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Just picked up WFTSC last night from iTunes. Love the new album, but the iTunes versions distorts quite horribly at relatively low volume. Crank it up a bit to mid volume on the old iPod, and yikes! Distortion city. Really bad.
Anyone else purchase the new disc on iTunes and have better luck? Also download the 12" mix of Kraft, and that was just as bad.
I downloaded it from ITunes and it sounds fine with no distortion. I've burned a CD and that sounds pretty good, too. I've listened to the songs through the headphones and through my Altec speakers with my Gen3 IPod and I'm impressed with how well it sounds. My suggestion would be to burn a copy onto CD (if you can) and listen to the CD. If that's OK, then it's probably your IPod.
Even so, I have the CD coming from England via snail mail. It wasn't here last Friday and I wanted it, so $10 to ITunes and it's here. At least the band (and the label) get most of that money.
Guyfamous wrote: I downloaded it from ITunes and it sounds fine with no distortion. I've burned a CD and that sounds pretty good, too. I've listened to the songs through the headphones and through my Altec speakers with my Gen3 IPod and I'm impressed with how well it sounds. My suggestion would be to burn a copy onto CD (if you can) and listen to the CD. If that's OK, then it's probably your IPod.
Even so, I have the CD coming from England via snail mail. It wasn't here last Friday and I wanted it, so $10 to ITunes and it's here. At least the band (and the label) get most of that money.
Hmm. Interesting that you don't have the distortion. I have the Etyomotic ER-6i earphones which have a much higher output and sensitivity than the Apple earbuds. Tried listening with the Earbuds and the distortion was still there, but not as bad. I don't think it's my iPod, as none of my other purchased iTunes music is distorted.
Apple has kindly allowed me a second download opportunity. I'll do that tonight and report back in with the results. The nice thing is that the tech said they would look into the quality if I still have a problem.
My last resort will be to just purchase the CD; which I'm more than happy to do because - let's face it - this new album is fantastic. Ha!
Yep... I had the same issue. Downloaded the album from itunes and burned it to a CD for my car and the quality sucks. Used Musicmatch to convert all of the songs and it didn't really help. Purchased an import of the album at a record store in L.A. and difference in quality is night and day...
Sorry but zero sympathy here, what exactly did you expect? All iTunes stuff is dreadful quality-wise, that's pretty much indisputable. I've only ever ordered three or four single tracks from their music store which I always delete once I get my hands on the actual CD. I did that with Doves "Black And White Town"; the track was on iTunes one week before it was in the shops so I thought what the hell. It went straight into the Recycle Bin after I bought the CD single though. The quality of a full CD sourced track compared to their dull sounding M4P was never going to be any competition. Even the MP3s I made from the CD single that ended up on my iPod sounded so much better.
As far as I know all iTunes "pay" songs are encoded at 128kbps M4P at "low complexity". To anyone who gives any sort of a toss about music sounding good, this is far too low. The bass is off, the imageing is off, the treble is verging on "watery". You can hear the song, but not as it was intended to be heard. Rather than fork out £7 or £8 for the album over iTunes why not just pay an extra quid or two and get the physical CD via Amazon? Then you can make compressed files to your heart's content, at any level and best of all they'll have no protection unlike the M4Ps.
I will never order stuff seriously from iTunes unless they start offering tracks at 192-224kbps minimum. 128 simply ain't enough for the cash you part with.
Ally.
Isn't it a worry, Ally, that iTunes is now the norm. alongside the myriad of other MP3 fig leaves.
The kids aren't bothered nowadays.
Back when quality was paramount, we used to pride ourselves on our Ferro cassettes, at some points almost hearing the underlying music through the hiss and whale noises.
You can present crab meat, but you don't always eat it.
I downloaded it from itunes and burned a CD immediately, sounds almost exactly what I would imagine a store bought CD of the album to sound like.
