I have been mulling these ideas for a while now. I haven't been lack to post them because of anything other than laziness. I wanted to make note of two things I have noticed recently - and seen comments on. The first one deals with iTunes and the AAC audio format:
Some people may notice the difference between compressed music like MP3, OGG and/or AAC and the original CD track - some people may not. I am one of those people who can actually notice the difference - most of the time - even on a fairly poor set of headphones. The missing part of the music is usually something felt and not heard - similar to the way many tones of bass are actually felt and never heard. I don't have any high-end stereo equipment to speak of, so I am not a true audiophile, but I am conscious of the difference between say AAC and CD Audio. I thought there was a great follow-up article at MSNBC entitled iTunes Music Store revisited: Responses to some of your (printable) e-mails. I have never read anything from Gary Krakow (that I can remember), so I am not in tune with any latent biases he may have exhibited in the past regarding Apple or non-Microsoft related company. I thought his responses were pretty good - especially:
The last, and possibly scariest word on the subject of sound quality goes to one of the many music professionals who wrote: “As a musician I feel that the sound quality is exceptional. CD quality? Close enough.”I would really agree with Gary about an unspoken point he is making. Do we really want to go back to the days of vinyl and tape (quality-wise) - which is really what these compressed formats offer (without the hisses and scratching sounds) - or do we want to continue towards recording fuller sounding music? This is a matter of personal opinion, of course, and I don't want to begrudge anyone of what Apple is offering. I wrote myself, that this is a music service I can sink my teeth into. What I meant is that of all the music services offered over the net, this is the most convenient and reasonably priced (when you weigh the factors of portability, etc. into the mix). On the other hand, I don't see this as the next generation of music services. If you want to define something as next generation it had better be better than CD's from the standpoint of quality of sound and delivery system (i.e. I don't need to buy anymore preformatted plastic discs from the local CD store). Apple has done a great job, but I don't think that this is the future of music in the sense that we are still paying a relatively high price for worse sounding music - even if your ears can't hear the difference. As for my second title topic: Apple Religion. Adam Knight @ codepoetry writes Mac Dealers Whine a Little Harder, Cry a Little Longer. He states:
I really wonder about the sound quality at his live performances.
Let me make a prediction: Apple will not succeed until they rid the world of Mac-only dealers. By this I mean, Apple needs market share, Apple needs sales. Apple needs to be in the gamer’s home, the mother’s home, the businessman’s office, and the server room’s rack. They need to be everywhere and their name needs to be synonymous with great machines, worthy of being all you have, not the kind of computer that can’t view Windows Media files.While I think Adam is on the money, I have also thought about Apple this way: what if Apple remains over-priced, but continues with innovative, well-built machines? I don't know if Apple's market share can shrink any more than it has, so as long as the company continues to make money, I don't see a reason for them to fall by the way-side. Apple appears to fill a market-niche for people like me and other Mac users. I gladly pay the extra buck because I feel that the product I have in my hand is simply better built and doesn't cause me the grief that other products would (for example, the last time I crashed my PowerBook was when I plugged in a non-complient pc-card cd-rom drive that had crashed my other PowerBook -- just to see if anything had changed that would allow me to use it. The last time it crashed due to software errors is so long ago that I can't remember when). I don't know if I want an OS that is used by all because I fear that I will have the same problems Microsoft/Windows users have. Using a Mac puts me in the position of being different... and I like that. So, there are good arguments on both sides of the fence. One thing I definitely agree on, however: drop the holier-than-thou attitude. It is a turn-off for not only current Apple buyers, but also future buyers as well.
