iTunes MP3

[PureArtist]

Hi what is the MP3 bitrate of iTunes MP3 ? How do I make MP3 of the same quality as iTunes MP3 ? I bought a song from iTunes which I have the CD of, when I played the iTunes MP3 to my amp using iPhone & the MP3 I created using the original CD they dont sound the same. The MP3 from CD falls shot in many ways. The quality was much lower on the MP3 I created using the original CD.

[Dave Davis]

To your question, music from the iTunes store is generally delivered at 256K AAC, not MP3s at all. Some older tracks may still be at 128K, who knows? iTunes, the application, is capable of making MP3s, AACs of virtually any resolution, and the algos and options are not bad at all... This is new since Snow Leopard (which also improved Core Audio and s/r conversions).

Two things may be at work in this specific case:
1) You may have a 128K AAC (cmd-I opens info, and you can see bitrate, or just turn it on in view options of iTunes).
2) The artist or label may have delivered alternate masters to iTunes.

As a mastering engineer I'll tell you the latter is very common. We are frequently tasked with creating parts not only for CDs, but iTunes and vinyl as well. Further, some distros allow labels to do their own conversions and rips - they may task label interns rip CD masters with crappy tools, or the wrong settings, and post them (I've experienced this one).

-d-