RESPONSES TO THE APPLE / LALA PIECE YESTERDAY
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 1:00pm by Vince Neilstein
While reading through the comments of my Apple / LaLa post yesterday, I was shocked. Shocked at the amount of ignorance and misinformation that’s floating around out there, and that our readership is so easily gullible by said inaccuracies. Though I never do this, today I feel inclined to directly address a number of comments and dispel some of the idiocy that took place on this site yesterday.
- builtforsin says: “Anyone with lack of internet access 100% of the time, and if you have an Iphone like me, this is already a bad start….” Presumably there’s also be a download option, where you have access to a certain number of tracks locally (on your device or hard drive) if there is no Internet available. and “I guess if you only used Apple manufactured devices that would be great, but Apple doesn’t play nice with hardware not purchased from Apple.” I can’t speak to this issue as I use a Mac, but my PC-using friends don’t complain about iTunes/iPod on their PCs. I’m sure iPhone campatibility will only get better, especially if this type of service necessitates it.
- Tim says: “Digital still doesn’t have the same fidelity as a CD, unless you use wav files, which are huge and would eat memory.” True. But as Internet connections get better so will audio quality. No one is trying to scheme you with crappy audio… it’s just a bandwidth issue. Honestly, while I was initially a skeptic too and subscribed to the “audio quality” argument, it’s really hard to notice the difference between a 192 AAC and a full WAV/AIFF rip.
- Viking-Shredder: “I don’t know man. I’m still a fan of actually owning a physical copy of the music. Just something about having the physical copy makes me feel safer than confiding in computer files.” Also, you must like riding a horse and buggy because it’s “safer.”
- groverXIII says: “Come on… how much music are we going to miss out on with this? I don’t use iTunes, so I don’t know how extensive their metal library is, but I’d imagine there are a lot of obscure bands that aren’t in there.” Plenty of commenters already said this, but it’s worth reiterating: any band at all can add their music to iTunes through a fairly simply submission process. It costs nothing to add music, and iTunes take a % of all sales as their fee (while a physical distributor would mark up the product from the getgo then charge you back cost plus extra fees for anything that doesn’t sell).
- Dr. Schwine-hoot says: “I really dont see ( at least anytime soon) physical copies going away. LP’s have been on the rise also over the last few yrs too. Yes the record sales may be a little down, but i think metal, especially is benefitting from this the most. Almost every big name and even semi- big in name in the metal community has charted on the BB top 200. Hell suffocation and Nile charted this yr! People still want the real thing, me included.” Sorry dude, but physical CDs are on the way out. LPs (vinyl) have experienced a modest rise but it’s only a very small portion of the overall pie and likely to remain so. The convenience of digital cannot be trumped. Your argument about metal on the Billboard Chart is moot because every genre has been affected in the same way (lower sales).
- Scourge441 says: “If you pay for digital music, you’re an idiot.” You, sir, have a great point. This is precisely the problem. The labels have hung on to their antiquated model of pay-per-album or pay-per-track while better alternatives exist. But, on the other hand, if there were option available like this speculated Apple streaming service that offered ANY SONG, any time, for a very low price, say $10/month, wouldn’t you subscribe just out of convenience so you didn’t have to deal with the hassle of searching for and downloading files? If the service is priced right, people will buy onto it.
- Magne Gunvald Karlsen says: “I would never buy anything from Apple. Sure, their computers are descent, but the Ipod.. You pay a lot of money for a product that is shite. The sound is crappy, Uhh… you know you can buy literally ANY other kind of earphones and headphones to use with your iPod and that the unit has an adjustable EQ, right? and don’t even get me started on Itunes. When I want to put music on my Iaudio (which beats the shit out of Ipod, when it comes to the sound + I can play Flac) I just plug it in my usb and it comes up as an extra harddrive. I don’t have to put my music in the Itunes library to be able to transfer it. Uhh… once again, you know the iPod just shows up in iTunes and you can play music directly from it without transferring… right? So in short, you hate these products because you don’t know how to use them. Genius.
So, in conclusion, you’re all idiots.
Sincerely,
Vince Neilstein
Damn Vince, that’s cooooold.
Like a middle school dropout arguing astrophysics with a bunch of his homeless buddies.
Exactly.
Take for instance:
Tim says: “Digital still doesn’t have the same fidelity as a CD, unless you use wav files, which are huge and would eat memory.”
The correct response to this inane comment is not to ramble about how “digitals not that bad”, but to point out that CDs ARE DIGITAL. They operate at 44.1kHz and 16bit, which is usually dithered down from what the recording studio originally produced (44.1 or 48 kHz, 24bit most of the time) even though you’re going from digital (again, most of the time) to digital. So that whole DIGITAL ISNT AS GOOD argument just doesn’t hold up. Also, FLAC. Also, other lossless codecs that aren’t uncompressed like wav.
See thats how a person who kind of knows what they’re talking about would respond.
+1
Apple even has their own lossless compression codec which is pretty good, so its really only a matter of time before we see lossless streaming.
Ba-zing!
“So, in conclusion, you’re all idiots.”
It helps to assume all commenters here are 12 years old, unless they explicitly state otherwise.
you guys know that you can download songs from lala too, right?
I’m so smart that I didn’t reply to that post. Suck on that!
I said something about it yesterday, but fortunately, did not get called out on any stupid argument in bold faced type. Good thing, too, because I’d be so embarassed.
oh and lala’s model isn’t subscription based. it’s a cost per song.
granted, i just skimmed this because it contains neither boobs nor hilarity, so my points may be, well, pointless
Vince must really like to be right on the internet.
Every time you’re right on the internet Varg gets ass raped by 5 angry black guys. That why.
