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Just some musings... It's probably impossible to generalize about this, as projects likely take many different pathways to release as downloads, but it seems like "mastered for iTunes," as a quality oriented process vs. a simple run-through, is actually more time and effort intensive than exporting a project as nativeKHz/24bit files. Yet, the iTunes stuff is cheaper. Are content owners willing to absorb higher production cost just to appear on iTunes? Is the bulk of the Apple Store's old-catalog inventory ripped from 1st or 2nd generation CDs? Did they hire teenagers to do that at minimum wage? The differential seems excessive. If quality costs 14 bucks minimum, how can anything exist for 5 or less, given fixed costs for licensing, etc? (I don't use iTunes, so correct my retail cost assumption if necessary.) If downloads are still a low-profit or unprofitable factor in the quality market, it is interesting that it is still physical stuff that is supporting that end of the market. Support is the wrong word - exemplifying, maybe. The Dead thing demonstrates there is money to be made sometimes. In the old days, that profit would accrue to a label, that would then use some of it to support other projects, as most recordings were not profitable. Doesn't look like that mechanism can exist anymore if the atomized business model puts every project on its own. Whatever, we antiquarians should hope there is more life in physical product than we have lately been expecting. Old catalog is the product of an industrial model that no longer functions, yet it is still encumbered by that model. Apparently, it will exist as high-quality/high-cost or as low-quality/low cost, with a substantial gap between. Most new music recordings are created outside the old industrial model. They are evolving their own profit expectations and means of distribution independent of those dominated by the past, using a vastly cheaper means of production to provide both quality and cost conditioned by a market that is increasingly impoverished and whose sense of value is influenced by virtually no-cost content (cf. Jaron Lanier). It's a thumb in the eye of an industry that cannot or will not respond to the new reality. Recordings can return to being a compliment to the live performance, rather than its replacement. This can be a means of breaking the conceptual stranglehold with which the past limits the present. The past casts a long shadow over the future, which is taking some time to move beyond. -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2013 9:01 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Compact Discs with lossy compression I'm assuming Jamie was referring to a filthy-rich hedgefund guy who's also an audiophile. His point was, the guy was willing to pay extra for better audio quality. We already see in the LP market that a healthy niche can exist for people willing to pay more for perceived "better" quality. In the LP niche, I would argue it's as much for the cachet and the nice packaging (a real artifact, as opposed to a cheap-looking commodity product) as for the allegedly "better" sound quality. There does seem to be an emerging niche for higher-quality digital audio, but most of the excitement is in the now-tiny download niche. For the mainstream market, despite wishes by some of us for things to be otherwise, there simply is not the production budget or profit margin to "do things great", at almost any stage of the process. This is especially true with reissue material, which has a limited end market. Comparing the market for a deluxe Grateful Dead reissue to the market for less-popular (with today's buyers) Duane Eddy is comparing apples and oranges. No reissue producer in his right mind is going to spend very much money putting together a Duane Eddy greatest hits single-CD. He will likely make a very slim margin on it, as is.