Some musicians and record executives have recently bemoaned the fact that what ends up on a fans iPod or iPhone is of arguably much lower quality than what is laid down on tape or hard drives in the studio. While some players in the industry have pushed for higher resolution downloads, Apples current solution involves adhering to long-recognized—if not always followed—industry best practices, along with an improved compression toolchain that squeezes the most out of high-quality master recordings while still producing a standard 256kbps AAC iTunes Plus file.

Shepard applauded Apples technical guidelines, which encourage mastering engineers to use less dynamic range compression, to refrain from pushing audio levels to the absolute limit, and to submit 24/96 files for direct conversion to 16/44.1 compressed iTunes Plus tracks. However, he doubted that submitting such high quality files would result in much difference in final sound quality. Shepards conclusions led CE Pro to claim that Mastered for iTunes is nothing more than “marketing hype.”

So, we set out to delve deeper into the technical aspects of Mastered for iTunes. We also attempted to do some of our own testing to see if there was any difference—good or bad—to be had from following the example of Masterdisk.

SOURCE: Does “Mastered for iTunes” matter to music? Ars puts it to the test.