“if there were option available like this speculated Apple streaming service that offered ANY SONG, any time, for a very low price, say $10/month, wouldn’t you subscribe just out of convenience so you didn’t have to deal with the hassle of searching for and downloading files”
No. As I said in response to Scourge441 yesterday, it takes 2 minutes to find virtually any album or any song by using google, assuming one is knowledgable on how to utilize the search engine to maximize specific results. It would be much more of a hassle to give away $10 of my hard earned money (sorry, Vince, some of us don’t get paid to blog….wish I could, as I spend much of any given weekday bullshitting with you people) on something you can get for free. I have a 150GB IPod which has something like 13,000 songs on it. I have every album by every band I love in high quality mp3s, all correctly labeled/in the right track order, etc. I meticulously set it up this way; it took fucking DAYS, but the end result it totally worth it (my OCD gets the best of me sometimes). To boot, I have the whole thing backed up on not one but two different external hard drives so that if/when my IPod eventually dies, I can effortlessly put the same collection on a new one. I know my case is subjective and other people may or may not necessarily care as much about having a massive collection of digital music, but the point is why pay for the supposed convenience of something when the slightest amount of effort will get you the same exact thing for free?
“If the service is priced right, people will buy onto it.”
People will buy anything because they’re mindless consumers who have been brainwashed into thinking they need useless shit. Doesn’t mean I have to follow suit.
So, you’re in the car driving down the highway… have fun going to Google and downloading files to listen to them right away. If you had this service I’m proposing you could access it right away from your iPhone or directly from your car’s dashboard. Or your friend could, because you’d be driving. No downloading, no waiting — all instant. You wouldn’t have to have wasted the hours/days of your time that you said it took to sort your shit correctly — it’d all be labeled perfectly from the get-go. And you’d never have to back it up, because it would live in the cloud. You’d have an INFINITE collection of digital music available at your finger tips, any time, anywhere! You wouldn’t be limited by 160gb. You’re totally missing the point.
I understand the point of it being a convenience. I simply cannot justify spending money on digital music like that, however. My point is I’d rather put forth the small amount of effort to locate something and download it than to pay a monthly fee.
Your point about it being infinite/unlimited is valid I guess, but it does go to show you how ADD our society has become due to technology. Instant gratification, right? I mean, come on, a little patience, maybe? If I’m driving down the highway, chances are that I already have anything and everything I would want to listen to on my IPod (and I did say my example is subjective, I can see why other people wouldn’t want to create a collection in the tedious way I did). If I happen to think of something I don’t have, I can easily distract myself by listening to any of the other 13,000+ songs I have until I find some time to download it and put it on the IPod later.
I suppose we just won’t see eye to eye on this. I agree to disagree. That is all.
I like my custom shuffles and playlists. As long as I can still do those, I’m in. (Also self-admittedely Obsessive-Compulsive when it comes to my music collection)
Ideally, if the library on the iPod appears the same way, and just includes the new streaming option added to the firmware then it’ll be a great thing. I assume Apple will develop a new device catered to this new model, making all their others obsolete. Thing is, regarding the firmware update option, the consumers will have to take on an additional wireless internet charge with their device, on top of the subscription fee. (That is, those of us not in the iPhone boat yet. Myself included.) After all, the current iPod Classics are just glorified Flash drives, which is adequate for some. I haven’t dived into purchasing the iPhone or Touch because of the limited hard drive capacity mostly. I like to carry/have access to a lot of music quickly and easily.
Also, I’ve heard things about iTunes not being so ‘honorary’ in paying up artist royalties, but I don’t have much evidence to support this on hand, someone help me out here.
But I’ve been dreaming of the ultimate all-in-one device for a while, something that streams, downloads, stores, and communicates with no limited capacities. I’d rather not carry around more than one device if I don’t have to. But I want the full capabilities of what I have right now, if not more. Maybe this is the first step towards such a device?
I hope you’re reading Apple! (I know you are, Big Brother ;)
Haha.
and +1 for pretty much everything you said.
im pretty sure he meant he he can download it for free AND SAVE IT to his ipod. And whos that much of a metal junkie that they need new music while driving? you ya douchebag
I fail to understand what kind of music fan wouldn’t want to immediately be able to listen to any song that they can think of. That’s fucking amazing. Hey, I feel like listening to….BOOM….there it is. Anytime, anywhere. Someone please explain to me what is bad about that! I fail to see any problem with this.
Vince, a bit of info for you – among audiophiles, the iPod/iPhone is renowned for having shitty sound quality. Having an EQ on board means absolutely shit – you shouldn’t need to touch the EQ with a good source, amp, and headphones. Also, iTunes is a fucking memory hog that a lot of people adamantly refuse to install on their system. And, FLAC > AAC. Yes, you can mod an iPod to play FLAC or OGG, but that doesn’t cover the fact that Apple needs to ditch their asshole system of proprietary shit.
Just because you want to nutswing Apple and their new business model doesn’t mean there aren’t enough issues with their hardware and software that a lot of people won’t be bothering with it, and I doubt they’ll really be missing out on anything.
And if you can’t tell the difference between 192kbs and something like FLAC, you either need better headphones or new ears.
Invisible Oranges has a post on sounds quality today. Yeah, FLAC is better than 192k, but if you’re listening to 75% of metal, who fucking cares? Budget recordings sound like budget recordings in any format.
I like this.
Ok, I agree with a lot of your points, but keep in mind not everyone is an audiophile. I hear ZERO difference between FLAC and high quality VBR. Of course, my hearing has been severely damaged due to 15 years of going to concerts sans ear plugs (oops), but for me, it’s worth saving the hard drive space when collecting digital music.
An album being 105MB > an album being 850MB
It actually makes a huge difference, assuming your setup is up to par. Lots of metal doesn’t have shitty production; why would I pay for a service that gives me, at best, a mid-level quality version of the music I want to hear? Aside from that, I’m sure plenty of people won’t be listening to strictly metal, either, and again, why would they want to pay for a service that gives them middling-quality music, when they could get the FLAC/OOG stuff for free instead? Because you can stream it any time you want?
