Poor sound quality of iTunes downloads

The huge fault with songs downloaded in AAC format from iTunes is the "buzz" or "interference" that surrounds the clean sounds of a piano or a voice, especially when the original passage is loud. I don't think there is a work-around for this.
To demonstrate: Listen to the iTunes sample of Vienna Teng's recording of "Gravity" on the album "Waking Hour". Compare this to the mp3 version of the same tune on Vienna teng's own site http://audio.viennateng.com/waking/viennateng-gravity.mp3. The latter is infinitely superior.
If you buy the album from iTunes, the quality is just as dismal as the sample - a complete waste of money as the "buzz" ruins all the tracks.
As an avid Mac fan I find this very disappointing. Does anybody have any suggestions or should we just look for good quality recordings from sources other than iTunes. If so where?
Also how can we voice this disappointment to the iTunes managers? The "Report a Problem" link in "Purchase History" does not work.

Hi Martin,
Use the form at the bottom of this page?
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/download/
Regards,
Colin R.

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Poor Sound Quality with iTunes 8

I just installed iTunes 8, and all of the songs in my Library play with poor sound quality regardless of the view I have open. The sound is really muffled, but the voices and higher frequencies sound tinny and shaky. I tried playing with the Equalizer and Sound Enhancer settings, but was not able to fix the problem.
What can I do to get the iTunes 7 sound back?

I, too, am experiencing a significant decline in the sound quality of recordings in my collection. The recordings sound very muffled on the low, bass end of the sound spectrum, and the treble is significantly diminished. This decline in sound quality occurred immediately after I upgraded to iTunes 8. The sound quality in iTunes 7 was fine, and overall better.
It appears that my iTunes 8 attempts to improve the playback sound quality of songs with 128 kbps bit rates, as these songs in my collection do seem to actually sound better. However, most of my collection are recordings imported at the higher sound quality standard of 320 kbps from CDs that I purchased, and these recordings all sound poor since I've installed iTunes 8.

How do I improve lame, irregular sound quality in itunes downloads?

I know most of you are way past this, but I'm not Mr Computer Guy. So I download songs and sometimes they come through pretty well, but lots of other times though they complete the download, technically, they're murker, and vocals are lost. If I get the CD it doesn't sound that way. I know fidelity is challenged in downloads what with compression and all, but what do I do if it's really murky? Re-buy it? Pay the added 99 cents? Or is it just that song? And how do I generally improve sound quality in downloads?

If you buy an iTunes track and find that it is defective, go into your purchase history and use the "Report a Problem" link to get a refund or replacement.
If on the other hand you just don't like the sound quality of compressed music, then you will have to buy CDs, or shop at the fairly limited selection of online stores that sell music in the lossless formats WAV or FLAC.

Poor sound quality on some iTunes songs

Downloaded some songs from iTunes and realized a really poor sound quality on some files.
The worst example is "Precious" from "Depeche Mode" (Album version). It seems to me that the AAC file is encoded at a much too high level, so its overdriven and distorted.
If i burn the song to CD and than analyze the track in WaveLab it is obvious that the song was encoded with a level more than 6dB over the usual level and i can see a lot of clippings.
Downloaded another song of another band that i allready have on CD, just to compare... and this song was much better. Even this was 3dB over the original CD level (and the song on CD had a peak level reserve of only 0.1dB), but while listening that song i heared no negative effects...
So from my point of view iTunes is not really an acceptable offer if i can't rely on a minimum sound quality of the songs that i pay for!
So, the question is:
Is this normal or is the "Depeche Mode" album only one rare bad example???

Yes, of cause, tried all.
EQ off, or EQ with all sliders a little below 0dB.
With my tests i saw no effect of the EQ to the CD burning quality.
Only if i change the CD burning options (in german "Lautstärke anpassen", something like "adapt volume" or so), than i get a CD that has the same bad quality, only at a lower volume.
The same distorted and overdriven sound with clippings at a lower level (peak -12dB).
What if it's really a bad file?
Do they fix such files?
Will i have a chance to download it again? (without paying another time?)
PC Windows XP Pro

Why the extremely poor sound quality in playback with itunes?

I am having problems with the sound quality of itunes music. this applies to both downloads and cd's. This problem is new, I believe, and affects bluetooth speaker, earphones, and macbook pro internal speaker. All have extremely poor playback with itunes. This Problem does not happen with playback of youtube videos.
Thanks for any advice you can give.

