Apple Reportedly Looking to Offer 24-Bit Music Files in iTunes Store

Posted by: totemphile on 22 February 2011

"CNN reports that Apple is in talks with record labels to increase the quality of music sold through the iTunes Store, boosting the music from a 16-bit format to a 24-bit format.

Professional music producers generally capture studio recordings in a 24-bit, high-fidelity audio format. Before the originals, or "masters" in industry parlance, are pressed onto CDs or distributed to digital sellers like Apple's iTunes, they're downgraded to 16-bit files.

From there, the audio can be compressed further in order to minimize the time the music will take to download or to allow it to be streamed on-the-fly over the internet.

The report suggests that the high-quality files could eventually appear as premium-priced options next to existing formats. Users may also have to invest in new hardware to support the 24-bit files.

Many models of Mac computers can play 24-bit sound, and the iTunes program is capable of handling such files. But most portable electronics, and many computers, don't support 24-bit audio.

To make the jump to higher-quality music attractive for Apple, the Cupertino, California, company would have to retool future versions of iPods and iPhones so they can play higher-quality files.

Apple's iTunes Store initially offered 16-bit tracks at 128 kbps with digital rights management (DRM) technology included. But over time, the company was able to introduce "iTunes Plus" tracks encoded at 256 kbps and lacking any DRM restrictions, eventually shifting the store's entire catalog over to iTunes Plus tracks. A further shift to offering true, uncompressed 24-bit tracks would have the potential to reinvigorate music sales by catering to audiophiles unhappy with the current quality of music downloads."

Source: macrumors.com

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by realhifi

Originally Posted by King Size:

Originally Posted by realhifi:

That seems to be too much "me too" for Apple.... The branding that Apple is now in the midst of is not one of pay less for more but one of pay well for quality. I can see them offering the higher quality music for their new higher quality iWhatevers and notebooks with possibly a subscription format for lower quality streaming which may finally be seen for what it is...low quality. The cloud based server they have just set up could support both I'm betting. For them to simply be another subscription service ala Pandora doesn't sit with the whole Apple culture. I think they are looking hard at high quality and being THE place for artists to sell their music. I can't imagine they don't want to be the dominant force in music distribution for the computer age and in order to do that and be that they need to make a move. This just might be part of it.

My take on things is that history has not been kind to new formats that offer superior sound quality. Convenience seems to be the primary consideration in terms of what format succeeds. I would suggest that to the majority of consumers out there a music file is a music file - i'm pretty sure i've even seen the question asked - "what is the difference between an iTunes download and a CD? - on his forum.

Either way Apple will only make a move if they believe they can make money from it. Their recent "mandatory in-app subscription" move with, a 30% share of the subscription going to Apple is indicative of that. But then maybe that is their attempt to hamper subscription-based services, as a number of players have already indicated that a subscription based model isn't viable under those terms.

Gut feel though is that there simply isn't enough consumer demand/critical mass to make hi-res downloads commercially viable at this stage.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I generally agree with you on this but...I do believe that if there is a company that could make people not only aware of the difference that a quality file makes but then SELL them the idea that it's what they should buy, it's Apple. They sell laptops that are basically twice the price of a competing companies model and people not only purchase them, they love them. They are a stunning example of modern day marketing and manufacturing. Love em or hate em, they are the smartest kids in class right now and if they think that there is a market (that's us) then they will just do it. I think there is something to the fact that they are quietly aligning themselves with some of the bigger and better companies now in home entertainment hardware, ie Denon, B&W, Naim, Marantz, etc. and it's not just for video. I think they're going to get into the game. In a big way.

As you say, we'll just have to wait and see. Airplay of high resolution files anyone?

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Occean

With HD being the thing at the moment, they could quite easily market it very well and sell music in HD.

Without very good marketing it would fail. Would also give people very good reasons to purchase bigger ipod/iphones.

Apple could win all round & fair play to them!

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Richard Lord

The only downside for the vast majority of people, who would not notice the difference anyway, is it would take longer to download. I suspect that is the historical reason for MP3. That and because the first generation iPods had small memory. But unfortunately our economic system always seems to devolve down to the cheapest available. Many people were happy with 128 kB/s, the improvement to 256 quite possibly passed them by. So talk of full 24 bit (no idea what the streaming rate for that might be) would be of little interest, especially if Apple and the software industry demand more revenue for them - which they will.

I suppose that sounds cynical. It is not intended to be. Just being realistic. Obviously, it goes without saying that I (and the majority in this Forum) would be happy to pay more for a bit perfect copy of the original master tape. I am just concerned that the vast majority might not be so keen.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Frank Abela

Although the hi-res opportunity would miss the average person in the street looking for music on their iPod, the audiophile community would be a different mater. Given that CD is now the 'hi-res option' by comoparison to traditional MP3/AAC download and that vinyl sales are up and supporting their niche market, I think there's an audiophile market for true hi-res downloads - which could eventually kill vinyl which has always been bought on quality grounds.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Occean

More people were happy with regular TV until HD was sold to them! rememebr MP3 was sold to the masses as cd quality pretty much

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by js

They've opened Pandora's box. It will be hard to throw 24 bit back in and close it back up. Fully expect ALAC to try and keep you in Itunes and help the servers but it's easily converted if that's what you want. I would guess lossless 24/44.1 and hope for more later.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by pcstockton

Originally Posted by realhifi:

Airplay of high resolution files anyone?

