Does "Mastered for iTunes" matter to music? Ars puts it to the test

Don't want these emails? Unsubscribe here. Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Top stories: Apr 27 - May 03 Infinite Loop Does "Mastered for iTunes" matter to music? Ars puts it to the test by Chris Foresman Apple's push to increase the quality of songs distributed via iTunes has been formally realized in the company's Mastered for iTunes program—but does it really make music sound better? After our original report on the Mastered for iTunes program, some readers were skeptical that anything could be done to make a compressed AAC file sound comparable to uncompressed, 16-bit 44.1kHz CD standard audio. Others believed users should have access to the original 24-bit 96kHz files created in the studio for the best sound. Finally, some readers suggested that few people can actually tell the difference between iTunes Plus tracks and CD audio, so why bother making any effort to improve iTunes quality? Read More Nobel Intent 1859's "Great Auroral Storm"—the week the Sun touched the earth by Matthew Lasar Noon approached on September 1, 1859, and British astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington was busy with his favorite pastime: tracking sunspots, those huge regions of the star darkened by shifts in its magnetic field. He projected the Sun's image from his viewing device onto a plate of glass stained a "pale straw colour," which gave him a picture of the fiery globe one inch shy of a foot in diameter. The morning's work went as normal. Carrington patiently counted and charted spots, time-lining changes in their positions with a chronometer. Then he saw something unusual. Read More Tech Policy "Free babysitting": how would-be pedophiles use Craigslist—and how they get caught by Nate Anderson Craigslist classified ads may have kneecapped the newspaper business, but they are doing wonders for amateur comedians, finders of false teeth, and fashioners of crucifix-shaped guitars played by men dressed as Funky Jesus. "I am an atheist seeking friends who are pious and who will be wisked away for the rapture that kirk cameron says is coming may 22nd 2011," said one obviously humorous ad last year. "I get to keep all your stuff because you won't need them as you will be in rapturous bliss basking in the love of the great creator. I, however, will need your stuff since I will be trapped here on earth with all the rest of the unclean, deniers, and cravens." But most unbelievable posts concern sex. A famous find from 2008 instructed any interested woman to arrive at a certain hotel, walk into a certain room (the door would be open), and lie down naked on the bed with posterior in the air. The woman was to pick up the NES controller lying there and start up Super Mario Bros. The man who posted the ad—hiding in the bathroom until this point—said he would only come out when the game had begun. Read More Business IT Skype replaces P2P supernodes with Linux boxes hosted by Microsoft (updated) by Dan Goodin Microsoft has overhauled the structure of Skype, replacing peer-to-peer supernodes made up of ordinary users with about 10,000 Linux boxes that have been hardened to withstand hack attacks, a security researcher says. Read More Forward this message to a friend More hot stories Free as in awesome: our favorite open source apps for Ubuntu 12.04 Facebook "likes" aren't speech protected by the First Amendment, rules judge Indicted BitTorrent group used FM, infrared receivers to record movies in theater Steganography: how al-Qaeda hid secret documents in a porn video How a fake Justin Bieber "sextorted" hundreds of girls through Facebook The Great Ars Cloud office suite shootout Furious judge decries "blizzard" of copyright troll lawsuits Blizzard to take up to 15 percent of Diablo III real-money auction house sales Bandwidth explosion: As Internet use soars, can bottlenecks be averted? MacBook Pros may get Ivy Bridge; whither the Mac Pros? The OpenForum speculates Email Admin Center This newsletter is a service of Ars Technica. Should you no longer wish to receive these messages, unsubscribe. To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images to load in future mailings, please add civis@arstechnica.com to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. You are receiving this email at narrongs.hotmobile@blogger.com. Condé Nast Digital 1166 Avenue of the Americas, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036, attn: Ars Technica Email Coordinator To view our Privacy Policy click here.