NYT misinformation on audio compression Options

[bawjaws]

There's an article in the New York Times about audio compression and download services like iTMS.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/business...ner=rssuserland

Now, while I use lossless encoding and wouldn't buy from any download service at the moment for anything other than novelty value, I like to think I do so for the right reasons. However this piece is full of misinformation, particularly towards Apple and AAC. Even though the author's complaints generally apply to every form of lossly compression and every download service.

The author (alledgedly a historian) apparently also wrote a book about the history of Apple that couldn't go a page without a snide remark about Steve Jobs' personality or level of intellegence.
Combine that fact with him asking the editor of 'Stereophile' magazine to comment on lossy encoding and you're asking for a barely disguised hit-piece.

[upNorth]

Consumers find downloading instantly gratifying, but the company uses an extreme form of compression that takes a sample of the sound at intervals.

At first I thought he liked CDs, but now I'm not so sure anymore...