Yea right.... No way. If this happens you will see an entirely new range of software and hardware products. Keep in mind they really DO like to sell hardware, and lots of it.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by js

Originally Posted by Richard Lord:

But nothing's really changed. CDs didn't replace records, they replaced prerecorded cassettes which owned the bulk of sales. Enthusiests can drive a market as we're the influential squeeky wheel

but we'll never have it catered to us. Fortunately the overhead here for Apple is small and it becomes a profit added type product with perhaps some hardware for them to flog in the future.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Nathaniel

I think this is a very exciting prospect.

As for file formats: I don't care! You can translate (in bulk) with no loss of data (except a tag or two) between FLAC/AppleLossless/AIFF/WAV etc, so it's just a matter of convenience.

But, if it happens, I bet there's at least one gotchya that'll rain on our parade. Here are a few candidates:

DRM: Will the record companies be willing to release hi-res without some heavy licensing/DRM safeguards? Are we looking at a return to the bad-ol' days?

Software restrictions: Will Apple release hi-res material in a new, proprietary encrypted format that only their software can decode?

Hardware restrictions: Will Apple do as Sony did with SACD and require proprietary hardware to do the decoding? I don't know how this might work without Apple alienating everyone, but they've done it before.

The cloud: Will Apple prevent us control-freaks from possessing the music files and do a spotify--hi-res available via streaming only? Pay-per-play?

I hope not.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Frank Abela

@ js,

I beg to differ. CDs killed cassettes, sure, but they also killed off vinyl sales. Currently vinyl has risen to a high of some 20 million records I believe. CD is supposedly at death's door and is still in the hundreds of millions...

Apple has already dipped their toe in the quality water by offering iTunes Plus which gives 256k AAC instead of 128. They'd hardly be looking at hi-res if that model hadn't worked. The question is whether the 24-bit content would be DRM'd. The 256 content is not DRM'd. Given that downloads outnumber CD sales and given that the industry agreed to the 256k downloads, one can hope that non-DRM hi-res might actually happen. If it's DRM'd that'll hurt sales, but at least it'd be available.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by King Size

There is an article in the Feb 23rd issue of Billboard Bulletin headed 'INTERSCOPE'S JIMMY IOVINE FIGHTING THE 24-BIT FIGHT' that discusses Jimmy Iovine's fight to increase the quality of digital music. They refer to the CNN article, where he reiterates his desire to get the labels to supply Apple and other digital retailers with 24-bit high-fidelity audio files rather than the 16-bit files they give now.

"We've gone back now at Universal, and we're changing our pipes to 24 bit. And Apple has been great," Iovine says in the article. "We're working with them and other digital services -- download services -- to change to 24 bit. And some of their electronic devices are going to be changed as well. So we have a long road ahead of us." The CNN piece says that "talks" are ongoing.

The article continues:

"One quote that stood out in the piece is from Shawn Layden, executive VP and COO of Sony Network Entertainment, the division behind the new Qriocity Music Unlimited streaming service:

"The challenges of music right now -- I don't think the primary one is a quality issue," he says. "Music lovers worldwide are mostly keen right now on the convenience of access -- 'make it easier for me to have.'"

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by likesmusic

If you check out the Linn forum, you'll see a very interesting post from Jim C of Linn Records. He says that Linn started the conversations about higher quality downloads; that perhaps as a consequence future generations of iPod will have enhanced capability, and that he has "no doubt that Apple will be launching a lossless CD quality option in the very near future ".

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by pcstockton

The strange thing about anything i've read about "24bit on iTunes" references their current "16 bit MP3s". Also there is a deafening silence on them going to hi-res (24/96) files.

Does this mean they will be releasing 24bit MP3s? Does such a thing exist?

-p

Posted on: 23 February 2011 by Bananahead

I see a lot of people using better headphones with their ipods. To me this shows that more people care about music quality than is generally believed.

Posted on: 24 February 2011 by winkyincanada

Originally Posted by Bananahead:

I see a lot of people using better headphones with their ipods. To me this shows that more people care about music quality than is generally believed.

You might be right, but one reason I don't use those earbuds is that they just fall out of my ears. The little f*&^ers just won't stay in place. They are not even close to being in any way actually usable.. I really don't understand how anybody uses them. They sound terrible yes, but the crap ergonomics are the real deal killer for me.