The ever-increasing capacity of smart phones and iPods really renders that useless, as you can pretty much have an unlimited selection of music with you at any point whatsoever. Had this come around 3-4 years ago, when onboard storage capacity was still pretty limited, it would have been a lot more successful, but when I can store 20gb of music on a phone, or 150gb of music on an iPod, why would I ever need to stream anything?
Yeah but most metal does have medicore-to-shitty production. Less so than in the past, but I really don’t see a point in listening to, for example, Pig Destroyer in a lossless format on the subway or in my car. Most people don’t notice or don’t care about a difference even in an ideal listening situation, let alone in situations with a lot of ambient noise, which I’m willing to bet is where about 50% of music listening.
High quality obviously matters to some people, but it’s a slim minority, and it makes no sense to run a mass-appeal business based on the listening preferences of a few audiophiles.
And even if Apple does offer a streaming service, I don’t think it necessarily means they’ll do away with the downloading service.
I’m not sure what metal you’re talking about, but a lot of the metal in my collection has decent, if not pretty damned good, production. Of course, I only have a limited selection of death metal, so I can’t comment there, but prog and power metal, along with folk and some other types, typically have damned good production.
I don’t think that the preferences of audiophiles would ever have any sort of major impact on something like this, but my issue was with Vince trying to downplay people being concerned over the sound quality music – not just metal – being a non-issue in the debate, which isn’t true at all.
msv81 – I know it’s not an issue everyone will be bothered with, but it is an issue for some people, and it seems like Vince is trying to downplay the issue by claiming that because he can’t hear a difference, no one can. It’s a completely fallacious defense against a point that has kept many people from buying an iPod, and will keep many people from using a service that doesn’t offer better than 192kbs songs.
Fair enough. I have only ever owned an IPod so I’ve never heard about the supposed bad sound quality vs. other mp3 players. In my car, using an aux 1/8th inch connection, my music sounds fine to me. But I’m far from being an audiophile so what do I know.
I completely agree about the service, though. It’s pointless in so many ways, Apple can have other people’s money, I’ll keep mine for better things.
Once again I feel like a mindless turd. What the fuck is FLAC? I use an ipod which I love because of the convenience for my car and the gym but is there a better alternative?? I do download a ton of free music but I also do purchase albums from my favorite bands…which one is better?
FLAC is a lossless audio format. Whereas mp3s are compressed (i.e. some of the audio quality is lost in the process of compressing the sound waves into a digital medium), FLAC is an exact digital replica of the sound wave. I think this is how that goes, at least to some extent. Problem with FLAC is file size; an 80 minute album might border on taking up a full gigabyte of hard drive space whereas a full mp3 album will take up significantly less.
Geek – FLAC is a lossless audio format that sounds a lot better, with the proper equipment, than standard mp3s. You probably won’t notice much of a difference with headphones you’d be wearing at the gym, or unless you have a really nice aftermarket system in your car, but some guys like me haul around a portable amp and nice IEMs or cans when we listen to music while not at home or work – that’s where the FLAC vs mp3 vs AAC comes into play.
Does anyone own a zune? Is the sound quality really that much better? I use the sony 20$ headphones. They are not anything special but for the gym work great. I will not spend 100$ on some bose headphones that everyone goes nuts over.
While you all have your point…Demonic Lemming, don’t you think you are the minority of the market, whether into metal or not?
I use a 160Gb ipod, which currently has 17,343 songs on it, ripped at 160kbs. I didn’t use 192, b/c at the time i ripped most of this, I had an 80gb and it wouldn’t all fit. If I wanted to go higher, or use AIFF or FLAC, I would need a lot more hard drive storage and 2 more ipods…and, it is just not worth it. So, do they sound as good as my vinyl? No. But, with the equalizer off on my ipod and a $150 pair of earbuds, or my Bose headphones, they sounds pretty damn good!
In my car, I have a pretty nice after market system, and mostly use my CDs. I do use my ipod sometimes, and it doesn’t sound AS good as the CDs, but it is nothing worth complaining about.
So..I think for the majority of the music listening population, and a majority of the metal-heads on this site, and elsewhere, this service will be great and will thrive, no problem. Personally, I am sticking with my massive CD/MP3 collection.
Geek – Zunes are better in SQ, but there are a lot of other options that are even better; however, with a pair of cheapie Sony headphones, you’d likely never notice a difference. Some of the headphones I use, with recables, run over $500….to give you an idea of the scale of the ballpark here. Footnote, Bose is fucking shit, so you’re not hurting yourself at all for refusing to buy a pair. If you’re happy with your Sony headphones and iPod, rock on; audiophilia (spl?) isn’t for everyone.
Nemesis – I wouldn’t expect everyone to have their entire collection ripped as FLAC (hell, even now, it can be a royal bitch to find an album in FLAC format); however, with portable flash storage increasing exponentially as it has been, it’s not out of the question to say that in the future, it’ll very likely be possible to have hundreds of albums in FLAC format on a portable player. Thing is, with the ability to carry around tens of thousands of songs on a portable player now, the ability to stream any song really isn’t as impressive as it would have been a couple years ago. I don’t doubt that people will use it, but I think the user amount will be a lot lower simply because it’s so easy to carry so much music around with you now. I don’t think it won’t be successful because of sound quality (that was just a personal bitch), I just don’t think it’s going to be overly successful because there isn’t such a huge demand for such a service now.
Sound quality is very important to some of us – the fact is (not opinion) that the ipod doesn’t have a good soundstage. Of the ones I’ve tried, the Cowons are the best, but Sony\Zune HD\Creative are fine. O and sandisk if you don’t want to spend bugger all money. Point is, lots of us care about sound quality and flac, and not i’m not retarded because i hate ipods, i can use them, they just suck so I choose not to. IPod = style over substance, no matter how you want to look at it. Jack of all trades sure, but master of none.
