Anyone know exactly, or technically, which has better quality? Or are CD's and iTunes downloads virtually the same? If I'm importing a CD into iTunes, is the song's quality in iTunes going to be better, the same, or worse than if I bought the song from the iTunes music store?
2007-04-04 05:30:51 · 7 answers · asked by SS 3 in Consumer Electronics ➔ Music & Music Players
The CD is going to be of slightly better sound quality vs. downloaded from iTunes. Not that most people can tell the difference. When you import the CD into iTunes you must select a loseless format to maintain the better quality, or there will be some degradation. That's the jist of it. You may read on for a more detailed explanation, but beware of the techno babble.
Most downloadable music is stored in a (lossy) compressed format. Compression shrinks the song down so it takes up less storage space (on your computer/music player) and downloads faster. But some of the original audio information is thrown out in this process (of compression) which can degrade the quality. How much degradation there is (loss of quality) depends on what format the songs are compressed in (e.g. mp3, mp4, wma, aac, etc...) and the encoding level (e.g. 96 kbps, 128, 196, 256, etc...). There a few music services that sell songs in a lossless format that will equal or exceed CD's in quality, but iTunes isn't among them yet.
iTune downloads are in a fairly high quality compression format (aac 128 kbps I believe), so the difference in sound quality won't be discernable to most ears. Especially not on an portable player. On other hand, some audiophiles have said they notice a meaningful difference on high quality stereo/audio equipment (less quality for the downloaded music, even when transferred to CD).
So in summary I'd say if your planning to only listen to the songs on your iPod (or other portable music player), it usually won't make any noticeable difference. On high quality stereos/audio equipment the degradation (for downloads) is more likely to be noticeable (although many people can't tell anyways).
2007-04-04 06:26:24 · answer #1 · answered by James 2 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Itunes Download Quality
2016-12-26 15:18:14 · answer #2 · answered by stanberry 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Typical iTunes downloads use lossy compression so the quality will be less than the uncompressed CD audio files.
If you use a lossless codec when ripping a CD into iTunes then you can get the same quality but a lossy codec will reduce quality (because lossy compression involves throwing data away to reduce file size).
Though if you use a high enough bit rate you probably won't notice the difference (if you're listening to it from a playback device with marginal audio quality like most portable players you probably won't notice any difference between a CD rip with lossless encoding, a lossy compressed DRMed file or a pirated MP3 you got off a P2P system).
2007-04-04 05:44:03 · answer #3 · answered by bestonnet_00 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
just for the record, all digital music can be described as 'compressed', insofar as the original sound wave is 'chopped up' into discrete binary 1s and 0s. It's just that the process used for mp3s or iTunes goes further and uses various additional strategies to reduce file sizes - including loss of content that it thinks you won't notice. By contrast, an analog tape recorder (pictured) attempts to capture the entire soundwave as a continuous electrical equivalent waveform. But that had its own problems, and on the whole the fine-grained resolution of a CD, with its wide frequency response and dynamic range ('loudness') is as good as any audiophile could possibly want. Anyway, why do we bother with iTunes or .mp3 types of compression at all? They should be obsolete. Broadband internet speed and the enormous and growing capacity of modern hard drives or flash memory could perfectly well accomodate masses of music at full CD quality
2014-09-15 09:09:50 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
i think the best way to go is buying it on itunes because to me it has a better quality besides if you were to but it on itunes you would be able to make yourself a copy if you also listen to cds. and to me cds are not as good anymore i like my ipod more only because the songs don't get scratched only your ipod. so in the end i would choose buying it through itunes
2016-03-18 06:44:01 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
CD's are a "pure" sound. iTunes music is compressed and so the sounds that your ears are less senstitive to are removed to speed up the download. They are both high quality digital but because iTunes is compressed so it is lower quality.
2007-04-04 06:56:42 · answer #6 · answered by Simon 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I downloaded iTunes for free here http://bitly.com/1zK9otk
Give it a try.
I hope it helps
2014-07-31 10:51:20 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
itunes will be of exact same quality as CD's. if we're made to pay for this stuff its obviously got 2 b as gud as the stuff u buy on CD's. if Mac didnt give us gud quality stuff for our money, they wud hav had ther asses sued by now
2007-04-04 05:39:56 · answer #8 · answered by mAdMaX 1 · 0⤊ 11⤋