iTunes 8 SQ much better
Sep 12, 2008 at 2:27 AM Post #31 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by GeeMan /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Apologies in advance if I'm posting in the wrong forum:

Perhaps it's just the placebo effect, but I think that iTunes 8 seems to have much better SQ than what I remember with v7.7.

Voices and instruments seem to have more air, soundstage seems greater and dynamics seem wider. I'm using a Mac, so I can't testify to the sound of the Windows version.

Is it just me, or does anyone else agree?



I noticed this too so I checked the Audio MIDI Setup and somehow it was changed from 16bit to 24bit still with 44Khz. I usually keep it at 44 & 16bit but the 24bit setting sounds better. If I upsample to 96Khz, it sounds off to me.

Does anyone else enjoy the Genius playlist creator. I have a huge library of over 17,000 songs and it look a little over an hours to 1st setup. I usually listen to albums but the playlists remind me of listening to satellite radio except with lossless quality. I makes much better use of my 16g iphone and it so easy to create new playlists to keep the music fresh. It will have an on-the-fly Genius creator after tomorrow upgrade but I don't see that as useful with the smaller library on the ipod itself. Probably worthwhile on the ipod classic.
 
Sep 12, 2008 at 2:44 AM Post #32 of 74
The Genius playlist creator looks like a sales tool. I've never had much luck with suggestions from last.fm and I imagine it works in a similar fashion.

Looking at the new features on Apple.com, it looks like they took away the way I browse my library, List with art. I hate cover flow, and the grid doesn't appeal to me. It looks like I'm sticking with 7.7 for a while. Since they just downgraded the iPod classic, I won't be buying a new one any time soon.
 
Sep 12, 2008 at 4:40 AM Post #33 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by scompton /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The Genius playlist creator looks like a sales tool. I've never had much luck with suggestions from last.fm and I imagine it works in a similar fashion.

Looking at the new features on Apple.com, it looks like they took away the way I browse my library, List with art. I hate cover flow, and the grid doesn't appeal to me. It looks like I'm sticking with 7.7 for a while. Since they just downgraded the iPod classic, I won't be buying a new one any time soon.



There's an arrow on the left of your list to bring the art on or off. So they combined the list and list w/art in to one view. The Genius playlist has a side bar on the side you can slide off so you don't have to see the suggestions for stuff you don't own. The main feature is making playlists out of your own library. Without the sidebar, there is no sales tool. Oh well, I'm very happy with it.
 
Sep 12, 2008 at 4:52 AM Post #34 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by iamoneagain /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Does anyone else enjoy the Genius playlist creator. I have a huge library of over 17,000 songs and it look a little over an hours to 1st setup. I usually listen to albums but the playlists remind me of listening to satellite radio except with lossless quality. I makes much better use of my 16g iphone and it so easy to create new playlists to keep the music fresh. It will have an on-the-fly Genius creator after tomorrow upgrade but I don't see that as useful with the smaller library on the ipod itself. Probably worthwhile on the ipod classic.


I've really enjoyed it so far. I have about 10k songs and I usually put it on shuffle. My songs sometimes go from death metal to folk so that's why I disliked shuffle all the time, but with Genius playlists it makes a list of songs that flow much better.
 
Sep 12, 2008 at 6:54 AM Post #35 of 74
'Genius' is quite nice.
It come up with some weird suggestions some times though.
tongue.gif
 
Sep 12, 2008 at 2:06 PM Post #37 of 74
You've relieved my mind about the art. I typically shuffle by album, so the genius play lists don't interest me that much, but since you can turn it off, it won't stop me from upgrading. Now my only question is, has anyone ripped using EAC and itunesencoder? 7.7 broke the COM object so itunesencoder and other scripts didn't work. 7.7.1 fixed it, but it's made me leery of upgrading since you can't back out.
 
Sep 12, 2008 at 8:04 PM Post #38 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Thanks a lot for the link!
I found it quite annoying to have the links back after an update, and no way to disable them (like before).
very_evil_smiley.gif



I think those links can be useful. Instead of linking to the store, it can be used to group artists or albums with one click.

Code:

Code:
[left]defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool TRUE[/left]

 
Sep 13, 2008 at 5:13 AM Post #40 of 74
I noticed today that iTunes 8 has screwed up some of my albums tags but only in the new view that displays album art only. The artists names on some are mixed up, adding it to the album artist tag when I check each song. Oh well back to the old list view which works fine so far.
 
Sep 13, 2008 at 6:54 AM Post #41 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by dvessel /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I think those links can be useful. Instead of linking to the store, it can be used to group artists or albums with one click.

Code:

Code:
[left]defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool TRUE[/left]




Ok! I just prefer to have no such links.
wink.gif
 
Sep 13, 2008 at 3:20 PM Post #42 of 74
I've tried 3 times to turn on the Genius bar with no luck. Twice yesterday, iTunes crashed while I was doing other stuff. I tried to let it run overnight, but we had a power outage this morning and when I started iTunes, it deleted all of the Genius data. I'm running XP on a 5 year old computer and a big library
 
Sep 13, 2008 at 8:27 PM Post #43 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by scompton /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I've tried 3 times to turn on the Genius bar with no luck. Twice yesterday, iTunes crashed while I was doing other stuff. I tried to let it run overnight, but we had a power outage this morning and when I started iTunes, it deleted all of the Genius data. I'm running XP on a 5 year old computer and a big library


It is one of the reasons I don't think I will "upgrade" to iTunes 8. I have always found iTunes on PC to be very un-responsive and it gets worse with each bloated upgrade. I also read that iTunes 8 installs other components, which I don't really need, without telling me so. Plus since I don't have an iTunes account^, Genius probably won't do anything for me.

I deeply suspect that if one runs an older PC and has a largish music library then iTunes 8 can cause problems (or at least take quite a while to initiate). As I said before, it took me overnight to load my 120GB library into iTunes 7, which is really ridiculously slow. And during that entire time, my PC was so bogged down I couldn't even surf the web!

The only reason I have iTunes is for syncing my iPod.

^ Correct me if I am wrong, iTunes needs to be in your country before you can open an iTunes account right? I tried previously for the sake of album art but failed.
 
Sep 14, 2008 at 12:47 AM Post #44 of 74
I use streamripperX from time to time so I can "fastforward" my internet radio stations..when a lousy track comes on. The SQ really isn't worth keeping any of the music...(128kbps-uggh) but it is good for a quick auditoning tool to determine what you should buy.... It is hard to go back to old iTunes 7.7 if you upgrade to 8...also since it might alter some older stuff.. I'm not too psyched to load it and find that Streamripperx won't work.. Could someone who uses streamripperx tell me if it works with iTunes 8 like it did with 7.7?
 
Sep 14, 2008 at 6:27 PM Post #45 of 74
Quote:

Originally Posted by GeeMan /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Apologies in advance if I'm posting in the wrong forum:

Perhaps it's just the placebo effect, but I think that iTunes 8 seems to have much better SQ than what I remember with v7.7.

Voices and instruments seem to have more air, soundstage seems greater and dynamics seem wider. I'm using a Mac, so I can't testify to the sound of the Windows version.

Is it just me, or does anyone else agree?



It's me too. Almost immediately when listening to the first mp3 I thought the same thing. I never had that thought after any other previous upgrade or media player switch. But how can that be? A bit is a bit is a bit.
 

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