As a member of the audiophile community I can say that iTunes and most computer accessed digital music files have very little bearing on my listening preferences. When I want to listen to high quality audio, I’m not looking to my computer or my MP3 player.
As for DemonicLearning’s point about iPod, yes. the iPod consistently scores lower than its competitors on sound quality. Surprisingly enough though, a number of studies have been conducted which measure the average listener’s preference of the “iPod generation.” When comparing the same song played in standard 128 kbps mp3 format on an iPod, and on a CD in a fairly high quality CD player, most of the participants chose the iPod, regardless of its inferior quality. Most consumers have become so accustomed to hearing music in inferior quality that they have come to prefer that format. Therefore, for the average consumer, the sound quality debate has little bearing on Apple’s decision. Likewise, audiophiles are content to play their CDs and LPs for a high quality experience.
As for the whole FLAC discussion….how much music is actually made in FLAC? Can you convert anything into a FLAC file and make it sound better? I might be wrong, but I don’t think so. Because I’ve never heard of FLAC files on an audio CD, and most files that you find through file sharing are not FLAC files. It seems like having the ability to play FLAC audio is only useful for the incredibly limited amount of music that actually exists in that format.
You can’t “up-convert” standard 128/192kbs music into FLAC music, the same way you can’t truly up-scale a 480p signal to 1080p. It’d be like trying to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the peanut butter and jelly – you just don’t have enough material at the start to do it. FLAC isn’t “extremely limited” really – a lot of major artists, including Nightwish and Opeth, just browsing through my collection really quick – have quite a bit of their material in FLAC format. It’s not so much an issue that there’d very likely be no streaming FLAC music (probably inherent with the size of an individual FLAC song as with Apple’s refusal to use anything standard and run with their AAC), but the fact that any music released by an Apple service would likely only be 192kbs, at best. Even with mid-level headphones, there’s a difference in 192kbs and something like 320kbs.
It’s not the major artists I’m talking about, it’s the non-major artists. Plus, I would definitely say FLAC is limited if I can’t find Crack The Skye in FLAC. That was pretty much the hottest release of the year. Major label, major band, no FLAC. Also the size problem is significant. I have over a month of music in my iTunes library and I add to it every day. I’m running out of space on my hard drive. I can’t imagine what it would be like if all of those were FLAC files. I’d be forced to buy an external hard drive. Also 192k is perfectly listenable, and iTunes music is never lower than that. It’s actually 192 at WORST. Sure there’s a difference between that and 320 but if the music is good and the sound quality isn’t complete garbage then there’s really no problem.
I think its difficult to condemn people for wanting to own physical copies of their music at this stage. I personally think that being able to stream all of your favourite music from the net is a great idea as it saves space, but then again I’ve more or less converted all of my music over to digital format. But then again, I’ve got friends who still listen to most of their music from CDs, and I’m not going to scoff at them for doing so because its what they’ve done all of their lives. Most of the shit people were piping up with is ridiculous (particularly issues regarding hardware compatibility/sound quality) as it is just irrelevant, but I think digging on someone for wanting to keep hard copies of their music is pointless.
The sound quality of the music I listen to is irrelevant? So if this service offered nothing but low-fi 96kbs music, that wouldn’t be an issue at all?
I don’t understand how people can’t hear the difference between…its mind boggling!
Say what u want there will always be physical copies… Look at a band like Mastodon. 2 special ed. releases for Crack the Skye and it hasn’t even been out for a yr yet. To me thats saying quite a bit (they are selling, and seeling out=pple are buying). Hence your argument about artwork etc also. When they put out special litho’s and unreleased or new artwork, that also makes ppl want to buy. As long as bands are putting out smart packages like this, i dont think physical copies are going anywhere…
Vince, calm down man…No need to get upset just because people don´t agree with your (damn stupid bullsiht) opinions on digital releases.
Think Halford will sign my flash drive?
ha
:D – This is going to be easy…
“Presumably there’s also be a download option, where you have access to a certain number of tracks locally (on your device or hard drive) if there is no Internet available.”
- Ill answer this with your own quote…
“And if Apple is going to make a play at a subscription streaming model, then the holy grail of music experiences — the ability to stream any song, at any time, from anywhere (aka “the cloud”) — is that much closer to becoming reality.”
Presumably this article is about STREAMING MUSIC.
“I guess if you only used Apple manufactured devices that would be great, but Apple doesn’t play nice with hardware not purchased from Apple.” I can’t speak to this issue as I use a Mac, but my PC-using friends don’t complain about iTunes/iPod on their PCs. I’m sure iPhone campatibility will only get better, especially if this type of service necessitates it.
- Try and sync a Palm Pre, HTC, or Zune (better sound quility then an IPOD all day) with ITUNES, YOUR FUCKED, it may work, but it will be the exception.
“Honestly, while I was initially a skeptic too and subscribed to the “audio quality” argument, it’s really hard to notice the difference between a 192 AAC and a full WAV/AIFF rip.”
-Jump over to http://invisibleoranges.com/2009/12/can-you-tell-mp3-bitrates-apart.html , an article posted just today from a website you guys link to all the time, let me sum it up for you, you’re wrong. Lose your shitty headphones/ear buds/whatever
I don’t have to put my music in the Itunes library to be able to transfer it. Uhh… once again, you know the iPod just shows up in iTunes and you can play music directly from it without transferring… right? So in short, you hate these products because you don’t know how to use them. Genius.
-Read it again you tool. His complaint is about transferring music to the IPOD. Which you DO have to use itunes for. Which fucking sucks, why does a media player use 200mbs of RAM WHILE NOT PLAYING MUSIC.
