Apple Music streaming MQA?

MP3 can sometimes sounds like ‘analog’ while CD sounds like ‘digital’, the arguments are always true…Analog doesn’t mean it is accurate reproduction but rather it can make to sound good to some people.

Not all Artists are happy with the Streming service.

This is what Jay Stapley has to say.

A snippet from the main article to entice some reading.

Like most independent musicians, I have spent the last decade grudgingly putting material on Spotify, Apple’s various music portals, Amazon, YouTube, etc., because I have had to. They set the price without consulting me, they institute and then remove Digital Rights Management protocols with no consultation, they do not allow me to see their accounts or have any say over MY intellectual property… enough.

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I just started my Apple Music subscription - what for roon integration ???

I used to buy at least 2 CDs per month when HMV is still around. After it close shop, it became difficult to buy CDs anymore. I miss the days I used to hang out my friends to shop for CDs… Streaming though looks very good and instant access to huge database of music. You don’t get to keep the music for playing at your convenience when there’s no internet service or put it on your Walkman on the go. As for artists their revenue will depend on how many time that particular tracks are being played, if they are lucky to release a few tracks hit, they earn but definitely not on the album itself like CDs used to reign.

This problem is inevitable with the passage of time. Many of us have collected very large libraries over time a little like saving early for a pension plan.
For the young today, they have no chance of acquiring such a library (Pension Pot) and have to start from scratch.
With Music though, access to early music is important culturally and technology has changed so they (the young) can’t just borrow their parents collection easily, even if they still have one. A lot of music is out of physical print and shops are unlikely to provide access again. The world has changed.

The answer seems to have been streaming but with this comes the problems, how to make it pay in a manner that is fair to all. How to protect the quality of the art and how to persuade people to value the art in the first place, ie know it’s even there?

For now, Charity shops are your friend if you want physical media to own cheaply but this is not a global solution and of course, the artists don’t get rewarded or recognised.

Just thoughts. Chris

I guess Stereophile needed some click bait and more shill MQA coverage.

iTunes music integrates with Roon as that is music you have in iTunes but Apple Music is streaming and does not. Neither do any other streaming services except Tidal. My guess is not too many streaming services want their interface overtaken by Roon.
Apple Music plays 256kAAC which is a pretty good codec and they also have Mastered for iTunes Music for some albums that I like and have bought a lot of and can’t really tell from CD quality. I still like to buy music as much as possible.
https://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/

High Resolution Masters means 256kbps MP3s vs the normal 128kbps MP3s.

Tidal, by comparison, offers 1411kbps in its most common mode and higher with MQA.

Google “Mastered for iTunes”. You will find a number of articles both explaining and discussing this technology.

It’s quite a claim to state “Mastered for iTunes” MP3s will sound just as good as hi-rez uncompressed music. I personally, have never found this to be true when comparing MP3s to any of the uncompressed hi-rez formats. Uncompressed hi-rez always seems to contain more detail and is more musical to my ears.

I have a very spotty library because I straddled the old album purchase model and the new streaming model. Here’s my trip down memory lane:

As a teenager I joined a music club and I’d get two cassettes every month in the mail that I could play on my father’s console or on my Walkman. That, combined with my father’s LP’s (and some 8-tracks), and my occasional trip to the music store started building my library. Then CD’s came out and I didn’t have enough money to repurchase albums so I only switched to the new medium for new purchases. Finally, there was iTunes and the idea that I could fit my entire music collection on an iPod and take it with me anywhere I went was just fantastic. But again, I didn’t repurchase all my music–just made my new purchases in the new medium and ripped my old CD’s in 128 bps (!). I even recorded some analog streams coming from a cassette player into an iRiver mp3 player but it was too time consuming to do that for all my tapes…

Then came Napster, Rhapsody, Pandora, Spotify…and now I could have not just all the music in my library but practically all the world’s recorded music on demand! All for the price of one CD a month. However, over time I forgot how good music used to sound…

I started back the audio quality road by upgrading my headphones then discovered the world of Hi-Res, FLAC’s, DSD etc. and of course Roon. Tidal with my upgraded gear sounded better than all other streaming services so I got an account, purchased life-time Roon, and I’m loving it.

I just can’t see ever spending the money to repurchase my entire music library. I’ve re-ripped CD’s in FLAC lossless but I’m not going to go through the trouble of getting a record player, an ADC, etc. to record old albums. From now on it will be a mix of purchased high-resolution/quality master music and streaming…

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I would agree in general but there are some high-quality mastered AAC encoded music in iTunes/Apple Music. Check out Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out” for example. And it’s only $5.99…

I’ve a Aries Mini which I can access Qobuz, it offers ECM ‘High-Resolution Masters’ in their hi-res streaming service, since it can do ‘in house’ decoding, none of it indicates MQA. ECM ‘High-Resolution Masters’ are raw PCM masters which they can offer high resolution PCM or MQA. It doesn’t mean ECM ‘High-Resolution Masters’ are exclusively MQA.

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Lossy compression for MP3 and AAC are done between the audible bandwidth. This is where our ears are most sensitive to variation. Psychoacoustic doesn’t seem to apply to everyone because we all hear it differently. MQA is less of issue because it is done mostly above the 20kHz range where the ears are far less sensitive. However there’s are issues such as reduced in resolution and dynamic range as well as aliasing noise get reflected back to audible range due to ‘leaky filters’. There’s no perfect solution, it’s just compromises If you live with these.

“far less sensitiv” is polite said. Human ears are completely unable to hear anything about 20kHz, even the audiophile golden ears. It’s like saying “eyes are less sensitiv to infrared light”.

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Completely wrong since iTunes does not do mp 3 which is a very dated codec. Apple uses aac which is far more modern and efficient. I said it sounds as good as standard Tidal to me. Even odder that you say google for mastered for iTunes when I had already given a link for it so obviously know what it is. Including that it is not mp 3.

Apple licenses all sorts of things including codecs. They licensed AAC after all. Licensing terms are fluid and especially when you are dealing with Apple.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I love Brubeck. For $5.99, I decided to buy it and try it. I’m fortunate to have both very good digital and analog systems. I compared the AAC to my 176/24 digital WAV and my 200 gram vinyl recording. The AAC sounded better than I expected especially the dynamics. But, the hi-rez digital and vinyl still sounded better. BTW, the newest Roon is sounding great with my system.

Apple does not license AAC. Read this…

Above 20kHz, the ears doesn’t perceive it as ‘direct sound’ but rather through the complex of harmonics. Read this article. We need hi-res recording to properly reproduce these harmonics.

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm#I

Actually we can’t hear continuous tones over 20,000 Hz, but we can detect transients well above 20,000. It is the transients that allow us to pick out what instruments are playing. If your streams or audio system chain are stricktly limited to 20,000 Hz, you are getting homogenized music, and missing much of the enjoyment of live performances. Likewize with power… while most of your music requires only a few watts of power, transients can require hundreds of watts more. So limiting yourself to a few watts and 20,000 Hz will destroy your transients and you may as well be listening to elevator music.

Try again and pro tip is not to use Wikipedia as a source.
Look into Via who licenses AAC.