February 22, 2011 at 23:21Apple persuades labels to increase bit depth to 24 bits
Historically, music on the Internet is sold with a deliberately reduced bit depth to 16 bits. The tradition goes from the time of the CD, where the sound was recorded in that quality, although the studio originals have a capacity of 24 bits. Previously, users had broadband Internet as well, so shrinking up to 16 bits and even wrapping it in a “folk” MP3 format with distortions could somehow be justified.
But the difficult times are over, and why labels these days degrade the sound quality before selling is hard to understand. Maybe they are sure that most listeners do not care about this issue or they will not feel the difference. Of course, this is not so. According to statistics from musicians who sell files directly (Trent Reznor, Radiohead), the uncompressed format is in high demand, even if it is sold at a higher price.
Musicians bitterly state the fact that the digital revolution has led to the degradation of sound. Even 30-40 years ago, most people had the opportunity to listen to music in normal quality from vinyl, and now this has remained the lot of a narrow layer of audiophiles. The rest of the public is content with degraded copies in the form of MP3 or CD.
Apple perfectionists are wildly annoyed by this state of affairs and they have begun negotiations with studios to change the situation.
The problem is that not all electronic devices support 24-bit audio playback. If with Macintosh computers there are usually no questions (they have been “tuned” to work with sound for decades), then, for example, iPod and iPhone are not capable of this. Therefore, Apple will have to refine the next versions of its popular gadgets so that they finally learn how to play sound in normal quality. Through iTunes, even now you can sell such files.
Apple has already carried out an instant upgrade of sound quality in the iTunes store. In January 2009, most of the tracks were replaced with similar files with double the bitrate. But previously this program was run in for two years with the musical giant EMI.
According to the NPD Group, now the iTunes store controls about 66% of the digital music market, another 13% is owned by Amazon MP3. From this state of affairs, it becomes clear that it is Apple that sets the standards here, so if anyone is negotiating with recording studios, then this is her.
But the difficult times are over, and why labels these days degrade the sound quality before selling is hard to understand. Maybe they are sure that most listeners do not care about this issue or they will not feel the difference. Of course, this is not so. According to statistics from musicians who sell files directly (Trent Reznor, Radiohead), the uncompressed format is in high demand, even if it is sold at a higher price.
Musicians bitterly state the fact that the digital revolution has led to the degradation of sound. Even 30-40 years ago, most people had the opportunity to listen to music in normal quality from vinyl, and now this has remained the lot of a narrow layer of audiophiles. The rest of the public is content with degraded copies in the form of MP3 or CD.
Apple perfectionists are wildly annoyed by this state of affairs and they have begun negotiations with studios to change the situation.
The problem is that not all electronic devices support 24-bit audio playback. If with Macintosh computers there are usually no questions (they have been “tuned” to work with sound for decades), then, for example, iPod and iPhone are not capable of this. Therefore, Apple will have to refine the next versions of its popular gadgets so that they finally learn how to play sound in normal quality. Through iTunes, even now you can sell such files.
Apple has already carried out an instant upgrade of sound quality in the iTunes store. In January 2009, most of the tracks were replaced with similar files with double the bitrate. But previously this program was run in for two years with the musical giant EMI.
According to the NPD Group, now the iTunes store controls about 66% of the digital music market, another 13% is owned by Amazon MP3. From this state of affairs, it becomes clear that it is Apple that sets the standards here, so if anyone is negotiating with recording studios, then this is her.