Take your IMAC out of your pompous Jew ass just for a second and get your shit straight.
Now thats fucking funny! I hate the fact that if you purchase music from another computer and put it on your ipod your not able to transfer it from your ipod to your home computer w/ out a 3rd party software that you must find! Its fucking bullshit! I bought the song, I should be able to put on, take off, or transfer when I want…
Technically you can if you set ITunes to not automatically sync to your IPod (click the option of “use this device for storage”). Then, assuming you use a PC, set folder options to see hidden folders; open up the IPod as you would any other drive/device, and you’ll see a folder for “Music”. All of your mp3s are in there, only problem is they’re annoyingly labeled random shit like “NDJSHE” so you can’t tell what they are until you open them in a media player. It’s definitely not the best way of doing things.
You can technically fill your tires with water instead of air, but it will not provide for a good ride down the road.
Very true.
misinformation on the internets? GTFO of here!!!
yeah you’re pretty arrogant calling people out on these things because I can tell you don’t know shit about it.
1. Lala isn’t subscription based, you can just purchase songs in the cloud.
2. Your friends probably know even less about computers than you do if they don’t complain about iTunes. It’s worthless, worthless software.
3. Try reading policy on downloads: you lose them, you get one or two re-downloads and they make you jump through hoops. With a physical copy you get unlimited redownloads.
4. Apple are huge tools about their software and hardware, crippling it just to squeeze more money out of the customer. They won’t allow anything else to sync to their software and deny any other computer makers the ability to install apple software. They cripple the abilities of the iphone and ipods and then make you pay for upgrades in software to the iphone that should be free.
5. DRM DRM DRM.
iTunes is worthless? What exactly is worthless about it? It stores and catalogues all of your music and artwork and effortlessly transfers it onto your mp3 player without any problems. Just drag and drop, eject, now I can listen to whatever the fuck I want. That’s a lot of worth, as far as I’m concerned.
Actually, I’m in college for music performance and audio production, so I can indeed tell the difference. It’s a real, quantifiable fact that you can’t justify by saying, basically, that it’s alright because the audience (you) is ignorant.
You’re right, you can definitely tell the difference. In my hasty reply, I didn’t carefully elaborate on that part of it and what I wrote was miscontrued, so let me try again.
192 AAC sounds pretty good compared to 192 MP3 (and presumably any Apple service would offer AAC). Of course neither 192 formats approach the quality of AIF/WAV or FLAC, but those files are prohibitively large as a lot of people here are saying, and most people don’t care enough. For most people, convenience trumps sound quality as long as the sound quality is acceptable. I find 128 mp3s to be totally UNacceptable… 192 I can tolerate… 256 and 320 are, of course, preferred. Even on that, I’m in the minority. Most people are not the audiophiles that some people here are.
But above all of this, as Internet / wireless / bandwidth technology improves, these services will eventually be able to stream the highest quality audio. If this were the case, would you people be interested in such a service?
Despite Vince’s mockery of people who prefer physical releases, I still am proud to consider myself one of them. I’m still enjoying records from 30 years ago (I’m 22 btw, before you call me an old fart) and that is something that would not be possible with a digital copy, since it only lasts as long as the computer that it is on. I can see digital releases being great for someone who will buy music, listen to it for 6 months or whatever, then get bored with it and move on, but for someone who still enjoys the hell out of “Blackwater Park,” 8 years later, the physical copy is much more beneficial since any electronic device that I had when it came out is long gone.
That being said, this is still a good idea, it’s just not something that people like me would need.
I also buy physical copies and will continue to do so until I cannot. I think a certain portion of the population always will.
” When I want to put music on my Iaudio (which beats the shit out of Ipod, when it comes to the sound + I can play Flac) I just plug it in my usb and it comes up as an extra harddrive.”
Yeah you’re right – placing a needle or pressing “play” on a solid-state device is entirely too simplistic.
Shorter Vince: be savvy and hip to what’s up, or just shut the fuck up and die.
“Digital still doesn’t have the same fidelity as a CD”
My head just exploded.
Well, it’s nice to know that Apple is not above bribing Vince…
I buy CDs because I am an old dinosaur, there isn’t really any logical reason for me to do so.
Though I do have a few quibbles with iphones and itunes, as a PC user.
1. iTunes library is a mess. I can’t organize them into subdirectories, like Frank Sinatra and put all my Sinatra mp3s there. So scrolling through the library is a mess.
2. Libraries are unsharable. I can’t stream my library to my roommates computer on the apartment network. Nor can I plug my iphone into said computer and play music from it, like I could with the ipod Nano. Sure, there are “hacks” and ways around this, but Apple’s built in ways of controlling the libraries are a deficiency.
3. the iphone is amazing hardware, really. But some of the native apps have real deficiencies, and the ipod is one of them. First, the “coverflow” landscape way of viewing is unusable. I have 10 gigs of music on there. How do you scroll all the way to Vader? So irritating. The could have at least had a view by artist or allowed you to skip to a certain letter. Also, it will only show a certain number of characters, so if I pull of Shostakovich – Symphony Number 10 it will only display “Shostakovich – Symphony 1″. I could be 1,10,11,12,13,14, or 15 but I guess ipod on the iphone will never tell me. Don’t even get me started on the L.V. Beethoven Piano Sonatas.
So no, some people have real complaints about Apple and their products that go beyond ignorance.
You can’t share your library on iTunes for PC? I thought it was exactly the same as the mac version. If it is you can definitely set your library to be shared.
