iTunes quality?

What is the quality of the music you get from iTunes in kbps? Is it CD quality or the 128 stuff that mp3s have been made of for years? Found an Air Force "band" called Dos Gringos that is pretty damn funny and their albums are on iTunes. Never dealt with that place.

There are no CD quality mp3's

How so?. I can convert an MP3 that will play at 320kbs which should be higher quality than the 192kbps that is standard on Cd's....am I wrong?

Audio cds play at 1411 kbps.

320 is the highest standard bitrate for an mp3, (640 is the highest non-standard).

Regardless of what tweetle dee and tweetle dum above me say, your ear can't tell the difference between a CD and anything 192kbps or higher. You'd have to have a trained, audiophile ear, and a $100,000 sound system to tell the difference.

That being said, sadly songs on iTunes are encoded at 128kbps, which means you more than likely WILL be able to tell the difference between them and a CD. But hey, look at the bright side, they download SUPER fast!

I strongly disagree, the highs and lows are very different from an mp3 to a CD

Me too. Don't need a 100k system either, just an appreciation for high quality audio sources. My hard drives are filled with FLACs...

Not true at all. I can easily tell the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and a 320kbps MP3 on an old crappy pair of headphones. If I switch to my home system (a modest ~$2400 setup) the difference is night and day. Percussion is especially obvious, as the cymbals sound mushy. 128K sounds like FM radio to me, pops n' blips all over the place.

Q tips?

Good God, at least one of you answered the question. Thanks. I was trying to decide whether to download the CDs or order them. Looks like I'll squat/hold on them for now.

Wait a minute, I come out with real reasons in another thread why AAC @ 128 can't be better than MP3s at a higher rate and I get told I'm wrong...you say it and everyone goes: yeah, ok, that makes sense!

Can most people even tell the differance??????? I know years of uncle sams hearing protection have left me kinda hard of hearing but is there really that much differance????

Tim

itunes & mp3's music seems to lose the volume (and I'm not talking about the loudness) of a song. It's like the highs & lows are amplified, but the mid range is just lacking. You can easily tell the difference.

What's fortunate is, the difference between CD's and MP3/Itunes is about the same as between Vynl and CD's. At some point, we'll all adapt, and it'll sound "normal". Plus, the studios will eventually take the hint, and start mixing things geared more towards the electronic format, which ought to help things out more, too.

I think you need to get your ears tested dude if you think the difference is as great as between Vinyl and CD. Everyone can hear how awful CDs sound compared to the crisp crackle free sound of Vinyl.

I'm a bit of a bootleg trader, I love it how anal all the purists are about people downconverting FLAC into MP3. Yet 9 times out of 10 I doubt they would even hear the difference.

The end user can do whatever floats their boat. The idea behind maintaining the data in FLAC is that it is an exact copy of the original source to be archived for trading. Once people start trading manipulated files, the trading community is "polluted" and the efforts of the original taper/archivist are lost.

I guess I am defintely one of "those people".

Apple gives away a new song every Tuesday, as well as other free content.

Click here

Download the free stuff and decide for yourself. Everything else is just a bunch of pissing in the wind :rolleyes:

I would still rather listen to an analog recording over a digital file/CD

If the source is analog, it is hardly an exact copy

So you don't listen to CDs? CDs aren't analogue, at all...CDs just record/playback at such a high bitrate (sample rate) that your ear cannot tell the difference.

It's like assholes, everyone's got opinions... (or vice versa)

Anyway, I could most easily tell a difference in 192 CBR recorded MP3's vs 320 CBR. My personal preference is 96-320 VBR (max quality) using the latest LAME mp3 codec.

Pertaining to Itunes, I have an ipod, but I have yet to give Apple any (more) of my money for music. I very much prefer to have a jewel case CD sitting on my bookshelf. Then you can encode it however you want. Besides, I think itunes sells 192 AAC or something close to that. While that's pretty good I still like the easy portability of MP3 format (plays in my X even). MP4, OGG, there's plenty of better formats available, but MP3 can still get the job done.

Can't tell the difference from what, vinyl? I beg to differ. CD's don't produce the highs and lows that vinyl does. Especially the lows.

I know, and no, I don't usualy listen to CD's

True, but I'd rather sacrifice a my highs and lows a bit to get rid of the pops and hisses that vinyl produces...$0.02

What analogue source do you listen to?

I didn't say I listened to analog sources, I stated they sound better than digital sources.

When my band recorded our demo, we went with 1" tape instead of digital HDD recording (sounds WAY better!)

I run a studio but don't have the cash for an analog setup, so I use a 10-track cooledit setup for now...

Digital is just lifeless and dry sounding

I typically listen to mp3's for the convenience, but I think mp3's are quite pathetic, and the main reason I don't have an ipod is due to their small capacity's

Curious - what would the opposite of "small capacity" be to you?

Large

Cute. In GB - 50? 100? 500? Or are there no portable devices that will meet your high standards?

Just my 2 cents. I ripped my entire collection at 192. I could easily tell a difference between 128 and 192. I did a test with my 192 and a CD and I could barely tell a difference. I believe CD quality is 320, but I think 192 works just perfect for me. I'm no where near a musician nor do I pretend to me, so my ears are probably more amature to those that are.

The answer is it depends

We all hear things differently.

Luckily Apple makes it easy for you to decide for yourself - they release a new song every Tuesday. Free for download. All you have to do is sign up for an iTunes account, which is free.

Download a few songs and listen for yourself.

AAC and MP3 are two totally different encoders. Apples to Oranges, so to speak. If you have never listened to an AAC encoded file, then you know absolutely nothing about what you are pontificating on. MP3 and AAC files are not the same. They are not even similar. They have different characteristics due to their encoding and format.

Give it a listen yourself, and decide yourself. There is a new free song every Tuesday....

Or argue on an Internet message board about something that is TOTALLY subjective :rolleyes:

I would like something in the 150~250gb range...

Is there anyone making a unit that big? I assume from your previous posts you are encoding lossless - so you probably would want it to have pretty good electronics too...

too bad they don't produce the empeg any more, you could at least have it in your car...

Biggest I've seen is a 160gb unit that doubles as a DVR (with a docking station).

I still to this day have the Empeg as one of my eBay searches! lol

As I posted in another thread, the largest MP3 player is the Wolverine. 120GB.

But I've seen some reviews of it saying it's shit.

The largest laptop drive that I'm aware of is 160GB. Maybe there's a 200 out there somewhere.

But it ain't gonna be portable if it's bigger than that. At least, not realistically portable.

You can get a 200GB in Macbook Pro's (it's only a 4200rpm drive though). Seagate and Hitachi both make them, maybe others too.