The Official "Apple Digital Masters / Mastered for iTunes" Thread*

Thanks for the heads-up - maybe it's about time I finally bought BACK IN BLACK!

 

Coltrane!

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Also, Paul Simon...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Well first of all, thank you for this thread. I've been curious about iTunes in general ever since I started using it to catalogue my digital music collection. I've never bought anything from iTunes though, because as mentioned in previous posts, it's so easy to do, that you don't realize the expense.

However... on checking the store last night, I noticed that The Beatles box set is available, in the Mastered For iTunes format. And it's quite a lot cheaper than buying the collection in CD format. So I was thinking that, if I'm gonna purchase anything from iTunes, it might as well be something classic that won't lose value over time.

My question is, would I be better off spending more for the CD collection, sound wise?

 

How good is your sound system? I think 256k AAC sounds pretty good, but a CD is still better. At least on my playback system.

 

Great news on the Coltrane page lots on new MFiT releases. Not got any as of yet, they seem to release at a low price then bump it up later.

 

That's what I needed to know, and thank you very much for your assistance.

My sound system is good enough to hear a difference between 256kbps and 320kbps. 320 sounds rich and full, whereas 256 comes off kind of flat with weird artifacts at times. Maybe just my imagination, but 256 sounds "off" somehow.

 

Best thing to do would be to buy a handful of the tracks you know and like well already, see how they sound to you. iTunes Store does a thing called Complete My Album, meaning if you buy a track or two from an album and like them, you can buy the rest of the album minus the cost of the tracks already bought.

If you do this with the Beatles, be sure to buy the tracks from the box set - not the individual albums - if you plan on potentially getting the box set.

As far as the Beatles themselves on iTunes, the stuff I've bought so far sounds pretty damned good. I bought the stereo and mono boxsets back in 2009 prior to the band's catalogue showing up on iTunes so haven't bought any of the core UK catalogue albums from iTunes. Since then I've bought 1, BBC vol2, Yellow Submarine Soundtrack and the US Albums boxset from iTunes. None of them are apples to apples (I know...) comparable to the stereo box set aside from the tracks on 1. Concentrating on the 1 album content it sounds more than good enough on the lounge system (see my setup below) and is fine for portable listening. Buy a couple of tracks and make your own call though.

Aside from the music, all of the Beatles albums on iTunes come with iTunes LP content which replicates the booklets that come with the CDs in a sort of mini-website form in the iTunes application on PC or Mac. If you're so inclined you can open up the iTunes LP files and extract the JPGs of the booklets themselves - nice for loading up on a tablet and leafing through.

At the risk of labouring the point, spend the cost of a decent sized latte on a few tracks and listen for yourself. If they're not to your liking then fair enough. Personally I was happy enough with the sound of 1, BBC vol2 and YSS to spend some serious cash on the iTunes MFiT US Albums box set and that sounds just great to my ears. Very happy with it.

 

Beach Boys Made In California digital boxset now MFiT. Having already bought it when it originally came out, I feel a bijou upgrade and re-download coming on!

 

Well this sure makes perfect sense as well. Thanks!

I guess a lot of the appeal for me, is that I can't think of a better way to get acquainted with the iTunes Store and its' services, than to begin with a gem of a collection at a really attractive price. At $150, it's looking like a nice neat way to begin a financial relationship with iTunes. And the bonus materials you've described are really appealing. So it's a whole experience kind of thing for me, but I sure wouldn't want to wind up with something substandard that I'd only wind up having to get again in another format. I'll give a listen, and again thank you so much for your kind assistance.

 

Are you talking about 256kbps AAC vs 320kbps AAC? Or 256 MP3 vs 320 MP3?

 

MP3 vs MP3. I'm not very familiar with the benefits of AAC, which is one of the reasons why I'm asking so many stupid questions. Any help appreciated.

 

AAC is a much more efficient codec relative to MP3. For a given bitrate, say 256Kb/s, an AAC file should sound better than the same bitrate MP3 file. Think of it as less of the original audio being thrown away with AAC than MP3.

