Q: iTunes distortion of music during playback - partial solution
Hi.
For a few years,I have been occasionally frustrated by listening to music through headphones on my Macbook Pro with Retna display. I listen to both classical and rock. The sound is somewhat distorted and more distorted on more intense parts (loud, dynamic) of the music. I decided to spend some time on it today; this is what I found.
I picked one song (a classical violin concerto) with to experiment, a ripped several years ago from a CD, now an MPEG4 (192 kbps, 44.1 kHz sample rate) stereo audio file. While playing I experienced badly distorted intense passages. iTunes Equalization for that file was None (I assume flat).
I tried multiple headphones of differing impedance. No difference. Thinking it might be the analog components in my Mac that were distorting, I tried a USB DAC in combination with differing headphones. No difference. The same song, played through my iPad that is only synced (locally - not through iCloud) actually played the music beautifully (no distortion).
So, it isn't analog hardware related.
I used one of my sound processing programs (Amadeus Pro). I pointed it to open the exact iTunes file from within the iTunes file hierarchy. I played it and it sounded GREAT. Totally unexpected.
I went back to iTunes. After groveling in some old complaints, I found suggestions to run off "Sound Check." Doing that eliminated most - BUT NOT ALL - of the distortion. Again, the same file through Amadeus plays and sounds perfectly.
So, either iTunes has problems or there’s something wrong with the program or CODECs.
iTunes VERSION is 12.1.2
I should note that this annoying problem has persisted for years and on multiple laptops through the years.
I have submitted feedback to Apple.
I hope this helps.
aps
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), null
Posted on May 18, 2015 6:55 PM