fact, I can't tell the difference when listening to my touch with Sennheiser PX100 headphones. I have to go to my MBP-->Duet-->Grado SR225's to hear it.
And I can carry SO much more music in 16GB using the iTunes Plus 256kbps AAC encoding than lossless. So far I have almost always purchased CD's and ripped them into my library in the 256kbps AAC format because I did NOT want to be restricted to the 128kbps AAC files sold on iTunes. Those just aren't good enough. They're not bad, but I believe it's not hard to tell that you're losing fidelity with those. Not much, to be sure, but definitely some. So, I never really wanted to buy directly from iTunes.
But now, I think I'll be buying more music directly from the internet, skipping over the CD entirely. I still like to have the liner notes and all that, though, so I'll probably still buy a lot of CD's, but the change over to the higher fidelity AAC files and the removal of the DRM restrictions is really great. A welcome and frankly (to me) unexpected change.
As for vinyl, I have no trouble believing that the sonic experience to be had from a really top notch table, arm, and cartridge is in many ways superior to digital music, but I've never heard such a system in person so I don't know this is the case. Further, the entry cost of such a system is steep. Finally, records are a royal PITA! Even if I had the money to burn on a good vinyl setup, and an incredible record collection, I still would chose the convenience and portability of my MBP/Duet/Grado or iPod/PX100 setups. For me, I can totally enjoy music from either setup, and that's all that matters to me. Once the sound quality is good enough for me to get lost in the music, that's like 99 percent of it for me. Or maybe 95 percent
Whatever!So, I was curious to see what others here think of all of this stuff, and if anyone else is pleased with iTunes move to 256kbps AAC files as the new standard, DRM free?
