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This is heresy. In the old days we used to burn people like Ken Rockwell at the stake. Prepare to be shocked fellow audiophiles...
iTunes
iTunes is Apple's free software used to copy all your CDs into your computer so you can load them into an iPod. It also allows you to play and manage your entire CD library from your computer, and it sounds great for serious listening.
The AAC coder in iTunes sounds great at 128kbs AAC VBR, and that's for serious listening on high-end audiophile systems with your eyes closed and your full attention on the music. Just plug in a set of professional headphones that cost more than the iPod, or plug the one ounce Nano, which is smaller than a business card and 1/4" thick, into a 400 pound classical recording studio monitoring system and you'll have the same epiphany I did.
I used the analog outputs from my Quad G5 and my classic Beyer DT990 headphones, through which I can hear more than through my Quad ESL63 or B&W 801 monitors. I've also played CDs burnt from compressed iTunes files through these monitors, as well as through a Krell / Martin Logan electrostatic system and it sounds exactly like the original CDs.
Most critical listeners from outside the recording industry don't realize that most audible artifacts are part of the recordings they buy, not the gear used to reproduce them. These folks, often called audiophiles, spend their lives trying to work around the nasty things we audio engineers do to the audio before it gets to you. Do your own tests if you prefer. Beware that many of the defects many people blame on data compression are in the CDs they bought in the first place. I listened for differences between the original CD and the iTunes rendition. Hearing no difference is perfection, and I got that at 128kbs variable bit rate. Better compression schemes can't get rid of defects already recorded into your CDs. For that you need something like a dBx 3BX I use when listening to over-the-counter recordings, but not for today's tests.
iTunes also allows recording music without any data loss and also at 96kHz sampling rates to save more space. I'll get to that later.
This documents what I learned in a day of listening tests. In one day of listening I only got to compare the formats I mention below. Others spend lifetimes worrying about compression formats. A day was all I wanted to invest, and I'm quite happy with the results. I'd rather listen to music than algorithms.
I eventually imported my 600 CD library, which took a month and 36 GB, and it sounds great.
Nigel.
iTunes
iTunes is Apple's free software used to copy all your CDs into your computer so you can load them into an iPod. It also allows you to play and manage your entire CD library from your computer, and it sounds great for serious listening.
The AAC coder in iTunes sounds great at 128kbs AAC VBR, and that's for serious listening on high-end audiophile systems with your eyes closed and your full attention on the music. Just plug in a set of professional headphones that cost more than the iPod, or plug the one ounce Nano, which is smaller than a business card and 1/4" thick, into a 400 pound classical recording studio monitoring system and you'll have the same epiphany I did.
I used the analog outputs from my Quad G5 and my classic Beyer DT990 headphones, through which I can hear more than through my Quad ESL63 or B&W 801 monitors. I've also played CDs burnt from compressed iTunes files through these monitors, as well as through a Krell / Martin Logan electrostatic system and it sounds exactly like the original CDs.
Most critical listeners from outside the recording industry don't realize that most audible artifacts are part of the recordings they buy, not the gear used to reproduce them. These folks, often called audiophiles, spend their lives trying to work around the nasty things we audio engineers do to the audio before it gets to you. Do your own tests if you prefer. Beware that many of the defects many people blame on data compression are in the CDs they bought in the first place. I listened for differences between the original CD and the iTunes rendition. Hearing no difference is perfection, and I got that at 128kbs variable bit rate. Better compression schemes can't get rid of defects already recorded into your CDs. For that you need something like a dBx 3BX I use when listening to over-the-counter recordings, but not for today's tests.
iTunes also allows recording music without any data loss and also at 96kHz sampling rates to save more space. I'll get to that later.
This documents what I learned in a day of listening tests. In one day of listening I only got to compare the formats I mention below. Others spend lifetimes worrying about compression formats. A day was all I wanted to invest, and I'm quite happy with the results. I'd rather listen to music than algorithms.
I eventually imported my 600 CD library, which took a month and 36 GB, and it sounds great.
Nigel.
unk:
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