Comment by leouznw
14 years ago
I know a bit of sound engineering, waves and so.. I totally agree with the title and the first 60 lines of article, and I add my POV: 1. Most of the people doesn't care, 2. What apple did is just about marketing, 3. Most of the people who says that care is pretending, 4. Zeppelin still rock the shit in a poor quality mono mp3 recorded by a drunk guy in the audience of a concert in 73.
I do care, but I'm not the average user. Apple has always catered well for those in audio and video, up to professional levels. These are markets that retain Apple users, even when Steve Jobs was between Apples. It seems like Apple is only requesting masters to come in a higher resolution, not that consumers will generally end up with these. I think this is entirely fair since before you want to modify something (e.g. to remaster it for iTunes) you want to start off at a good quality high resolution.
That said, if Apple also allows high quality recordings to be sold, it will be useful. For example of their acapellas, instrumental tracks or samples, it would be convenient for others who want to want to remix it, and iTunes would be a platform for this trade.
Also for tracks DJs play. Most compression throw away a lot of the bass which people can't hear, but this is bass you can feel rumbling through your guts on a big sound system and is part of the experience.
For the rest, they were happy with low rate AAC files on the early iPods, they are happy with the sound coming from their crappy little iPod dock, for them it won't make a difference as long as it's a chart music track from a memorable and impressionable time of their life.