iTunes’ Higher Bit Rate: Can You Tell the Difference?

Most of us already heard about iTunes’ announcement last week that it would begin selling songs without DRMs (meaning you can actually play one of the tracks you’ve purchased somewhere besides your iPod), but included in the .30 price increase is a bit rate hike from 128 to 256. Can you tell the difference between old songs and new?

Slate’s Scott Blaszak discusses why 256 is better than 128.

Slate’s Christopher Beam argued the other direction not too long ago.

While Blaszak’s video is funny, I think we all know at least one person who can hear the difference … I’m not sure that’s worth .30, though, and I’m of the opinion that buying a song in the first place should entitle me to the best quality possible within reason. Why on Earth don’t iTunes customers get 320 right off the bat?

Related: Why are DRM-less iTunes songs tagged with your name and email address?

Gartenberg said there are many reasons why Apple would want to tag music sold through the iTunes store. The information could be used as a proof of purchase, or to facilitate upgrades (songs previously bought through iTunes can be upgraded to higher fidelity versions for an extra 30 cents). The identifier could help identify songs missing from albums (iTunes offers a “complete album” feature), as well as to thwart piracy.

I’m sure there are lots of innovative reasons to put my private info on a file — but at least encrypt it. Oh, iTunes doesn’t encrypt it. Sweet.

I pretend I can tell the difference, in my acoustically-treated underground hi-fi cave. I’m totally writing about this on Thursday.

Well there are good reasons for these decisions. Not to say that they are the “right” decision, but I can understand it:

1) They sell at 128 by default because 95% of their customers can’t tell the difference. Those customers can, however, tell the difference between fitting 200 songs on their iPod and fitting 400 songs on their iPod. Apple doesn’t make much money off the music sales, so they’re a lot more interested in keeping their customers satisfied with their iPods–and an iPod that holds twice as much music is more valuable to the customer than an imperceptibly higher-quality song file. (On the other hand, that same argument explained why they sold all their music with DRM–most of their customers didn’t care, and it helped Apple improve their deals with music companies).

Personally, I just buy my music on CD. That way I get whatever sound quality I want on my mp3s and retain the option of ripping to higher quality if I decide I need to. Plus, no personal info in the mp3 files! Which leads me to…

2) I think they don’t encrypt the personal information in the files because you’re not supposed to be distributing it anyway. In fact, that’s the actual reason they put your info in the files in the first place–so they can trace songs distributed illegally back to the source. I’m not so convinced about this one, though–the privacy concerns seem pretty real, insomuch as having other people know what music you buy is a real invasion of privacy.

“I think they don’t encrypt the personal information in the files because you’re not supposed to be distributing it anyway. ”

What about cases of accidental distribution, like a stolen iPod with the owner’s info embedded? Seems like encrypting would at least eliminate that worry for users. Besides, as you said, having your personal info attached to what you buy is creepy — not unlike Google’s saved searches.

I buy CDs or rip from gifts / promos mostly as well, and never buy songs from iTunes. Still, such a broadly used platform should be accountable for privacy concerns with its customers.

Good point about the size issue re: 128 v 256. I guess I thought of that but got caught up in wondering if most people give a shit about the sound quality. I sort of neglected the fact that most people will let that slide in favor of having more songs on their device.

“Most” people are savages and listen to terrible, terrible music that they are happy to hear even when mutilated by an FM radio. It’s the same with “HD” signals, satellite TV, marshmallows, and a thousand other things: The public is “meh” on quality. They just want it, but won’t differentiate for it. I mean, it’s good if they’re told that it’s really awesome (”CD quality!”) but they won’t look beyond that.

I’m curious to ask why people would believe it would be an invasion of privacy to embed user information into files? I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but privacy?

And finally, since they’ve got some experience with this, they could have encrypted the user information - in a similar way they encrypted the encrypted iTunes files. It was one of two things:

1. A design issue - better to expose data than be nailed later for hiding it, and
2. A laziness issue - the encrypted iTunes did exactly this, so the unencrypted one does as well. Now it’s just a problem because those little files can end up on some filthy P2P network, where the world will discover your secret helping of “Tatu”.

I’m betting it’s #2.

The last two albums I bought sucked, so I’m going to avoid music for another year. Artists, hear me roar!

Actually they should at least be encoding at 192, that seems to be the breaking point between noticing some deterioration and not. 192 should at least be the starting point, but there are even better options available, V0 for starters, which doesn’t take up much more room (if any) than a 192.

While I can understand starting at 128, figuring the average consumer can’t tell the difference and it takes less room on the iPod, up-charging for a higher bitrate is fucked up. They can handle the bandwidth, they’re fucking Apple, their laptops are $2500!!!

They aren’t charging for the higher bitrate, I don’t think–I think they’re charging for the lack of encryption. I don’t believe Apple is a perfect company, but I’m not going to complain about them offering a better product at a higher price, especially not when they are still offering the old (incredibly successful) product at its old price.

Also, this post sort of addresses the issue: http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/itunes_plus_metadata

But are they transcoded?

I agree that it should be at least 192. A lot of people with older computers have small hard drives, so automatically downloading at 320 could cause some problems. I’m a big believe in VBR, and think they should do that, but that’s probably too forward-thinking and customer-focused for anyone in corporate America (even Apple).

Speaking of that, when is iTunes going to get an audio-enhancer like DFX? C’mon!

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to find my social security number embedded in my music files. But I’m sure anyone who really wanted it wouldn’t have to look that far to find it anyway.

when is iTunes going to get an audio-enhancer like DFX?

i’d be happy if they added a “play this next” option. or, even better, some kind of real-time playlist maker, where you can cue-up an arbitrary number of songs to play *next*. (i don’t like making playlists ahead of time)