Several years ago Tony Robinson developed the
Shorten utility to compress audio files without loss (unlike formats like mp3
and aac, which throw away information based on psychoacoustic models of human
hearing). It was originally used for speech research, but a few music purists
started using it to store digital music.
It will sound exactly like a CD or DAT
source tape. The downside is that compression is only about 50% compared with
90+% common to mp3 and aac.
Since hard
disks are getting cheap ($1 per gigabyte is common for hard disks now and a CD
is about 0.6GB ... the storage of a CD would be about 30 cents at current prices
and that should continue to fall) it makes sense for building an
archive.
The sticking point is that anything other than exotic Internet connections are inadequate for moving such
data - the record companies would love this. Combine this with the fact that
perceptual codecs, with aac, are very good and most people can't tell the
difference. Probably a larger segment of the public doesn't
care.
But if you are heavily into unaltered
sound, this may be the ticket. Here is a link for OS X
Shorten utility. A great source of resources is here and if
you want to annoy your service provider (and potentially break your ToS),
Brewster Kahle hosts eTree.
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The question of what is good enough for music is interesting. Several formats for better than CD stereo sound exist, but they aren't selling - the selection of music is poor and expensive.
There is also the problem that most people can't tell the differece between the new formats and CD sound. There is undoubtely an audiophile market, but it will only extend to the consumer market if the price is no more than a conventional CD.
I have listened to a good deal of multichannel sound - in particular sound field reconstruction - and am very impressed. The only major use to date has been in home theaters and these are optimized for sound effects rather than music quality. Multichannel music will have to get much less expenisve if it is to happen and, even if it does, there are serious issues with speaker installation that will keep it out of many homes.
A friend recently complained that mp3 compressed music represented only the secon time that a new format was worse than the previous format (I would count two -- cassette and 8 track tapes). I think he has neglected the fact that people choose formats for other reasons including selection, price, convenience and durability. If most people are happy with the current CD (not to mention high quality, but lossey compressions of CD music), it will be very difficult to move the masses.
__
And speaking of media ... this is making its way around
iTunes Man
(To the tune of "Piano Man" by Billy Joel)
Filk by Scott Taylor
It's nine o' clock at the iTunes store,
A phenomenal crowd's logging on,
There's an old man on AOL
Finding music from ages bygone.
He says, "Steve can you play me a memory?"
"I'm not really sure how it goes"
"But I typed in a track and got album names back!"
"And I'm not even wearing my clothes!"
Oh la da da diddy da da, la da diddy da da da.
Sell us a song, you're the iTunes man,
Sell us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got the pricing just right.
Now Claude at Vivendi's a friend of mine
And his business is selling CDs.
And knows the solution for store distribution,
But he's worried about MP3s.
He says "Steve I believe this is killing us"
"All these pirates don't pay us a dime."
"Well I'm sure that you could be a billionaire"
"If you could sell music online."
Oh la da da diddy da da, la da diddy da da da.
Sell us a song, you're the iTunes man,
Sell us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got the pricing just right.
Now Paul is an iPod enthusiast
Who listens to Jazz with his wife
And he's chatting with Maxine, who's still in the rap scene
And probably will be for life.
And the waitress is downloading Dixie Chicks
As the dial-up man slowly gets Stones
Yes they're sharing the bandwidth from Akamai
But it's better than P2P clones.
Sell us a song, you're the iTunes man,
Sell us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got the pricing just right.
Its a pretty good crowd for just Macintosh
And the PC guys give me a smile
Cause they know that iTunes will be Windows-bound soon
If they just can hold out for a while.
And the AAC sounds like originals
And rights management isn't a pain,
And they sit at the screens of their iTunes machines
And say "Man, this is worse than cocaine!"
Sell us a song, you're the iTunes man,
Sell us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got the pricing just right.
6:29:17 AM 
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