Apple could make bank by also getting this service to work with Android phones. I want it…lol
I download for free. I win.
everyone should just use v0’s. i hate apple BECAUSE OF .AAC. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT FORMAT anyway. v0 is the most viable option, its the best quality for like not the most space.
hahaha point of post: Vince doesn’t like it when an overwhelming majority disagrees with him. Sorry Vince we’re not all apple trend whores. LOL
I download albums, and if I like them, I buy the physical copy. I have probably about 100 or so CD’s that I’ve never even taken out of the case. I also make sure that I take the most direct route to the artist when I buy them. I don’t know what this is called.
Heh… well, I DID say that I don’t know much about iTunes or its submission process. Thanks for not making fun of me. I would have been highly upset and may have had a good cry or screamed into a pillow. And do you want that on your conscience? I THINK NOT.
Ummm, I buy CDs. Why? I like physical experiences, and I don’t like the idea that a random computer hiccup could destroy all the music I paid for. Someone would have to steal my CDs or physically destroy them to make my music collection go bye bye. My CDs are not vulnerable to the newest computer viruses. If something does happen to all my files ripped from CDs? I can rip the CDs to another computer.
I’ve bought digital downloads from Amazon, but I’d still burn a copy just in case. Sure, shit can happen to your computer and mp3 player simultaneously which will also take out all those music files you legally bought in a digital download format only. If you have a physical backup, you won’t have to pay for them again (you already own them, why should you pay twice?) Yeah, something could happen to your computer, mp3 player, AND your cds all at once… but it’s less likely than the first scenario, since CDs are vulnerable to mostly physical risks.
Thanks for calling me an idiot! It doesn’t matter, I still love this blog. :-)
“Magne Gunvald Karlsen says: “I would never buy anything from Apple. Sure, their computers are descent, but the Ipod.. You pay a lot of money for a product that is shite. The sound is crappy, Uhh… you know you can buy literally ANY other kind of earphones and headphones to use with your iPod and that the unit has an adjustable EQ, right?”
That would be true, if the iPod had enough output power. Unfortunatley it doesn’t, so you’re stuck with using smaller earphones. Don’t give me any s**t about EQ. EQ has nothing to do with good sound quality.
“and don’t even get me started on Itunes. When I want to put music on my Iaudio (which beats the shit out of Ipod, when it comes to the sound + I can play Flac) I just plug it in my usb and it comes up as an extra harddrive. I don’t have to put my music in the Itunes library to be able to transfer it. Uhh… once again, you know the iPod just shows up in iTunes and you can play music directly from it without transferring… right? So in short, you hate these products because you don’t know how to use them. Genius.”
Call me stupid, which you obviously just did, but isn’t the thing about mp3 players that you’re supposed to transfer the music onto them, so you’ll be able to bring the music with you. I do know how to use them, but tell me this: Why the hell would I buy an mp3 player with shitty sound that takes longer time to fill up with music, instead of buying an mp3 player that has superior sound quality and a simple drag and drop interface?
I agree with most of the points Vince rebutted (sorry, still in AP English finals mode right now) – I personally hate digital, will rarely (if ever) use Apple products, and love having the original CD’s and LP’s. But I do concede that CD’s and LP’s are on the decline – if there’s any rise, it’s because of collectors and nostalgic listeners. But to be honest, this whole iTunes/LaLa deal sounds like just another plan to expand the corporation. Yes, it’s obvious, but I really don’t want iTunes controlling my streaming – I occasionally use Pandora and Last.fm. If those are going to be run by Apple and made pay-by-subscription only, I will be quite upset. As of now, I mainly listen to the hard copies of CD’s (I’ve been carrying around a 12-year old portable Discman for the last 6 months since my iPod broke) and am actually happier with the quality. Sure, it sucks having to carry around anywhere from 2 to 200 CD’s if I want my music, but I think it’s worth it for the hassle – and that I won’t support the expansion of iTunes.
/rant.
After reading “g’s” post in the very first post, I would like to say that I actually do think there’s a quality difference – but maybe it’s just like a placebo. I want to believe it’s higher quality, even if it isn’t, so my brain hears higher quality. Whatever. I like artwork.
I like artwork too.
But when you get down to debating the audio quality difference between a CD and a file on your computer that has been ripped in a lossless format like wav, or FLAC, or Apple’s lossless codec, any difference you might actually be able to detect would be a result of the digital-to-analog converters on your soundcard/iPod/iPhone/etc.
And for the record, the iPod d/a converters (at least on my iPod) aren’t very good and do noticeably affect the sound. On the other hand, the converters on my Firewire sound card hooked up to my computer are a lot better. So really we shouldn’t be arguing over whether “digital” sounds worse than CDs (since its an argument that doesn’t make sense, given that they’re both “digital”). If anything, we should argue about what particular chain of listening equipment sounds best.
Anything sounds good through Bose studio headphones.
No highs, no lows, it must be…….
As long as the itunes store can buy songs im cool with it
When are sites that offer illegal downloads (music, software, whatever) finally going to be shut down for good, so people are forced to buy legal stuff? The consumer (are you a consumer when you download illegal?) is stupid enough to keep downloading, so they won’t put it to a hold…
I’m telling you, iTunes ruined my last desktop (pc of course)
I have no problem with digital music. Personally, I still buy cd’s because of the packaging, artwork and liner notes. You could say i’m a collector. The ritual of going out, buying a couple cd’s (which I then rip to my computer and put on my ipod) and spending my day jamming can’t be topped. A lot of bands are really putting more effort into the packaging (I.e. The chariot, converge) to make it more worth the extra couple bucks.
Personally, I’d be fucking psyched for this if I didn’t have to rely on my parents for disposable income (shitty job and community college for the lose), but, seeing as all of my paycheck is going towards gas/food/books (which quickly makes my paycheck disappear), I don’t even care
i’ll say it again: i hope spotify launches in the US sometime next year. it’s changed how i listen to music, and the service is easily worth the 12 bucks or so that i pay monthly.
