It can’t be denied that Apple’s iTunes music download store (or iTMS to give it the official acronym) has become something of a media phenomenon, it has also become one of the most over hyped services in living memory. With unadulterated positive press flowing endlessly, iTunes, if you listened to the majority of the mainstream press, can do no wrong.
Thankfully some sense of balance seems to be returning as chinks in Apple’s seemingly impenetrable positive PR armour appear. Randall Stross in todays New York Times article, ‘From a High-Tech System, Low-Fi Music’ rightly points out that far from being the claimed ‘CD quality’ that all legal download stores claim (not just Apple) the paid downloads are are actually heavily compressed versions of the originals. Using a ‘lossy format’ codec and an audio file that is a fraction of the size of the original. Lossy, means lossy, converting the Apple AAC file to lossless Wav does not restore the lost audio.
The Times article goes on. Defending the company’s decision to encode its music at the low end of the bit rate range, an Apple spokesman, Derick Mains, says 128 provides good sound quality, “especially when used in iPods.” “The majority of people,” Mr. Mains said, “have absolutely no idea what a bit rate is.”
“The smaller files are handy for speedy downloads, space-saving for storage and perfectly serviceable for listening through ear buds when riding on the subway. Not what you will want, however, when your desktop computer becomes the home jukebox and wirelessly sends these simulacra to the entertainment center in the living room.” Explains Randall.
Customers are led to believe that they are getting a CD in all respects except the trouble of going to the mall. The iTunes store does not warn about the permanence of its method of compression; once freeze-dried, there is no way to reconstitute the music into CD quality for playing through a good stereo.
The bit rate for iTunes, 128kbps, is so low that when played side by side against the original (the sampling rate for normal CDs is 1,411kbps) the difference is audible not only to audio enthusiasts, but also to mortals with ordinary hearing.
Wes Phillips, contributing editor at Stereophile, says “128 is like an eight-track,” and he describes the combination of iPod and iTunes as “buying a 21st-century device to live in the 1970′s.”
Elsewhere, students at the Berkman Center’s Digitial Media Project (at Harvard Law School) have published a report that considers the legal foundation of iTunes Europe and the interplay of the service with European law. ‘iTunes Europe: A Preliminary Analysis’ examines the implications of the expansion of iTunes on the future of digital media, technology, business strategies, and international law.
The report points out that although Apple is the most popular Internet-based music service, its sales constitute at most 2% of total recording industry sales. At the same time, the record industrys apparent willingness to give up the staggered release dates and price discrimination practices in their sales through Apples iTMS is a striking reflection of the power that an end distributor like Apple has managed to garner in the music business. Apples iTunes Europe launch may very well have marked a change in how power and control are distributed in the music industry.
Read full report: ‘iTunes Europe: A Preliminary Analysis’ (PDF)
Related Reading
Low-Fi iTunes Downloads [P2PNet]
From High Tech Gadget, Small Files But Lower Quality Music [International Herald Tribune]
the Joys of the Celestial Jukebox [Guardian Unlimited]
Audio Data Compression
[Wikipedia]
Perceptual Coding: How Mp3 Compression Works [Sound on Sound]
Audio & Multimedia MPEG-2 AAC [Fraunhofer IIS]
Digital Audio Formats Codec Basics [Global Music Resource]
