24/192

One of the big complaints audiophiles have in this age of iTunes is that the music has had, as Steve Vai would say, "The ever-loving piss compressed out of it". Typical sound files are mastered in the studio at 24-bit / 192 KHz and are chunked down to go to CD to 16-bit / 44 KHz, and then compressed to make the file sizes small so we can fit lots of songs on our iPods.

But Lately there has been a call for better sound quality even on portable devices (although how much that might matter to someone listening in a noisy mall towing children along I can't say). It's surely possible. The electronics inside iPods are very good already. It's the files that could use some help.

There have been rumors swirling that Apple might be moving iTunes to a better sound format. How would 24/192 audio, as pristine and pure as the original masters sound on an iPod? We may get to find out.

Now comes news that Apple may have hired Tomlinson Holman, the world-renowned Über-sound guy. You may never have heard of him but you've probably heard of THX, which is named after him (The "T" and "H" are his initials). He's pretty much the top audio expert on the planet. Just think of what products we could see with Tom's genius and Apple's money (They've got to do something with that $65 billion in cash they have burning a hole in their pockets right now).

I can almost hear it now.