If you have the facility, take a track you know REALLY well on CD, something well recorded with organic sounding instruments, and rip that track to both MP3 and AAC at 256KB/s. You can do this in iTunes by playing with the import settings and making sure that each rip has a different song name. ie 'Take It Easy' - 'AAC and Take It Easy - MP3'

Ok. Assuming you've done this, listen carefully. How do the cymbals sound on each? Crisp and well defined, like an Ssss sound? Or like a badly tuned FM radio, with the cymbals making more of an TTHhh sound?

Do the vocals sound natural? Slightly processed with a robotic/metallic twang?

How distinct is each instrument? Can you identify and follow it equally well in the mix on each version? How does it sound relative to the CD you've been listening to for years? Does either AAC or MP3 sound better defined, more naturalistic?

The important thing is that how well does each codec reproduce the music relative to the source (a CD in this case) when everything else stays the same: playback hardware, file bitrate, same source in all cases.

Essentially you'll be using the same evaluation criteria you'd use when buying or upgrading a piece of audio hardware.

 

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated, and I think I understand the format a little better now. I guess I'm wondering at this point, does it look like the AAC format is going to have staying power? I've read up on it a little since reading your reply, and it looks like there's a reasonable amount of push in the industry to make this a standard, but that hasn't exactly happened yet.

I guess I'm wondering if AAC stands a chance of being the Betamax of audio formats. Any significant developments lately that would tip the scales either way?

 

I've got a bit of money to spend on an iTunes voucher and was having a hard time deciding what to get. Going by the general opinion on this thread, the recent Led Zeppelin remasters sound superb (and I know myself how good The Who remasters are), but I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on the '60's Stones catalogue? I'm extremely interested in hearing if it's worth getting or if I should just stick to the 2002 remasters.

Also, The Doors, Elvis Presley, Cream, Bob Dylan and the complete Allman Brothers Fillmore recordings are all very tempting...but I can't get them all just yet.

If anyone could give me some idea of how any of these artists MFiT's sound, I would really appreciate it.

 

AAC has been the codec of choice for the iTunes store since it's inception back in 2002/2003, initially as DRM (digital rights management) encumbered 128Kb/s files and then DRM free (i.e. play anywhere) 256Kb/s 256 Kb/s. At this point it is 12/13 years old and with iTunes the world's biggest music store by volume sold, it's staying power has already been demonstrated.

Amazon & Google's music stores still deliver music as MP3 files: through to 2007 the only device you could play iTunes store AAC files on was either an iPod or iTunes on Mac/PC. MP3 despite being lower quality at the same bitrate was absolutely guaranteed to play on anything; it was the one universal file format that could be played anywhere and as such was popular for people trading music files (illegally or otherwise). Hardware manufacturers, by supporting MP3, were at least guaranteed consideration by consumers. Not supporting MP3 and not being Apple would guarantee no sales for hardware manufacturers.

When iTunes dropped DRM for their music files in 2007 any music bought from that point was DRM free. People could also pay a fee per track (around 0.20UKP) or per album (20% of full album cost) to upgrade to DRM free 256Kb/s versions of their prior purchases.

As such, since 2007, there are a lot of AAC files around that people have bought from iTunes that they now expect to Just Work with their non-Apple kit, i.e. car stereos, home streaming systems, non Apple smartphones etc. And given the critical mass of AAC files out there, hardware manufacturers obliged. It's hard to find any digital audio hardware these days that doesn't support AAC and it's been like that for a while.

All of this is to say that AAC is not and will not be the Betamax of digital audio file formats. Concentrating solely on the lossy audio side of things, MP3 is the most ubiquitous, AAC second by virtue of the sheer number of iTunes sales and iPods (historically) and iPhones (currently) out there. Neither format is going away anytime soon and both are highly likely to be supported in hardware for generations to come. They are both to digital music files what the JEPG is to digital photos.

