Hi Lou:

You are correct!

For the Mercury Living Presence material I remaster, I send Abbey Road Studios my final 96/24 master 
files, which they then grind through some sort of Apple-approved and/or Apple-made software to 
render Mastered for iTunes (MFIT) files, which are then uploaded to Apple's servers. Furthermore, 
Apple demands 96/24 master files for all MFIT submissions, meaning they are building up an 
incredible store of high-resolution audio should they choose at some point to squash all the little 
niche audiophile download stores.

I don't like any lossy format for highly dynamic classical music, but I'm told that iTunes downloads 
do account for a decent slice of the MLP revenue pie. And, to Apple's credit, when they upgraded the 
default iTunes format to 256kbps AAC, they went back and re-ripped from CDs or re-converted from 
CD-resolution PCM files, so what is sold as 256kbps really did start lossy life that way.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lou Judson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Is it time to rethink FLAC ?


> Reviewing this thread so I can see what to delete, I just want to point out that “Mastered for 
> iTunes” is a real thing (ar least a copyrighted process perhaps?), which optimizes a musical 
> recording to sound better in compressed form.
>
> Mastering IN iTunes is a convenient fiction and is not any kind of normal practice anywhere.
> <L>
> Lou Judson
> Intuitive Audio
> 415-883-2689
>
> On May 17, 2015, at 5:17 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>
>> As for mastering in iTunes, I would be very careful about that and do bit-level comparisons with 
>> the master files and resulting CD. I suspect iTunes converts to some interim format and then 
>> burns the CD.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Haley" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 5:19 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Is it time to rethink FLAC ?
>>
>>
>>> I can't imagine any audio professional who masters audio in iTunes.  I
>>> can't get a grip on that as a concept.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> John Hale
>
>