The sad fact about sound quality is that most people neither care nor can hear the difference in a compressed format versus something that is CD quality. The difference is there, regardless of how high the quality of the encoding. When you encode to mp3 or aac, you still wind up with a decreased depth, small amounts of distortion, and missing highs starting somewhere above 16kHz. If you can't hear the difference, then you'll never hear the difference...
320 K/s or nothing, I'd find it hard to pay for any minor bitrate because it's too inferior to the CD quality... If it's a 128 K file you better download it "elsewhere" for free ;)
I record my music from CD's at 224k using LAME 3.93.1 sounds great. 128k is what we've been use to for MP3's but seriously, you don't want that any more, sounds so crap compared to 192k plus.
Daniel Preston wrote: I downloaded it from itunes and burned a CD immediately, sounds almost exactly what I would imagine a store bought CD of the album to sound like.
As well as that being scientifically untrue, it's extremely unlikely for the iTunes files to sound every bit as good as the properly pressed CD album. Your imagination is wrong in this case especially as you presumably don't have the full quality CD for reference. There is no way a 128kbps AAC file with low complexity encoding could sound anywhere as good a properly sourced CD album. That's a fact.
The whole notion of audio compression is that it takes away audio information in order to achieve a reduced size. This affects everything from treble to bass to the music image (where the instruments are placed in the mix) This information is whacked out of place as a result of the compression, while to the casual ear the recording still sounds similar, it is in fact very different. Sorry to sound like a trainspotter but compressed files absolutely don't measure up to 44khz/16-bit full quality PCM and you're deluding yourself if you think they do. 
Ally.
Ally3000 wrote:
Daniel Preston wrote: I downloaded it from itunes and burned a CD immediately, sounds almost exactly what I would imagine a store bought CD of the album to sound like.
As well as that being scientifically untrue, it's extremely unlikely for the iTunes files to sound every bit as good as the properly pressed CD album. Your imagination is wrong in this case especially as you presumably don't have the full quality CD for reference. There is no way a 128kbps AAC file with low complexity encoding could sound anywhere as good a properly sourced CD album. That's a fact.
The whole notion of audio compression is that it takes away audio information in order to achieve a reduced size. This affects everything from treble to bass to the music image (where the instruments are placed in the mix) This information is whacked out of place as a result of the compression, while to the casual ear the recording still sounds similar, it is in fact very different. Sorry to sound like a trainspotter but compressed files absolutely don't measure up to 44khz/16-bit full quality PCM and you're deluding yourself if you think they do.
Ally.
You tell 'em, Ally.:)
Cmon, lighten up. I didn't want this to turn into a rant on how crappy compressed music/mp3 files are. Just wanting to know other people's experience regarding the new album on iTunes. There's a million forums for the quality issue/debate.
Of course compressed files don't sound as good. I wanted the new album, didn't want to wait for the US domestic release, and purchased the iTunes version. That's not to say that I wouldn't have 'upgraded' later if I liked the album enough.
Compressed music files may totally suck to some of you, but these REALLY sucked.:D I realize I'm not going to get CD quality sound here, guys. I'm looking for something that at least doesn't distort at less than half volume on the ole' iPod. So sue me. Or send me the import - whichever strikes your fancy.. :)
I got the actual CD today, so I'll compare the downloaded and burned CD with the actual, and see how much is lost.
Of course compressed files don't sound as good. I wanted the new album, didn't want to wait for the US domestic release, and purchased the iTunes version. That's not to say that I wouldn't have 'upgraded' later if I liked the album enough.
That's exactly why I downloaded, too. If there were any good music stores in this "god fearing" town, I might have been able to buy the import the day it came out without having to wait for the Royal Mail to get it to me.
I purchased 2 Krafty tracks from iTunes (Album Version and Glimmers Dub). I just wanted the albmu version temporarily until I get the real CD. But the Glimmers Dub, I haven't noticed it on any single yet. 
Both of them sound the way I would expect a file compressed at 128 kbps to sound -- not CD quality, but not overly-distorted either. Hope your second download works out better for you!
