Michael Allbritton wrote:
richsadams wrote:
Of course when you listen to an iTunes Match track on another computer or iDevice it will always be a 256kpbs file.
RIght. That is exactly what RollTide is complaining about. He wants his original track to be "uploaded" instead of "matched" so he hears exactly what he wants to hear.
Ah, understood, and that would be nice but iTunes Match has always been a 256kpbs file system. They've never indicated that larger files could be up or downloaded. Presumably that's to reduce storage but more importantly bandwidth when files are downloaded. Otherwise it could get pretty ugly depending on one's download speeds, particularly for folks using an iDevice via 3G (or I guess 4G LTE with the new iPad). I guess some folks could bump up against their monthly data plans if a lot of larger files were downloaded too.
I use my Apple TV2 to listen to music on my home theater system. Depending on the situation I have used both iTunes Match as well as streaming directly from my iMac. iTunes Match quality is quite good but if I really want to listen to über HQ audio, I can still switch to iTunes, or 'gasp' play a CD. 😉
All of that said, basically, if you want true CD quality (which uses compressed bit-rates from the original analog or digital masters) from the files on your music server, you must use WAV or AIF encoding or FLAC, ALC, or WMA Lossless. Both MP3 and AAC introduce fairly large changes in the measured spectra, even at the highest rate of 320kbps. There seems little point in spending large sums of money on superbly specified audio equipment if you are going to play sonically compromised, lossy-compressed music on it.
The bottom line with regard to what level of compression you're willing to accept (if any) when listening to your music is a personal choice of course...all ears are not created equal, nor is all music. How and where you listen to music and on what equipment also needs to be factored in.
So I agree that it would be nice to have higher quality files uploaded -- and distributed to other devices, but that's probably not going to happen with iTunes Match.
I haven't used it, but I understand that Google Music does allow for 320kbps files to be uploaded and will stream them at 320kbps as well. Again, I don't know all of the in's and out's of Google Music and I'm not sure if that would address RollTide's needs but that's another option.