Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Recently, Apple started talking about 24 bit. Now HP/Dr. Dre is talking about 24 bit. It makes a good story. But fact is, most audio bought online is in some compressed format (mp3,mp4/m4a/aac). Digital audio compression works by reducing the bitrate of certain parts of the music (frequency-time blocks). So 24 bit is nice but audio compression reduces it anyway.

So, this is apparently not about compressed music then? It must be about uncompressed music. Well, we can't change the redbook CD standard. I guess these people must be talking about DVD-As and SACDs then? They clearly are not.

Now there is one thing that I would actually love to see (but that these people do not seem to be talking about). I would love to buy 24 bit 96 kHz FLAC-encoded music on iTunes. Or maybe not FLAC but Apple Lossless or whatever and maybe not iTunes but Amazon or some new HP thing. I don't care. But Lossless, High-Quality Music in some major online music store. Now that would be something!




Each song would be about 150MB at 96/24.


That's fine. Apple "sells" HD movie rentals (~3 GB) which are only useful for 24 hours.


Good point but I am also concerned about how many songs I can fit on my player. if each song is 150MB, I could fit 30 times less songs. I want higher quality audio if anyone does. My ears are trained and have spent 10 years mixing behind near-field monitors. I have done side by side comparisons with 50MB 44/16 audio and 5MB 256kbps AAC encode, and I can't hear the difference.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: