In depth: Mastered for iTunes

[agarwalro]

One of the tech blogs that I frequent did a long and technically strong article on the "Mastered for iTunes" alledged audible superiority over general 128 kbps encoded MP3s. I'm not getting to it until much later today, but it has the makings of a great read and perhaps good discussion here.

Does "Mastered for iTunes" matter to music? Ars puts it to the test

 

[lsiberian]

It sounds like a good idea to me. It certainly makes sense. I realize DBT doesn't really reveal much of a difference, but I'm not completely sold that there isn't an audible difference.

 

[DS-21]

I think it's clear there could be an audible difference - but it comes down to changing the master, rather than anything else.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that provides a way out of the loudness wars is a good thing. Even though, Apple fanboy I am, I've never bought anything from the iTunes Music Store (except video rentals) that was available in a non-lossy version, and this new standard won't change that.

 

[fuzz092888]

Just finished reading the article. Really interesting, I think that apple is taking a step in the right direction and it seems like they're aiming towards eventually having the original studio masters available (someday far far away), which would be great.

It seems like the new mastering technique will yield better results when converting back to lossless, and while still not CD or original master quality, it's a step in the right direction.