iTunes, has anyone else noticed...
 

...how shockingly pants the music quality is?

I've just downloaded my first albumn, and though, hmmm, where's the base, so I grabbed "Abilene" by Shryl Crow to compare it with a track I mave already ripped to mp3 from my cd collection.

I couldnt believe how bad the iTunes version was!

What are they playing at? 128kbps aac's when I run my mp3's at 256kbps

I think this will be the first and only purchase from there, if they all come out like this :( Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me?

Also, some of the albumns on there are more expensive than www.play.com !

I gotta be missing something obvious here, my amp isnt registering any bass! Is this all just designed for people with ipods and headphones?

Comments welcome :)

Jules

Its sh!te
for people who dont care about the quality.

320 kbps MP3s are bad enough quality, 128 is shockingly bad.

And you paid for this? lol

No surprise that iTunes sounds bad - as you say, it's designed for portable use with headphones.

Freak: I'm surprised you're finding 320kb/s MP3s sound bad - I wonder whether you're doing a proper controlled experiment here. It could well be that your PC's sound card (or whatever else you're using to decode them) is bad. Try burning a few to an audio CD and then play that back to back with the original in your CD player - you might be surprised. I use 160kb/s as a compromise between quality and portability.

Jason, try grabbing a track you already have on CD and compare the difference?

Jules

when i say 'bad' im comparing to mainly vinyl and some cd.
On a home system its acceptable yes, but on a club system its a big no no- sounds terrible ( i cant help but look at things from my professional perspective)
Im just not a big fan of mp3- it has its uses, as mentioned above. But if people are selling ****e mp3s with a really low bitrate then thats not a good thing.

I'm with Freak on this one. MP3, by definition is horrendous. Good enough for portable use or car, but nowt else. (speaking in my professional capacity ;))

Haven't downloaded anything from I-Tunes though. Well, not yet.

Dan