Posted on: 25 February 2011 by js

Originally Posted by Frank Abela:

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Well of course CDs also killed off records but that wasn't the point, was it? The point was that quality (record) didn't drive the bulk of the market then and doesn't now. Why would we expect it to in the future? That CDs could replace records with the crappy dig sound of the day is another good example of the very same. There's room for HiDef, especially with the current ease of distribution but the reality is that MP3 will continue to garner the bulk sales just as prerecorded cassettes had previously. Besides being a value added point of profit to the bulk of their music sales, that HiDef is a good marketing feather for a distributors cap won't be lost on Apple and others but their model would break trying to make it their bulk of biz. Visit a consumer forum like HeadFi and you'll find the consensus is that folks can't hear a dif above 256. Of course there are those that disagree and know better like us but these folks consider themselves audiophiles. Imagine what the majority of the average download buying consumer thinks? It's too easy to only think in our vacuum when we never see most clients that buy their listening kit in big box stores based on comparative #s on the side of a carton.

Posted on: 25 February 2011 by js

Which makes this a good thing. This will take more market share away from silver disks and should be viable for Apple but the important part for us is that it's pro active and likely promoted which will be good for it's viability. MP3 already outsells CDs but standard to HiDef is still a big enough piece of a very big pie to support.

Posted on: 27 February 2011 by dzambolaja

Originally Posted by realhifi:

YES!!!!!!!!!!!
This would be HUGE for the Audiophile community and music lovers in general. If this happens then Apple will have shown once again their capacity to listen to their customers and to actually respond in a meaningful way. If this is true then it is big BRAVO to Apple! Let's hope that they also increase the resolution of their "standard" downloads to AIFF, cd quality, at the same time they are working on the HD direction.

Man, Airplay and now this. Apple is ready to take a leap even further into the entertainment industry. What can't they do?

I still do not get all this fuss and excitement about Airplay? There have been other methods around, many of them superior anyway.

Bobby

Posted on: 27 February 2011 by Richard Lord

Originally Posted by dzambolaja:

I still do not get all this fuss and excitement about Airplay? There have been other methods around, many of them superior anyway.

Bobby

Which "other methods" are you referring to? In what way are they superior to Airplay? I do not use any of them, I simply use an optical link direct from my ATV into my Qute. So just curious.

Posted on: 27 February 2011 by realhifi

Originally Posted by dzambolaja:

I still do not get all this fuss and excitement about Airplay? There have been other methods around, many of them superior anyway.

Bobby

So you can stream (wirelessly) from your iPad straight into your hifi after you have just sat on the couch and purchased the music from somewhere like HDTracks? Or you've had a friend stop by and streamed a quick video wirelessly onto your tv from their phone? Cool, let me know what software you are using, love to get that.

Posted on: 27 February 2011 by Tog

Not n-stream anyway :-(

Tog

Posted on: 27 February 2011 by Tog

Originally Posted by realhifi:

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Originally Posted by dzambolaja:

I still do not get all this fuss and excitement about Airplay? There have been other methods around, many of them superior anyway.

Bobby

Why would you want to stream from your iPad?

However, you can sit on your couch and control your music swiftly, use playlists, DJ shuffle, control Internet radio - stream movies bought and ripped using free software to your TV using a control app on your iPad that was also free and a streamer that cost £99.

N-stream anyone?

Tog

Posted on: 27 February 2011 by dzambolaja

UPnP streaming from laptop or desktop PC, Mac or NAS, wired or wireless, controlled by iPad or Android smart phone apps. Or, streaming to a cheapo Sony bluray DVD player than SPDIF to Uniti.

Why would you bother with Airplay? it is just another Apple's advertising wrap up of already existing technologies-in principle.

And it has limitations playing the hi-res files anyway.

(BTW, I am an Apple fanboy, big time!)

Posted on: 28 February 2011 by okli

Originally Posted by realhifi:

So you can stream (wirelessly) from your iPad straight into your hifi after you have just sat on the couch and purchased the music from somewhere like HDTracks?

If this is really possible I'd get an iPad at the moment - so, you first will need a PC to be able to download your files from hdtracks and store them somewhere. After that you can reach for your shiny ipad and pretend "I can do everything with it"... Exactly these stupid Apple restrictions drive me crazy - we can serve, but we can't save files, we can play all possible funny stuff, but we can't get to our files through a normal network share, we have super usability with airplay, but everything must reside on running mac and will be resampled to 48kHz.... Oh, and did I mentioned that I had to go through 10 pages in internet to find out that only 5 printers were able to print via airprint at the time this feature was announced as the "greatest" feature of iOS 4.2 on Apple's hp. So, if Apple removes all this "but" stuff I'll be the greatest fan of them.

Posted on: 28 February 2011 by realhifi

Originally Posted by okli:

Originally Posted by realhifi:

So you can stream (wirelessly) from your iPad straight into your hifi after you have just sat on the couch and purchased the music from somewhere like HDTracks?

Not quite, you are right. You can purchase from iTunes and possibly a few others and do that but not HDTracks. Apple needs to beef up the Java support on the iPad to be able to use the downloader from HDTracks before it can do that. Where it shines is in it's control of another Mac or a Naim system as many have already commented. You CAN however use your MacBook Pro to do as I had outlined to stream music to from the MBP to your hifi through an Apple TV. If and when Naim or someone gets on board and is able to take a stream via Airplay at a higher resolution then you could have it all at your fingertips. It's pretty close already.