I would be worth playing some tracks with Quicktime so see what the quality is like there.
iTunes uses Quicktime to play music.
Also check this Apple help on audio playback problems:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1362

Poor sound quality on ipod and G4

The last three albums i have downloaded from itunes music store have poor sound quality. On both my G4 and my ipod the songs have a lot of noise. They sound as though the speakers are blown, or the eq is maxed. All my songs prior to these last three downloads sound fine on the same speakers and headphones.
Am i nuts?
Marc Cohn and St John's Childrens Choir are the last two albums i have downloaded.

? well idk what theyre talking about but i just got a new 160 GB classic 3 days ago and ive been perfectly happy with it and my music is only encoded at around 160, some down to 92 VBR! (saves disk space) and i work with music everyday as a listener, player, and engineer.

Using leopard sound quality in itunes suddenly diminished

Hi All
Anyone else had this problem - I installed Leopard the other day - no worries all good up to now - today started listening to some music and sound quality is awful - podcasts, imports from cd collections, downloads from internet all affected - all sounds like bitrate has fallen down to 32 instead of 256 - any ideas what it might be or what to do????

Hello,
I too have noticed poor audio quality from itunes after upgrading to OS 10.5. Even though most of my songs on iTunes are Apple Lossless Format, it still sounds like it is very low bitrate...So much so that I can't listen to most things. My listening is done via headphones or multimedia speakers thru the audio output on a MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz. Has anyone found a solution to this problem? Interestingly enough, I did notice that the same songs played on Quicktime sounds a lot better than that on itunes. I've tried everything that I can think of to rectify the problem. Checked all my connections, checked eq and other audio features on iTunes, I even tried going into App/Utilities/AudioMidi application to try the aforementioned solution without any luck.
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Desperate student seeking help

Poor sound quality on airtunes and airport express

I recently configured a new Airport Extreme base station and two airport expresses. I used the airport expresses to extend my network but the sound quality is very poor when I run itunes no my stero. can anyone tell me why and how to fix it. The sound is very scratchy and there is no volume.
Rich

Dear All,
I'd like to follow up because I think that the answer to why I am getting poor sound quality my be in how I set up my wireless network. I'd like to get some feedback about this and some help about how to correct it.
My wireless network has three components.
1. "Base Station" which is a new Airport Extreme.
2. Unit "Number 1" which is an Airport Express located in my living room and connected to my stereo. it is 30 feet away from the "Base Station."
3. Unit "Number 2", also an Airport Express that is upstairs in a bedroom and connected to a ruby imac. via its ethernet port.
Wireless strength is excellent in all locations and all other services are working well from a laptop, the ruby mac or the imac. My problem only seems readily apparent when playing itunes through the stereo's speakers.
My wireless system is configured as follows:
Base Station: Wireless mode is set to participate in wireless network and to allow this network to be extended. The WDS mode is main and is set to allow wireless clients. The two airport expresses are identified by ID number as remotes.
Unit 1 and 2 are configured as WDS remotes and to allow wireless clients and identify the base station as WDS main.
I recently configured a new Airport Extreme base
station and two airport expresses. I used the
airport expresses to extend my network but the sound
quality is very poor when I run itunes no my stero.
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Extremely poor sound quality on all apps after using Real Player!

Hi there
On my Leopard iMac (Core2Duo) I am experiencing extremely poor 'lo-fi-like' quality on all audio from all applications including iTunes, Quicktime and Safari as a result of using Real Player to play a file online.
I very rarely use Real Player and this was the first time I'd used it in months to even a year. The file was a simple RAM file from a store website allowing me to listen to a sample of a music file. When played, the quality was low but I expected this from a music sample, and from Real Player. However, after closing Real Player, I noticed the sound quality had dramatically dropped to an almost un-listenable quality.
I have restarted and uninstalled Real Player with no luck. The poor sound quality still comes through my internal speakers, as well as external speakers, so it seems like a software issue.
Not sure what to do, please can anyone help as the audio is used all day every day on this iMac!
Thank you

Just tried it as I did get iLife with my Mac. GarageBand froze for the first few times I loaded it up, then I managed to get it to work. Played with the on-screen keyboard which produced perfect sound.
Closed GarageBand, restarted iTunes, tested, working perfectly! Crystal clear sound back again!
Thanks so much for that, really appreciated!
=]

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Recently I am having trouble with poor sound quality. I am using software
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hi Sylph!
just checking ... was this the KB doc you looked at?
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows: Songs and other audio don't play correctly
if so, did you try the other possibilities listed there?
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love, b

