Bring out the AAA - The pigs are flying

[Technoid]

EMI is dumping DRM from its catalogues on iTunes

And raising the bitrate

read the article on ars

[Jessterw]

Hopefully the DRM-free tracks sale well so the record labels can't say something like, "look, customers want DRM..." If all goes well I don't see the other major labels far behind.

Of course full albums will automatically be DRM-free and no more expensive than before - that's a major selling point I think. As individual tracks can be 'upgraded' for a price, I wonder how that will affect doing the same for an entire album.

Also nice is that Apple is extending the offer to the smaller record labels, many of whom have been saying they would be more than happy to have their catalogues DRM-free.

[Marshmallowman]

I might actually install itunes, if the quality is as good enough.

256kbps AAC files should be CD quality?

[Jessterw]

That's not exactly CD quality, but close enough for all but the purists who scoff at anything that isn't 100 MB a track in lossless format

[az]

Hey, there are people who can "hear" the difference between a WAV and lossless compression. I think they might be the same as those that hear a difference between a CD and a WAV, and even between a WAV from the harddisk or from a RAM buffer.

[Jessterw]

Yes, I know. I was simply poking fun at those who are zealots about it. As if people who settle for lossy compression care couldn't possibly care as much about music as they do.

I do think a lot of people who hear the difference are partly imagining the magnitude of difference. If you expect to hear (or not) something, you'll most likely do so. That however is one of those arguments that is never-ending.

[Nowhere]

Well, one way to find out/prove/disprove - do ABX testing.

You can be surprised how far modern audio compression has come. For me Vorbis at "quality4" (128kbps nominal) is extremelly hard to distinguish, q5 (~160kbps) is mostly impossible. But I've never read about/trained myself in noticing audio compression artifacts and I don't want to

Oh, and supposedly AAC and Vorbis are very comparable at those typical bitrates, so at 256kbps...

[Technoid]

Hey, there are people who can "hear" the difference between a WAV and lossless compression. I think they might be the same as those that hear a difference between a CD and a WAV, and even between a WAV from the harddisk or from a RAM buffer.

Even in dubble blind tests?

[az]

Of course not.

[Helevitia]

I would bet money against someone who claims they could tell the difference between lossless and WAV.

[az]

See, the problem is, these people are so sure of themselves, they "don't need to prove it". And in the rare occasion that they do, something about the test was not right. Humidity, room acoustics (which are actually very important - more so than 500 EUR difference for the amplifier, provided the cheaper model isn't especially awful), the pauses between the tracks, no pauses between the tracks, the cheap cables that were used, etc.

[Nowhere]

No no, az, it's more than that. It's "double blind tests are flawed methology" and "seeing front plates/names gives unique insight into audio performance"

[Technoid]

See, the problem is, these people are so sure of themselves, they "don't need to prove it". And in the rare occasion that they do, something about the test was not right. Humidity, room acoustics (which are actually very important - more so than 500 EUR difference for the amplifier, provided the cheaper model isn't especially awful), the pauses between the tracks, no pauses between the tracks, the cheap cables that were used, etc.

It's those guy's that fuels the multi million snake oil market of audiophreak consumer products

Like the CD Demagnetizer unit.

Review of above unit: It's right there with in the same ballpark as the technobabble science speak of startrek

[az]

Or C37 lacquer, or signature volume knobs, or special stones to put on top of your cd player to make it sound better, etc. pp.

[Technoid]

Or C37 lacquer, or signature volume knobs, or special stones to put on top of your cd player to make it sound better, etc. pp.

Special stones???

How can anyone believe....no wait, I'm forgetting the Flat earth society