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Music - Download Technology News
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Thursday, 13 December 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
According to a study released by Cognitive Daily, the average listener struggles to tell the difference in audio quality between the lowest-resolution MP3 files at 64 kbps and the so-called high-resolution 256 kbps files that are sold in limited quantities as “high definition” from the likes of Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s new download site.
The study looked at three different resolutions of audio, ranging from Good (64 kbps) to Better (128 kbps) and Best (256 kbps), for two selections of music, including a Santana track and a classical piece by composer Aaron Copeland. The study also asked the group to self-define themselves on a scale of one to nine in terms of how much they consider themselves to be audiophiles (nine being the most critical of listeners and one being a listener who isn’t concerned with audio quality at all).
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Tuesday, 20 November 2007
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Written by
AVRev.com
Mark
Waldrep, Ph.D., the man behind the only all-HD Audio label AIX Records
announces the launch of iTrax.com, the world's first digital music
download service to offer REAL HD Audio in multiple mixing perspectives.
According to Waldrep, "iTrax.com is a sort of an iTunes for people that
care about sound quality, surround music and don't want to be
restricted in the use of the music they download. This new web site
allows music lovers, home theater owners and surround music fans to
access music that has actually been recorded, mixed and mastered in
high-definition – most 'so-called' HD Audio downloads are really
standard definition tracks delivered through the web. iTrax.com
delivers better than CD quality digital downloads for the first time,
without copying restrictions…and in 5.1 surround."
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Tuesday, 16 October 2007
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Written by
AVRev.com
Apple
has confirmed that they have dropped the price of DRM-free songs
downloaded via iTunes. Previously, Apple charged 99 cents per track for
DRM encoded, 128kbps songs. Their iTunes Plus songs, which have
bitrates of 256kbps and are DRM-free, sold for $1.29 per track.
Now, Apple has lowered the price of iTunes Plus songs from $1.29 per
track to 99 cents per track. It appears that the 128kbps, DRM songs
remain at 99 cents per track.
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Thursday, 08 February 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
In
an open letter seemingly targeted to the big four major record labels,
Apple founder, visionary and audiophile – Steven Jobs discusses the
possibility of removing the DRM (digital rights management) copy
protection from music files like the systems used on the files
purchased from Apple’s ITunes Music Store. Jobs makes some strong
points including the fact that the Compact Disc which sells well today
(over $9,000,000,000 per year domestically) yet has no DRM system to
protect music files that any consumer can rip to a computer, an MP3
device and most commonly an Apple iPod.
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Friday, 15 December 2006
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Written by
AVRev.com
Nielsen SoundScan has reported a dramatic growth in the sales of digital music downloads for 2006. Through the first 49 weeks of 2006, sales of individually downloaded digital tracks are up more than 67 percent over the same period in 2005, accounting for more than 525 million digital downloads; already 173 million more than 2005’s annual total.
Historically, digital downloads have dramatically increased year-over-year. In 2005, digital track sales reached 353 million; 150 percent higher than total track sales for all of 2004. In 2004, digital download track sales broke the 100 million mark with more than 140 million digital tracks sold.
In 2006 to date, 54 tracks have sold more than 500,000 units as opposed to only 22 tracks in all of 2005. None reached that sales mark in 2004.
Digitally downloaded albums have increased more than 100 percent with 29.7 million ...
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