HiWire Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) Ars Technica just published a salutary article on studio efforts to improve the sound quality of iTunes and other digital tracks. http://arstechnica.c...he-ipod-age.ars I'm glad there's good news about digital, for once. There are still many technical limitations, e.g., the iPhone still has much less storage space at 64GB than the iPod Classic at 160GB. Each portable can only hold a small slice of a decent music library encoded at low compression or in lossless format – never mind high-resolution files. There's also the tradeoff between battery life, device size and price. The HiFiMAN HM-602, for example, only has 8GB. You're really sacrificing capacity for quality there (and I don't particularly want to pick on HiFiMAN, because they sell to the audiophile community). I'm still using a Sony Discman because it has the mix of battery life, portability, and sound quality that I'm looking for. I've got an iPod Shuffle 4G hooked up to Klipsch S4i to take everywhere, but there's always a compromise. I can't afford and dislike digital music library software and hardware. It is rarely as convenient as promised and that is one of the reasons why people are returning to vinyl (beyond its realization as a hipster fad). Edited February 23, 2012 by HiWire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jp11801 Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Read the article seemed rife with fallacies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grahame Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Hmm perhaps because the marketing slogan "input modified to produce less worse output from proprietary post processing" isn't as snappy as "Mastered for iTunes". Comments point out that if we could get the Studio masters, they couldn't sell us all the different versions, as we'd be free to down-rez/down sample as appropriate for our own needs. It's not as if they are fully exploiting / limited by 20-20Khz and 96dB as it is. You might as well say Mastered for Yamaha NS10. To the OP: Vinyl Convenient? if you call having to get up every 20 minutes or so to change sides convenient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobra_kai Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Or you could say screw apple and buy a player that actually has a microsd slot for expandable memory. You can get a 32 gig microsd card for 30-40 dollars on sale. I have 4 that I use with my clip+, which still isn't my entire collection but is everything I listen to regularly. Total cost of ~150 bucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grawk Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 I have access to basically my whole library on my iphone, via itunes match. (ok, it's only the first 25k-ish files). And I have an interface that makes sense, works reliably, and is included in the phone I'm carrying anyway. Sure, it's only at 256k for the majority of the files, but for on the go use, that seems reasonable. Itunes match is $25 a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiWire Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 To the OP: Vinyl Convenient? if you call having to get up every 20 minutes or so to change sides convenient. I was going to rant about vinyl but then I thought I might hurt someone's feelings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessingx Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Who wants to be limited to just "your library"? Net connected players FTW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grahame Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) ^ Yah, that could be problematic with previous technologies Edited February 23, 2012 by Grahame Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiWire Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Solid Gold. The hits keep coming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhjazz Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 ...studio efforts to improve the sound quality of iTunes and other digital tracks. Compression is compression. No amount of preconceived fixing can escape the inevitable shitstorm of being compressed. Unless it's already compressed up the ying yang. e.g., the iPhone still has much less storage space at 64GB than the iPod Classic at 160GB. When the world stops designing solely for Apple products, we can get back to growing better digital audio sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeymad Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 I found "...mastering engineers are doing their best to create digital masters that can pass through Apple's iTunes algorithms with minimal sonic corruption." a little scary myself.. but whatever makes them a buck.. I don't buy any of it anyway.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhjazz Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 Ah, that's cool. As a programmer and general computer junkie, thinking that someone is trying to foil a coding algorithm makes me happy. I don't buy the "with minimal sonic corruption" to be realistic, but you never know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.