Bono to co-develop new iTunes music format w/ more control (DRM)

[station]

I imagine we're talking about new file standards that will be promoted as hi-resolution audio, similar to the way Blu-Ray was promoted.

Apple has been promoting "Mastered for iTunes" standards to mastering studios for a while, asking for hi-res masters (96khz / 24bit .wav files). The quality of these files is noticeably better than CD (44khz / 16bit) and much, much higher than the m4a / mp3 formats they currently use. The only thing holding this back IMO is end users ability to realistically stream and store such large files. As hard drive space becomes cheaper and smaller and internet bandwidth increases further, this will undoubtedly get rolled out. I question how much the public (outside of audiophiles) will care given that most consumer playback devices sound god-awful and also because the younger generation has been consuming music that is so poor quality-wise (ie. YouTube) they are just used to it. I supposed Pono is trying to address this issue.

I think the hope is that a higher quality sound will create excitement for music again. My own personal feeling is that there is plenty of excitement for and huge consumption of music, just not reason enough to pay for it. The combination of streaming services, internet radio, satellite radio, and illegal downloading has obviously crushed the need to purchase individual releases. As a music producer this somewhat jeopardizes my livelihood as budgets for making records are drastically shrinking. For artists it means the only means to a living is extensive touring and performance royalties if they are also the songwriter. A recorded CD or digital download is pretty much just a really expensive business card for them.

I think the way out of this for the music industry is higher quality content as well as fidelity. That not to rag on 'pop' music at all, I personally enjoy a great pop song and make pop music all the time. However, the music industry spends hundreds of thousands of dollars for radio and publicity for every hit song out there and most of it is music that aimed at the tastes of 12-25 year old's who are the least likely group to purchase music. Lost of music is created that's aimed at an older, more sophisticated audience (people who likely have money to spend on music and who might feel uncomfortable stealing it) but that music is not being heavily promoted by labels so these people have to go out of their way to find it. I read an article comparing it to television where it basically sucked for a long time but people got it for free and now there are endless great television shows and people pay money to watch them. The music industry has basically gone in the reverse direction. A bit of an over-simplification but I think there is truth in it.

[opendoor]

When sound engineers can't pick out high resolution audio in a blind listening test then why would anyone think a significant number of people are going to change their habits and re-buy higher resolution music? Sure you'll get some audiophiles who love spending money on placebos, but they make up such an infinitesimal portion of music consumers that they won't make even the slightest dent in the inevitable march towards streaming being the primary source of peoples' music.

The comparison to Blu-ray doesn't hold water given that there are clear and demonstrably perceptible differences between HD and SD video (as long as you're close enough to the screen); that's not true in the slightest with higher resolution audio formats. And even with that, most consumers still prefer the convenience of something like Netflix even if the product is a lower bitrate and lesser quality than Blu-ray.

Now take that same kind of thinking and apply it to a medium where there's no discernible difference in lossless CD quality audio and higher resolution format and the chance of a high resolution format convincing people to go back to purchasing music is basically nil.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by station

I think the way out of this for the music industry is higher quality content as well as fidelity. That not to rag on 'pop' music at all, I personally enjoy a great pop song and make pop music all the time. However, the music industry spends hundreds of thousands of dollars for radio and publicity for every hit song out there and most of it is music that aimed at the tastes of 12-25 year old's who are the least likely group to purchase music. Lost of music is created that's aimed at an older, more sophisticated audience (people who likely have money to spend on music and who might feel uncomfortable stealing it) but that music is not being heavily promoted by labels so these people have to go out of their way to find it. I read an article comparing it to television where it basically sucked for a long time but people got it for free and now there are endless great television shows and people pay money to watch them. The music industry has basically gone in the reverse direction. A bit of an over-simplification but I think there is truth in it.

It's true. All the simple pop songs also don't offer any reason for people to care about high quality audio. They are catchy but aren't interesting or have any depth musically or sonically. They aren't bad songs but they are made with digital studio cookie-cutter simplicity and compressed so they sound good on low on earbuds and speakers.

What's the point of high quality audio when this is the case? Most people simply do not care. They were raised on low quality audio equipment and have been streaming stuff on Youtube and internet radio. They don't have an appetite or reason to pay for anything more.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by opendoor

When sound engineers can't pick out high resolution audio in a blind listening test then why would anyone think a significant number of people are going to change their habits and re-buy higher resolution music? Sure you'll get some audiophiles who love spending money on placebos, but they make up such an infinitesimal portion of music consumers that they won't make even the slightest dent in the inevitable march towards streaming being the primary source of peoples' music.

The comparison to Blu-ray doesn't hold water given that there are clear and demonstrably perceptible differences between HD and SD video (as long as you're close enough to the screen); that's not true in the slightest with higher resolution audio formats. And even with that, most consumers still prefer the convenience of something like Netflix even if the product is a lower bitrate and lesser quality than Blu-ray.

Now take that same kind of thinking and apply it to a medium where there's no discernible difference in lossless CD quality audio and higher resolution format and the chance of a high resolution format convincing people to go back to purchasing music is basically nil.

And there are tests to prove that these high resolution files aren't noticeably better for most people. I've done ABX comparisons of 24bit/96kHz flac files with 16bit/44kHz CD rips and I fail every time. Even good V0 mp3 rips are hard to tell apart. Maybe my ears aren't "trained" to hear the differences, but I bet most people couldn't tell either.

[station]

Originally Posted by opendoor

When sound engineers can't pick out high resolution audio in a blind listening test then why would anyone think a significant number of people are going to change their habits and re-buy higher resolution music? Sure you'll get some audiophiles who love spending money on placebos, but they make up such an infinitesimal portion of music consumers that they won't make even the slightest dent in the inevitable march towards streaming being the primary source of peoples' music.

The comparison to Blu-ray doesn't hold water given that there are clear and demonstrably perceptible differences between HD and SD video (as long as you're close enough to the screen); that's not true in the slightest with higher resolution audio formats. And even with that, most consumers still prefer the convenience of something like Netflix even if the product is a lower bitrate and lesser quality than Blu-ray.

Now take that same kind of thinking and apply it to a medium where there's no discernible difference in lossless CD quality audio and higher resolution format and the chance of a high resolution format convincing people to go back to purchasing music is basically nil.

I totally agree with your premise that higher quality won't lead people back to purchasing music and you are probably correct in that SD TV to HD TV is much more drastic than with audio. I wouldn't go so far as to call hi-resolution audio a placebo effect however. True, most people would be hard pressed to distinguish cd quality 44.1 khz from hi-res 96khz but comparing a compressed mp3 (the most widely distributed format currently) to 96khz is much more obvious. Also much of the 96khz music that's currently available to consumers has been up-sampled from a CD master which literally adds nothing to the quality. Music that has been been recorded, mixed and mastered at 96khz (a practice that is only just now starting to become common) is a world of difference IMO...