“You, sir, have a great point. This is precisely the problem. The labels have hung on to their antiquated model of pay-per-album or pay-per-track while better alternatives exist. But, on the other hand, if there were option available like this speculated Apple streaming service that offered ANY SONG, any time, for a very low price, say $10/month, wouldn’t you subscribe just out of convenience so you didn’t have to deal with the hassle of searching for and downloading files? If the service is priced right, people will buy onto it.”
TBH I’ve never had problems finding anything I’ve had to download. And a lot of it is stuff that I doubt I’d find on a service like this anyway. Yes, people will buy onto it if it’s priced right, but it’s useless to me and if you know where to look, it’s probably useless to you too.
I’m glad I’m not an audiophile.
sounds like the ms staff needs to get off of their knees. i swear the only way this could be more pro apple is if they invited steve jobs over to the ms mansion and all circle jerked one another
To answer several people, FLAC is just a file. Just like MP3 or AAC. Grab a CD, bung it in your computer, use Winamp (or other software) to rip it to FLAC just as you would rip it to MP3. An FLAC file is generally about 40-50MB as opposed to 3-4MB for MP3/AAC.
People don’t share FLAC like they do MP3 for 2 main reasons – 1)people don’t know what they hell they are and 2)file size.
Metallica, and several other bands, release live recordings in FLAC format.
My point on FLAC, or OGG or ALAC, over MP3/AAC is not about listening to it on a a portable player. Using tiny little 5mm drivers in headphones will not sound any good no matter what the format. It’s when you get home to your expensive, high quality amp & decent speakers. Then it sounds much better. I have many MP3/AAC on my iPod and know it’s not good quality but when I get home to listen to it on my good equipment I don’t wanna play crappy compressed files. With an original high quality source like CD I can listen to good quality and then bring the quality down for other uses. Whereas if you can only ever buy compressed versions then you’re stuck – you can’t upgrade the quality when you want it but you can go the other way. Moving to a compressed download or subscription service means you’re paying for crap. I love the many good things about digital music but always have the original to go back to. The move to compressed formats, in any form or way of supply, is a step backwards because you’ll never be able to get back to the original.
Spotify uses 320kbps OGG files, which sounds great on my home equipment. But of course, if it’s a good album, I buy the physical disc. Preferably on vinyl, and more albums that one would think is released on vinyl as well. It’s just a little harder to get your hands on them.
Good point, idiots all. Including me.
I think a main problem here is that some people think iTunes downloads sound horrendous. Yes they’re bad compared to the best audio possible (like FLAC, which takes up way too much space), but honestly you have to be an audiophile to the point of masturbating to Meyer Sound catalogues if you find those files unlistenable. Every day I fucking rock out to all kinds of shit, and most of it is either from iTunes or from torrents. I have fucking great headphones, that’s good enough. Everything sounds clear as crystal. To have it sound better than that is just overkill. I don’t need all my music to sound like I’m in the studio producing the fuckin shit, and if you do then maybe you’re not paying enough attention to the music itself. Saying iTunes and other mp3s are complete shit is like saying every car that isn’t a Ferrari is a worthless piece of junk. It doesn’t have to be the absolute best to be good.
Paying for MP3/AAC instead of CD/FLAC is like buying a Ferrari and saying you’d like to save some money by putting in a Mini 1.3l 4 cylinder engine then 6mths later saying you want to take it around the Nürburgring. Actually it’s worse – at least you could replace the engine (albeit at great expense), you can’t replace missing frequencies.
That’s fucking ridiculous. First of all, the analogy is bad. My whole point is that iPod use is like driving to work, whereas your analogy of driving around the Nurburgring is like listening to a song IN the studio. You don’t need a sports car at all to comfortably drive to work, you can drive a Toyota and it’s still fine. Similarly, you don’t need the highest quality audio when you’re using your iPod, which is most likely in a situation where there’s tons of ambient noise anyway like walking around or driving to work. I live in New York. I could pay for the absolute best quality FLAC files, but the constant street noise is guaranteed to cancel out whatever boost in quality there is when I’m walking/driving around. Also, you can’t say it’s like buying a Ferrari and then putting in a Mini engine because the whole point is that you’re paying less money from the get-go. It’s like buying the Mini to begin with, which is not a Ferrari but absolutely no car to sneeze at. Which is exactly my point. You’re not paying the same price for shittier music, you’re paying considerably less than CDs for slightly lower quality, the 5-10 dollar difference between iTunes and real CDs really adds up when you listen to a ton of music every day. When was the last time you went into a music store and every single CD was 10 bucks or less?
As you’re flying around the Nürburgring in your Mini powered Ferrari look in your rearview mirror. See that thing way, way, way back there? It’s the point. You missed it. Completely.
The analogy is not about listening in the studio. I, and many others, would be quite happy to drive a Mini powered Ferrari to work every day (MP3 on headphones). The reason – because the busy roads and speed limits do not allow you take full advantage of the Ferrari powered Ferrari (CD or FLAC) therefore there is little need for it.
However, on the occasions that you do take your Ferrari to the Nürburgring (high quality amp & speakers) you want to take full advantage of it’s ability, you can’t. With a Ferrari powered Ferrari (CD or FLAC) you’ll get to enjoy it a lot more than a lesser product, the Mini powered version (MP3 on headphones).
So we agree that you don’t need high quality on iPod/headphones because you can’t take advantage of the quality because you won’t get it. But…..and this is the point you missed….is that once you can ONLY buy a Mini powered Ferrari (MP3) and have no option to buy the Ferrari powered Ferrari (CD or FLAC) then you’ll never be able to go to the Nürburgring and really enjoy it. Once you’ve taken something away you can never get it back. EVER.
