iTunes Download Bitrate Question.

Keep an eye out for Pono 🙂 www.ponomusic.com
to put it into perspective MP3-Apple, up to 320 kbps... CD, up to 1411 kbps... Pono music service/Pono player, from 1411kbps up to 9216 kbps! Imagine how much more quality and music is coming through... and quite a few big names are joining them... apple will need to do something soon, or be left behind...
i know i can't stand listening to mp3 or iPods in my car, which has a pretty decent audio setup. too much capping out on the music and not enough clarity by any means,CD is WAY better and instantly noticable, can't wait to get a Pono!

Amazon is a great option here. You buy the CD for the full quality music and Amazon gives you instant access to 320kbit mp3 for instant gratification. When you get the CD you can rip it to Apple lossless, flac, or whatever you desire.

Hate to be reviving old threads but I am seriously disappointed with iTunes quality. As an amateur audiophile I can very distinctly hear the difference between 256kbps MP3 and 320kbps MP3, general listeners claim to not be able to hear the difference between these two (even I couldn't when I first started actually paying attention to it).
Apple really needs to lift their game and allow the option to download music in their lossless codec (ALAC). I purchased a song from the iTunes store which came at 256kbps AAC and my god does it sound like vomit. I'm not lying it sounds like someone has taken my $800 studio monitors and vomited into the bass port. There's no bottom end, and when their is supposed to be bottom end it makes everything else sound like it's being played through a bowl of Cornflakes.
Classmates of mine have run tests for their bachelor degree in audio and they report Apple purchased AAC to be worse compression fidelity than MP3. The whole point of AAC is to be better quality than MP3 and be the same file size. Don't even get me started on the marketing ploy that is "Mastered for iTunes".

Boycott the iTunes store, it's ruining music.

"Boycott" is rather silly, but consumers should definitely buy where they can get the product they want. For those who prefer MP3/320, that is exactly what the Google Play Music store sells, and it has a huge selection (comparable to the iTunes Store). Check it out if you haven't already.

There are also plenty of online music stores that sell lossless, and in some cases hi-def, downloads, although with smaller selections.

Fistula wrote:

I understand this post is old, but if the OP is still around, check out two sites...bandcamp.com and hdtracks.com. They offer flac files at full studio bitrate.

LOLOL. Seems hdtracks.com has never even heard of Taylor Swift. Well, good luck with their sub-par store! 😝

Seriously, though, I still don't understand why iTunes sells 256kbps audio, instead of full-CD quality. If I'm *paying* for digital music, I want the full quality. It really irks me that Apple charges for low quality music. And I don't care how good the mastering is done, 256kbps remains always limited. I understand them not selling 30+ Gigabyte movies, as no one could download those, but there's no reason -- other than spite, it seems -- to not sell us full-CD quality audio.

imo they should make an option download in hq with attemption that it is a big files and will have difference only on the big sound systems or smth like dat.

iTunes 10 allowed CD uploads with bitrates as high as 800 kbps. I have several CD's I uploaded that way. I have GB's of storage and I don't care how big the files are because I don't listen to them on 1" speakers. I know iTunes is capable of playing >1000kbps because I've uploaded a few phonograph albums. The quality is amazing. The same album from iTunes is trash. This is especially true of symphonic music.

Recently, I was FORCED to update to iTunes 11 when Apple made it non-functional. Yes, they purposefully blocked the iTunes store so that everyone had to update to 11. I asked a "genius" and was assured it was an improvement, and there would be no loss of features.

So, that was a BIG FAT LIE.

Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave.

Does anyone know another program that will replace iTunes? I don't need it to feed a mobile device.

Thanks,

Ellen

You can't rip it yourself even when the CD arrives by post. Apple limited iTunes 11 to 320kbps. I WANT HIGHER. iTunes 10 allowed for bitrates at least to 800kbps. Now, it is limited to 320. This is not fair, especially as Apple forced everyone to update by disabling the iTunes store for iTunes 10.

BAD APPLE.

Hi,

iTunes match has never uploaded tracks greater than 320 kpbs. If a track matched it matched as 256 kbps AAC but if the track was lossless it was transcribed to 256 kbps.

Jim

Jimzgoldfinch wrote:

Hi,

iTunes match has never uploaded tracks greater than 320 kpbs. If a track matched it matched as 256 kbps AAC but if the track was lossless it was transcribed to 256 kbps.

Jim

Sorry,

I didn't realize this thread was specifically for iTunes Match.

That was not obvious in the search I did, and not indicated by the thread title.

I don't buy music from iTunes because it is so bad, even @ the "high" level of 320kbps.

I was discussing uploading from a CD into my personal copy of iTunes. In 10, I used to be able to upload @ ~800kbps. (I can send a screen shot later). I am looking for someone to help me with figuring out how to do this in iTunes 11.

256 kbps is absolutely pathetic, and NOT acceptable by any standards. I'm an audio engineer also and I seriously feel sorry for you and Ken Rockwell, as you guys must have either very crappy equipment (Headphones or Speakers), horrible ears, or possibly both. I wouldn't be surprised if Ken Rockwell also endorses Beats by Dres as "perfectly acceptable for studio recording". Wonder how that mix would come out if everyone in the studio from basic mixing to mastering had to use Beats by Dres only LOL.

So according to your logic, people aren't able to tell the difference between a CD and a vinyl recording? Hmm...Must be why vinyl has quickly become extinct..ooh wait, no vinyl sales have actually GONE UP dramatically over the past 6 years, which is around the exact same time that Music started becoming digitized and sold primarily as crappy bitrate downloads. By the way, Ken must be an incredible engineer. You know telling people how to properly "Rip" a CD. Wow! That's some high tech audio engineering right there. I can only imagine he now travels the world and lectures people about this very same issue that it coincidentally takes the lamen audiophile 10 seconds to figure out. But you and Ken are right about one thing. Ripping should be done with the right settings. Which is why it simply infuriates me that it doesn't necessarily matter how I rip my audio, BECAUSE ITUNES APPARENTLY MAKES THE DECISION FOR ME BY DOWNGRADING & COMPRESSING IT ANYWAY.

I was discussing uploading from a CD into my personal copy of iTunes. In 10, I used to be able to upload @ ~800kbps. (I can send a screen shot later). I am looking for someone to help me with figuring out how to do this in iTunes 11.

Ellyene,

If you were ripping CDs and seeing bitrates in the range of 800 kbps you were undoubtedly using Apple Lossless.

In iTunes 12, this is accomplished via Edit > Preferences > General > Import Settings, and set "Import Using" to "Apple Lossless Encoder." OK twice, and try your rip again.

You guys don't fundamentally understand sampling, and human hearing. You can sample music at 100,000,000 kps, but it doesn't matter because you're sampling well beyond the human hearing range.

Sorry, I know this is a little late, but I'm certain that you could change the rip settings to lossless (.aiff), as I constantly rip CD's into iTunes. Granted I have iTunes 12 now, but it did work with 11 too––I think.

Instead of just blindingly saying 'yes' to 'do you want to download the CD, say 'no', then select 'download CD' on the right, and customize your options. For iOS device users, m4a @320kbps is best. Non-iOS tends not need mp3, but 320kbps is still the highest level. m4a is superior — something to do with level 4 over level 3.