Even if the iTunes store folded tomorrow there would still be eleventy billion AAC files out there that people would continue to want to play. The AAC codec itself isn't owned by Apple so hardware support would continue to be licensed and implemented for some time to come or be rejected by consumers.

No, if you want Betamax formats they would have been Windows Media Audio (.wma) files using the PlaysForSure, Zune DRM wrappers etc.

 

Thank you. That's beautifully written, and answers another nagging question very well. I hope you can appreciate my being apprehensive. MP3 has indeed been such an all purpose standard for so long now, it's a little unnerving to be considering alternatives. Still, a good deal at the iTunes Store is indeed a powerful motivator, and that's why I'm being such a pain here. Hope it's not too troublesome for any of you. It really has helped, though, so please be aware of that.

 

No trouble at all!. In the early days of MP3 most files were badly encoded using 128Kb/s bitrate and nigh on all of these sounded awful, giving the codec/format the bad name that still lingers even on this forum. In most quarters the term MP3 is a byword for lousy sounding digital audio. As well as the AAC codec giving audibly better reproduction than MP3, MP3 encoders have gotten much, much better than their early incarnations. Although I personally prefer AAC, 320Kb/s MP3 with a modern encoder can give entirely respectable results.

With the Mastered for iTunes programme labels and publishers have started to consider mastering and preparing music especially for the AAC format, rather than it being an afterthought of the CD preparation process. This thread is full of endorsements and recommendations of MFiT albums, all of which are AAC 256Kb/s.

Far better to approach the whole iTunes/AAC/MFiT with an open mind and asking questions as yo have done than making blanket assumptions based on what MP3 was 15/16 years ago. If it's all ultimately not for you and your preferred listening equipment & environment then fair enough. At least you've not arrived with a "iTunes = MP3, MP3 sucks so iTunes = sucks!" mindset

 

I agree with you on this: as a spotify subscriber as well as an MFIT purchaser I can tell the difference easy. Running Spotify at 320. I am currently playing John Coltrane's = Atlantic Studio Album Collection on spotify, I have played snippets on iTunes MFIT and the sound better to my ears but I thought I heard some distortion on Bags & Trane album on itunes version. Just listen to spotify to compare. Since all these new MFIT titles have been coming out I can't stop buying, there is more every week.

 

Does anyone know why the US store has the new James Brown Live At The Apollo vol I to IV in MFIT that was released by universal recently and the UK store does not list it at all. I have tried contacting apple but they don't reply.

 

A few people at work (windows PCs) insist on using its default Windows Media Player with its default setting of 128 Kbps .wma files, when they copy their CDs... (I'm assuming it's all default, since I can't imagine them even considering bothering to learn how to change settings.) If I want to share one of iTunes' free downloads (obviously AAC) with them, will it play on Windows Media Player?

 

Windows Media Player on Windows 8/8.1 definitely plays AAC files. Windows 7 WMP I think so.

According to http://support.microsoft.com/KB/316992 it's down to the specific version of Windows Media Player. WMP 12 will support AAC and is the supplied version in Windows 7/8/8.1.

 

Thanks! It's rather strange at work, where a group of people have the "WMP 128k .wma mindset". We can talk music, but any talk of sound quality or equipment is met with rolled eyes. Free download tracks are usually Christmas music. Most of the time they're mp3s from Amazon, but I was curious if AAC tracks would be met with confusion.

 

Lossy WMA and MP3 suck. Go with AAC or Ogg Vorbis.

 

I don't have the Stone's individual MFiT albums, but I have Hot Rocks which is MFiT, and it sounds very good. Ruby Tuesday is the time-corrected version or so I've heard. I have The Doors MFiT complete studio albums. 8 albums for $50. Pretty good. If only want one of them to sample and want to save a few bucks, The Doors self-titled album is on sale this week for $6.99. They sound kind of soft to me. I prefer the CDs or vinyl. You may feel differently.