AppleInsider Staff
Following a report that Apple is considering a major overhaul of iTunes, an overlooked rumor from March suggests the company may also be planning an entry into the high-definition music industry with 24-bit tracks.
Citing an unnamed source, blogger Robert Hutton claims Apple will launch hi-res audio sales "in two months" to coincide with the release of three Led Zeppelin remasters.
According to Hutton, Apple will be charging an addition dollar for high-resolution tracks, suggesting the new feature will be offered inline with the usual iTunes track and album purchase options.
Apple currently requires publishers provide 24-bit ALAC tracks with high sampling rates to increase sound quality when transcoded to the lossy AAC format currently available on iTunes. Like the MP3 codec, AAC cuts a good portion of data from the original mastered version, trading subtle nuances in dynamic range, fidelity, detail and other sound quality metrics for smaller file sizes.
Backing up the rumor is Apple's "Mastered for iTunes" initiative, which provides studios with specialized software — specifically AU Lab — to check how AAC conversion affects the uncompressed masters. Studios then pass the original 24-bit masters (at varying sampling rates) to iTunes, which creates lossless files and encodes them into 16-bit AAC tracks. This means Apple has a huge repository of lossless music.
Being light on details, however, the blog post, spotted by MacRumors, is somewhat suspicious and Hutton mainly uses known Apple operating procedures to back up his claims. Still, the idea is not out of the realm of possibility given rumblings of a "dramatic" iTunes music store overhaul.
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
154 Comments
I sure hope this rumor is true. The iTunes Store would then be the place to buy classical music.
I'm looking forward to experiencing music from the Pono music player. It will be better quality than this alleged Mastered for iTunes product. Pono will use FLAC files and be capable of using other industry standard files of lesser quality. I doubt any process will be as good as original vinyl recordings on a good system but Pono will certainly be the top of the line standard for a while to come. They will debut in the summer of 2014.
I'm looking forward to experiencing music from the Pono music player. It will be better quality than this alleged Mastered for iTunes product. Pono will use FLAC files and be capable of using other industry standard files of lesser quality.
I doubt any process will be as good as original vinyl recordings on a good system but Pono will certainly be the top of the line standard for a while to come. They will debut in the summer of 2014.
Spare us the drama will you. Pono is already being panned by critics as not worth the money. It’ll be used by a few wacked out audiophiles who live for specs but can’t tell the difference, and priced up there with those granite slab turntables.
How much will they charge me to "upgrade" the songs I've already purchased this time? Last time it was $.69 per song or $.33 per song I think... Then there was the aggravating issue where songs I had purchased were no longer available on the iTunes Store for whatever reason. I hope it's a free upgrade if your a current iTunes Match subscriber.
I'm looking forward to experiencing music from the Pono music player. It will be better quality than this alleged Mastered for iTunes product. Pono will use FLAC files and be capable of using other industry standard files of lesser quality.
I doubt any process will be as good as original vinyl recordings on a good system but Pono will certainly be the top of the line standard for a while to come. They will debut in the summer of 2014.
How much were you paid for that post? Or are you an unpaid shill?