In an age when Apple has become the top music retailer without selling a single physical disc, audio engineers are increasingly creating specially mastered versions of songs and albums designed to counteract the audio degradation caused by compression. Though audiophiles typically scoff at paying for compressed audio, preferring vinyl or high-end digital formats such as DVD-A, mastering engineers are doing their best to create digital masters that can pass through Apple’s iTunes algorithms with minimal sonic corruption.
Great article. Hate that iTunes wont provide loss-less formats and Amazon music downloads, which do provide loss-less, are not available down under.
Polygram was owned by Philips who co-developed the compact disc with Sony. The compact disc players upon release in the early 1980s were marketed to audiophiles. Classical music was the genre of music that best demonstrated the capabilities of the Compact Disc format.
Remember the codes “DDD”, “ADD” and “AAD”? “A” was analog, and “D” was digital. The first letter meant how the first generation of sound was recorded in the studio. The second letter meant either digital or analog editing, and the third letter meant either an analog or digital final version delivered to the purchaser.
By the mid 1980s, compact discs of popular music were being released; often containing “bonus tracks” – extra material on a compact disc version of a recording that wasn’t included on vinyl or tape.
There hasn’t been a successful high-end audiophile format since that time.
Those were the SPARS codes. Cool.
T-Bone Burnett is working on this very issue. It doesn’t get much press because it is geeky insider stuff but I read an interview with him about it in some producer magazine.
It can be solved with standards for production and education for producers and technicians.
The bigger issue is consumer stereos.
Anyone remember the 70s when consumers took their stereos seriously? Many average people had awesome sound systems back then. Dedicated amps, big wood speakers, etc.
Even “ghetto blasters” had decent speakers.
Now people listen to music with their ear buds. Or worse! They listen through that tinny speaker on their speakerphone.
So, T-Bone Burnett can get companies to produce sell files with good quality but how many consumers will have sound systems that are good enough to play them?
Apple does actually support a lossless format… It’s called Apple Lossless (ALAC) and was recently released as an open source format.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/28/apples-lossless-alac-goes-open-source-its-like-flac-for-ipods/
I don’t however remember that format being offered as a purchase option in the iTunes store, but it is definitely supported by iTunes. I guess maybe server space and bandwidth issues would keep artists from selling it through iTunes? Not sure.
Apple dont offer lossless on iTunes, although you can rip CDs to ALAC. I think the bandwidth argument is bogus. Amazon seem to have the bandwidth to offer FLAC, so why not Apple?