“A few months ago, I posted an article discussing Why iTunes Doesn’t Support FLAC Files,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Kirkville. “I’ve gotten a lot of feedback, both in comments to the article and in emails, from people wondering when Apple will start selling lossless files on the iTunes Store. (These are music files that are the exact equivalent as music on CDs, and Apple could use the format that they developed, Apple Lossless, to provide this quality.)”
“I think Apple will eventually do this, but that they’re in no hurry to do so. The quality of the AAC files that Apple sells (at 256 kbps) is certainly ‘good enough’ for most uses,” McElhearn writes. “If you do the kind of test I discuss here, it’s unlikely that you’ll hear a difference. And unless you have very good audio equipment, then you most certainly won’t.”
“Nevertheless, many music fans (though certainly a minority) want lossless music files,” McElhearn writes. “And, just as Apple has pushed its ‘Mastered for iTunes’ files – which, interestingly, are not always better quality than regular AAC files – they could use the sale of lossless files as a marketing tool.”
Read more in the full article here.
