Have your say & ask the experts!

Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTunes store

8 replies [Last post]
Tom Moreno
Tom Moreno's picture
Offline
Joined: 1 Dec 2008
Posts: 534

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/02/22/24.bit.music/index.html

This is potentially the gates of nirvana to those of us who don't download music because of the inferior sound quality. If the entire iTunes catalogue was available at hi-res then they would certainly start getting a large chunk out of of my spending money!

__________________

Denon AVR-3808A, MA RX6, BX Centre, BXFX, BX2 (rear surr), BX10, Sony KDL-40W5500, Oppo BDP-83 MR, Sky+ HD, Xbox 360, QED MDH6 Mains Filtration.

staggerlee
staggerlee's picture
Offline
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 243
Re: Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTune

it'll probably be £1.99 a track, on the basis that only a small minority want 24 bit -and they will pay. Most people are content with the normal compressed rubbish.

__________________

naim cd555, naim 552, naim 300, neat mf5's, sonos

dvdaudio
dvdaudio's picture
Offline
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 656
Re: Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTune

i really hope ths happens i for one would buy the hi res downloads from them
bring it on.

DavieCee
DavieCee's picture
Offline
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 473
Re: Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTune

Having read the article, it sounds promising.


Fingers crossed for a huge selection without a huge mark up. I doubt it but you never know.

Gerrardasnails
Gerrardasnails's picture
Offline
Joined: 6 Sep 2007
Posts: 6398
Re: Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTune
Tom Moreno:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/02/22/24.bit.music/index.html

This is potentially the gates of nirvana to those of us who don't download music because of the inferior sound quality. If the entire iTunes catalogue was available at hi-res then they would certainly start getting a large chunk out of of my spending money!



They can't make hi-res files out of normal ones. At the moment they don't offer lossless files at 16bit. I would not get too excited. This will probably be a few classical albums only.
__________________

Screen - Samsung UE46D8000.  Sources - Dell Zino HD 410; Sky HD; Sony BDP S550; Wyred 4 Sound DAC1.  Amps - Yamaha RX-A3010; SimAudio Moon I-3 RS.  Speakers - Vienna Acoustics Mozart Grand; Vienna Acoustics Waltz Grand centre; Proficient Audio W690 rears; Monitor Audio RSW12.  Cables - Van Damme Blue 4mm speaker cable; Townsend DCT300 and Atlas Voyager interconnects; Van den Hul Optocoupler.

Overdose
Overdose's picture
Offline
Joined: 8 Feb 2008
Posts: 2582
Re: Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTune

Improvements are always welcome, but the increased prices will not be.

If music is mastered in 24 bit, I see no other reason to pay more, than to cover the increased cost of bandwidth and storage required to offer such a service.

The highly compressed 128 or even 192 kbps files are from the very same 24 bit source surely? So why the large price hike?

Nothing extra has been produced, so it seems a bit of a swindle to me.

__________________

Mac mini > AVI ADM9Ts

chunky70
chunky70's picture
Offline
Joined: 4 Jan 2009
Posts: 103
24bit on itunes?
Andrew Everard
Andrew Everard's picture
Offline
Joined: 30 May 2007
Posts: 29043
Re: 24bit on itunes?

Indeed: merged into ongoing thread

__________________

Consulting Editor, What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision/whathifi.com  Audio Editor, Gramophone

John Duncan
John Duncan's picture
Offline
Joined: 8 Jan 2008
Posts: 20432
Re: Apple reportedly looking to offer 24-bit downloads via iTune
the_lhc:

Overdose:

Well that would depend on the bandwidth component cost as a percentage of the overall download cost now wouldn't it?

Which as it happens is quite small, so a ten fold increase would not bring the cost up to what some people have suggested.



It's not just bandwidth, the storage requirements will increase as well and that isn't free.



The bandwidth cost is not to be overlooked. But before somebody tells me that you can buy a 250gig hard drive for 30 quid, the cost of high availability, high resilience storage is somewhat higher - I have to pay £90 per year, per gig for my file storage allocation for my department...
__________________

CA StreamMagic 6  |  CA 751BD  |  CA 651A  |  PMC DB1i

Moderator. mail: john.duncan.whf at the mail of g dot com