Agreed that CDs are over priced. However, cheapskates who want to save themselves a few bucks and get an inferior product are entitled to do so. But with the way things are going, inferior products are being forced on everyone including those who are happy to pay for quality. The same cheapskates will pay for MP3s are probably the same who buy a 10MP digital camera and set it to take pix at VGA quality so they can fit more on their memory stick and then bitch about the fact they try and print it out at A3 size and it looks like crap. Don’t force crap on those who are willing to pay for quality just because others are cheapskates and are happy for pay for crap. How, as you put it, fucking ridiculous.
I see what you mean now, and I agree, if you want a high powered listening experience at home mp3 just won’t do it. In fact, if you’re gonna blow your nuts off, vinyl is the only way to go. But are you implying that this service being offered by apple is going to make CDs and vinyls disappear completely? Because if it was affordable I would definitely pay a low subscription fee to hear unlimited free music on the go AND listen to a lot of the same songs on vinyl at home. It’s not an either/or scenario. It’s like having the Ferrari and the Mini at the same time, except you don’t have to be filthy rich to do it.
Also, my point is that 192+ mp3 is NOT crap, it’s just worse than the best mp3. Crap is below 192 as far as I’m concerned, and plenty of iTunes tracks are more than 192. My overall point is that being inferior to the absolute top quality shit does not make anything crap. Being worse than acceptable makes it crap, unless you’re a perfectionist. To give another analogy, the weed I smoked today was not the most expensive OG Kush from California, but it was also way better than mid-quality shit and it got me very high. The OG Kush would have gotten me blazed out of my fucking mind. I wouldn’t call the weed I smoked bad just because it didn’t get me as high as the OG Kush would have. Also, inferior products are not being “forced” upon anyone. Better audio products are not disappearing because of mp3s. Any willing and able person can still pay for the best speakers, the best quality vinyls, etc. Nothing is stopping you from doing that, or even making it harder for you.
Wow Vince, how old are you, 8?
You made valid points, I guess, but can you stop sucking Apples dick now?
Fine, you think its awesome, so does the vast majority of the unthinking public because they have cool commercials, but do you really need to turn your website into a big ad for apple products?
Retard.
And at the risk of being made fun of in bold type, I like physical copies too. I like actually having something when I pay money for it. Call me old fashioned.
Zune has been doing a great subscription model for years now, so…I dunno.
I’m not too picky. As long as it’s above 96kps I’m fine with it. Most of my songs are 256, but I can usually listen to 128 with no qualms. Most of the time I’ll just pop a cd in my stereo though if I really care about sound quality.
I’m like that.
I listen to a lot of very underground stuff that usually has less than perfect production, especially goregrind and black metal. 128kbps or 320kbps, Flac or .mp3, whatever, it’s not gonna make a lot of difference if the production is crappy. And I have never looked at what format iTunes is converting my CDs into, because it’s really not important to me.
I do use 320kbps .mp3s when I’m importing vinyl onto my computer, otherwise, I just leave it as it is. I still prefer blasting out of my speakers as opposed to straight into my ears. I’m getting a new speaker system for Christmas, can’t wait to use it.
Yeah, listening to some really low-fi albums through the most crystal clear audio setup available is a lot like having really clean urine. It’s still piss.
I still haven’t got an answer on why I should buy an iPod. My iAudio cost $30 less than iPod. Both were 8gb. On the other hand, for those $30 extra, I get crappier sound, slower transfering process, a limit on which headphones I will be able to use…hmmm When I look at it that way the iPod should’ve been the obvious choice. Yeah, right.. The crappier sound doesn’t matter when I’m listening to Darkthrone, but when I listen to Ahab, I sure as hell want a lot of bass.
Spotify is quite useful, fits in well with my “try before you buy” policy, and it’s helped me satiate my craving for releases I plan to buy in the future, like Evangelion and Grindvirus.
I couldn’t care less about what Apple are doing, to be honest. I’ve always viewed the iPhone as a technological white elephant. So I didn’t join in the argument a couple of days ago. Even so, Vince…
Viking-Shredder: “I don’t know man. I’m still a fan of actually owning a physical copy of the music. Just something about having the physical copy makes me feel safer than confiding in computer files.” Also, you must like riding a horse and buggy because it’s “safer.”
…that response was uncalled for. Viking-S was only voicing an opinion.
NERDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As you’re flying around the Nürburgring in your Mini powered Ferrari look in your rearview mirror. See that thing way, way, way back there? It’s the point. You missed it. Completely.
The analogy is not about listening in the studio. I, and many others, would be quite happy to drive a Mini powered Ferrari to work every day (MP3 on headphones). The reason – because the busy roads and speed limits do not allow you take full advantage of the Ferrari powered Ferrari (CD or FLAC) therefore there is little need for it.
However, on the occasions that you do take your Ferrari to the Nürburgring (high quality amp & speakers) you want to take full advantage of it’s ability, you can’t. With a Ferrari powered Ferrari (CD or FLAC) you’ll get to enjoy it a lot more than a lesser product, the Mini powered version (MP3 on headphones).
So we agree that you don’t need high quality on iPod/headphones because you can’t take advantage of the quality because you won’t get it. But…..and this is the point you missed….is that once you can ONLY buy a Mini powered Ferrari (MP3) and have no option to buy the Ferrari powered Ferrari (CD or FLAC) then you’ll never be able to go to the Nürburgring and really enjoy it. Once you’ve taken something away you can never get it back. EVER.
Agreed that CDs are over priced. However, cheapskates who want to save themselves a few bucks and get an inferior product are entitled to do so. But with the way things are going, inferior products are being forced on everyone including those who are happy to pay for quality. The same cheapskates will pay for MP3s are probably the same who buy a 10MP digital camera and set it to take pix at VGA quality so they can fit more on their memory stick and then bitch about the fact they try and print it out at A3 size and it looks like crap. Don’t force crap on those who are willing to pay for quality just because others are cheapskates and are happy for pay for crap. How, as you put it, fucking ridiculous.
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