Does "Mastered for iTunes" matter to music? Ars puts it to t, Article about Apples "Mastered for iTunes" program Options

[knutinh]

Thought this might be interesting, and did not find it mentioned in other posts:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/04/...-the-test.ars/1

[stephan_g]

Comments >> article.

The article illustrates nicely that the underlying motivation for "Mastered for iTunes" is not generally understood. The comment by itsbenaltogether sums up the central points pretty well:

[...] All this article is saying is that it is possible to master a record in a way that reduces artifacts due to AAC compression. This doesn't sound that outrageous to me and the advice Apple is giving people isn't exactly rocket science either. If AAC compression can cause clipping, it's a no brainer to reduce the levels before compression. To do this most effectively, it helps to have the best dynamic range signal available. This all sounds straightforward to me.

Add the point that heavy dynamic compression tends to introduce more high-frequency content which, being harder to encode, either gives higher data rates or reduces overall quality, and you've got the gist. Not rocket science to him or to me or anyone else with some kind of signal processing background, but to the average mastering engineer it apparently is. This article could have done something about this, but as-is it's just yet another missed opportunity.

This post has been edited by stephan_g: Apr 30 2012, 13:04