ITunes Plus and CD Quality

Does ITunes Plus provide the same sound quality as CD? ITunes quality is 256Kb/s AAC. What is the quality of well made CD?

 

CD is still better althought 256kbp is very good.

 

OK, what is the bit rate of well made CD? Any Online Digital Music Store that sells truly CD quality?

 

If you're looking for the same quality as a CD, the keyword is lossless. Lossless means there's zero loss of quality from the source. Anyways, to answer your question (from this article):

"Bit rate = 44100 samples/sec × 16 bit/sample × 2 channels = 1411.2 kbit/s (more than 10 MByte per minute)"

I rip my music collection to FLAC, which is a free, open-source, lossless audio standard. Itunes won't play it, but then again I don't use Itunes to play music in the house. Once I've ripped audio to FLAC I can then transcode it to other formats such as MP3 or Apple lossless (ALAC). Apple lossless is supported in Itunes and the Ipods, btw.

 

No online digital music store sells music as good as CD quality currently (but unless you're an audiophile, I don't think you'll notice too much of a difference), but as Johnny said, 256Kbp/s AAC is already not bad.

 

While it is true that the quality is not technically as good, the vast majority of people cannot hear any increase in quality past 256Kbps. In fact, most can't probably tell the difference between 160Kbps and 256Kbps. Now there are those that have golden ears and they claim they need lossless, so if you are one of those, you will probably want to stay away from online stores.

Also, remember that the file is not the only limiting factor. If you are using pc speakers, notebook speakers, crappy earphones (like iPod pack-ins), or even most mp3 players, they will usually be the limiting factor at a high bitrate, not the file itself.

 

Yup exactly...is you have a crappy speakers/earphones then there is no point in getting high bit rate music

 

Yeah, but doesn't the idea that you're paying for the right to listen to the music and the copy you get is of 'lesser' quality bother any of you? You'll NEVER be able to get it at the proper quality without rebuying it...

 

That does bother me, so that's why I'll still buy CDs and not download music online.

 

That belows answers it I personally prefer something physical there.

 

I wanted to mention something else about downloading music online. Keep in mind that if you download lossy music online from a source, it may not be in a format that's playable on other devices. You can transcode from many formats to others. However, transcoding from a lossy source to another lossy format (like MP3) will mean that you are degrading the quality of the music. I realize that most people don't have a "golden ear", but lossy transcodes are going to sound pretty crappy to most people.

 

Well, it really depends...like for me, mostly I only like and listen to say three songs on every CD. So I could get those three tracks for $3 on iTunes, or I could pay about $15 for the CD...I mean, and those three tracks are all I listen to! So for me, I don't think its worth the price of a CD just to listen to three high quality songs, as to me iTunes Plus tracks already sound pretty good.

 

learn to listen to whole CDs sam

 

I won't buy standard iTunes music - 128 kbps music sounds like crap on just about any speakers. I have purchased iTunes Plus music - I just wish there was a larger selection of it. Also, I refuse to buy music that contains DRM and you should too.

The speaker setup I have at home on my powerbook was ~$3,000 (ADAM A7's, Stello DA100 and HP100 plus cables) so crappy music (i.e. 128k music) really sounds bad in comparison to listening to the actual CD disc.

I did some subjective listening tests of my own, and I couldn't tell the difference between 320 kbps and the CD disc. I also couldn't tell the difference between 256k and 320k. I *can* tell the difference between 192k and 256k. That's how I decided that 256k is acceptable for me even knowing that it is a lossy format.

I suggest you do the same and take a few of your favorite CD's and encode them at different bit rates, listen to them in random order, and pick the one that sounds best. Then you'll know what bit rate is best for your audio equipment and your ears.