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A Look at Apple's 'Mastered for iTunes' Program and its Effect on Sound Quality

Monday April 30, 2012 9:14 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Earlier this year, Apple began revealing more information about its Mastered for iTunes program, requesting that music professionals supply Apple with higher-quality recordings as source material for the compressed tracks made available for sale through the iTunes Store. The higher-quality source material, processed according to Apple's guidelines, is being requested to allow Apple to create better-sounding tracks in the 256 kbps AAC format used for the iTunes Store.


Ars Technica takes a thorough look at the Mastered for iTunes program and whether it truly does make a difference to consumers. While the whole article is an interesting read on some of the technical details of audio formats and mastering and the varying perspectives of several music industry professionals, Ars' conclusion is that the Mastered for iTunes program can make a difference in quality of iTunes Store music.
We enlisted Chicago Mastering Service engineers Jason Ward and Bob Weston to help us out, both of whom were somewhat skeptical that any knob tweaking could result in a better iTunes experience. We came away from the process learning that it absolutely is possible to improve the quality of compressed iTunes Plus tracks with a little bit of work, that Apple's improved compression process does result in a better sound, and that 24/96 files aren't a good format for consumers.
Ars worked with a number of audio engineers on test projects comparing various combinations of original 24-bit, 96 kHz master recordings, uncompressed WAV files ripped from CDs, standard iTunes Store tracks, and tracks created by applying Apple's Mastered for iTunes process to the master recordings. In one example, a standard iTunes Store track sounded "boxy" or "muffled" compared to the original CD master WAV file, but after processing through Mastered for iTunes tools, the resulting track sounded significantly better and more "alive" on a subjective basis.

Part of the difficulty in assessing sound quality comes from the emotional response involved in how sounds register to human ears. Some differences in sound quality can be quantified using various tools to analyze the waveforms generated by different audio files, but the ultimate measure of sound quality lies with the human ears receiving and interpreting the sounds.

Nevertheless, Apple markets the Mastered for iTunes program as providing a path for musicians and music professionals to have iTunes Store content more closely match "music as the artist and sound engineer intended", and more and more musicians are taking advantage of the program in attempting to improve the quality of their music available through the world's most popular music vendor.

[ 271 comments ]


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iBug2
95 months ago
I still don't understand why they are not selling ALAC. The huge datacenters they built should support those transfers easily nowadays.
Rating: 34 Votes
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Exhale
95 months ago
Unfortunately until "Mastering Engineers" stop with the "Loud is good (//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tUhguPckZQ&t=5s)" ********, none of this matters.

Its literally the practice of polishing a turd.
Rating: 29 Votes
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AppleDroid
95 months ago

I still don't understand why they are not selling ALAC. The huge datacenters they built should support those transfers easily nowadays.


This. All I want is a higher quality master copy of my digital songs. 128-256 is great for my ipod + headphones but there's a huge difference playing lossless files through my 7.1 setup vs compressed audio files.

I realize I'm in the minority but it has always felt wrong buying less-than-cd-quality tracks as my "master copy".
Rating: 22 Votes
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doctorossi
95 months ago

I still don't understand why they are not selling ALAC. The huge datacenters they built should support those transfers easily nowadays.


I have the same question. I bought into the iTunes ecosystem only when the iPod started supporting ALAC playback and I expected ALAC content on iTunes to be just around the corner.

Here we are in 2012 and I've never purchased a song from iTunes. If they started selling them in ALAC, I would buy hundreds.
Rating: 15 Votes
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AppleScruff1
95 months ago
Once you go FLAC, you'll never go back.
Rating: 14 Votes
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drumcat
95 months ago

This. All I want is a higher quality master copy of my digital songs. 128-256 is great for my ipod + headphones but there's a huge difference playing lossless files through my 7.1 setup vs compressed audio files.

I realize I'm in the minority but it has always felt wrong buying less-than-cd-quality tracks as my "master copy".


Forgive me, but "7.1" is still going to put 2-channel through your 8 drivers. This kinda needs a "Condescending Wonka" image...
Rating: 12 Votes
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ghostface147
95 months ago

Me too...sell me a NON-APPLE PROPRIETARY LOSSLESS FORMAT (such as WAV, APE, FLAC) and I would buy hundreds of songs a year. I own 0 from iTunes. I have over 24,000 songs...all ripped from my cds that I purchase each week from Amazon below $10 a pop with free shipping and 0 tax.


Apple open sourced ALAC late last year as well as made it royalty free.
Rating: 12 Votes
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drumcat
95 months ago
A/B testing

Hello all,

I'm sorry, but you guys who are meow meowing about not having ALAC stuff... while I understand why you guys want it, 99% of customers don't want the huge files, and Apple doesn't want your iDevice getting too full. Both inhibit sales.

Oh, and I bet if anyone took a Pepsi Challenge on 256 AAC vs 96/24, you would be statistically random. I can beat a 320 mp3 every day of the week, but I can't beat 256 AAC. If that's the case, why can't 256 AAC satisfy? It's not like we all run around saying OMG I NEED UNCOMPRESSED VIDEO - usually people are pretty satisfied with BluRay - hell, even 4k is compressed, but you WANT ALL THE BITS in audio? Come on. Are you the same guy that says you want it on vinyl because that's better? Gag.
Rating: 11 Votes
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ghostface147
95 months ago

I still don't understand why they are not selling ALAC. The huge datacenters they built should support those transfers easily nowadays.


Well how big is a 4 minute AAC song compared to a 4 minute ALAC one?
Rating: 8 Votes
Avatar
overcast
95 months ago

people actually use iTunes for media?



:confused:


Save it, iTunes is fine for organizing music.
Rating: 7 Votes

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