Poor audio quality with iTunes 9

Hi.
This is my first posting and I am hoping members of the iTunes development team look in here.
I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard and I noticed a marked improvement in sound quality using iTunes 8 . Please note I am playing AIFF files through the digi out of my Macbook into a high quality Dac, amp and speaker separates system, in fact the sound was as good as any cd transport I have ever used. I then "upgraded" to iTunes 9 and noticed a deterioration in audio quality, the bass has become woolly and indistinct and small details in songs are harder to hear resulting in a un-involving sound.
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Cheers
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I had exactly the same problem on my new, beefed-up laptop and couldn't figure out how an "upgrade" could ruin my music (which I take pretty seriously). I am embarrassed to say what actually fixed the problem. I started by turning off the EQ and it improved somewhat. I kept searching the web without luck until I noticed something by accident. My system volume was low and the iTunes volume was peaked at max. I turned the iTunes volume to 40% and turned up the computer volume to compensate and voila! The bass distortion and indistinct vocal range was immediately fixed. I turned the EQ back on and was able to use it however I liked. I guess it is like turning up the volume on a radio to max. You get sound, but it gets distorted in the upper range. Hope that helps!

Poor sound quality in timeline and export; fine in Source?

Hello all.
Newbie to Pr but experienced pro in digital audio. I'm stumped and know I'm just missing something somewhere.
I've made a music video for one of my songs. The graphics are all done (in AE), imported to Pr and eveything looks great. I import the final mix of the audio and it sounds very low quality when played from the timeline and in the final output, regardless of format (I've tried several presets and custom settings as well). I played around and noticed that the audio sounds fine when played from the Source window inside Premier.
The Pr session is comrised of 18 video tracks (not all playing at once, of course) and one stereo audio track.
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Premier Pro CC
Processor 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 8 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB
Software OS X 10.9.1 (13B42)

Thank you for the reply!
I was experiencing the same results no matter what export settings I used. Plus the poor sound quality was present in the timeline itself, without even exporting the project.
I finally threw my hands up, started a completely new project, drug the same audio file in... sounded fine. Copied / Pasted the video clips from the original, broken project and boom, eveything is fixed. Yeah, corrupted Pr file it turns out. All I had to do was start a new project and import all the old components.
I've had to do this in Logic a lot (increasingly, these days). I just wish I'd tried it 10 hours earlier! Ha.
Anyway, problem solved, and thanks very much!

Why such sorry sound quality on iTunes? On some of my purchases the sound level is suppressed on the audio. On others the volume is so low that if I have it set for another song and a new one starts I have to increase the volume to hear it.

Why such sorry sound quality on iTunes? On some of my purchases the sound level is suppressed on the audio. On others the volume is so low that if I have it set for another song and a new one starts I have to increase the volume to hear it.
There is so much distortion on some of the music I have to play it with QuickTime to get a "clean" track.
What can be done to get a consistent volume level or is this another typical Apple product that you have to take what you get and be happy because it's not a Microsoft product?

If that's the best you can do why don't you get on another forum?

Poor sound quality, Airport Express

Hi,
I have this 2 yrs old airport express but it has all of the sudden a really poor sound quality.
When I connect it to my home stereo and play through airplay and if I connect headphones the sound is very poor and scratchy
I've used 3 diffferent cables to connect it to my home stereo and i've tried 2 different set of headphnoes.
When i connect directly to my home stereo with RCA cable the sound is fine.
Is the only solution to buy a new airport?
Thank you.

Based on your description, it appears that the base station's internal DAC is the issue and may be failing. Unfortunately these are not user replaceable parts and a complete base station replacement may be the only option at this point in time.
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I am not too sure if this is affected by BT software stack or RF design...
iPhone 3G with FW 2.x provides Cisco VPN as well as Email support for corporate usage. However, it's weird that business man wouldn't want to use BT headset and talk to people... We are not asking about new feature support, like A2DP, but reliable, stable BT connection ONLY!!
I've read that lots folks spent a lot of money on purchasing many different BT headsets and tried to get it work with iPhone 3G. I myself tried: Plantronics 510/815/855, Sony HBH-DS970/980, Nokia BH-903. None of them can work fine with my iPhone 3G ever! And iPhone 3G even cause BH-903 and DS-980 hang up after pairing or finishing call!!
That's why I don't believe it's just a "SPECIAL CASE". How could a product FOR BUSINESS purpose get this kind of basic function problem?
I hope we will find this issue could be resolved completely with new F/W, like Safari crash problem before. Other than this BT IOT problem, iPhone 3G is really the phone/companion could provide complete solution fulfill my personal and business needs.

Poor sound quality of iTunes downloads

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