All of Lady Gaga's albums have been mastered for iTunes.

[Mr Josh 3]

I ripped ARTPOP myself, listened to other rips people done and to me the iTunes version sounded better.

 

To me, after listening to various Born This Way rips... this certainly sounds a little clearer. Go listen to Americano and Hair and you should be able to hear the difference.

I just did and didn't notice something . The whole "Mastered for iTunes" thing just means that the source file is the 24-bit/96kHz master but then it's still downconverted to the lossy AAC format.

I don't think they're suggesting that iTunes versions are the best ones in small file sizes. Oc a lossless will be better but their Beyoncé VMA 2014 live performance's length kind of sizes are too much for some devices

People did suggest it in this and other threads . And yes Apple utilizes AAC perfectly and the final product sounds great.

[NewYorkCity 10,530]

I don't have that problem since I buy my music on CD

Listening to it in good quality since day 1. :whitney:

[Benji 20,113]

I just did and didn't notice something . The whole "Mastered for iTunes" thing just means that the source file is the 24-bit/96kHz master but then it's still downconverted to the lossy AAC format.

 

Different ears I guess

[lavenderblondee 3,695]

Yes! Thanks for the reminder.  :) I was curious when it was going to be remastered, I'll definitely give it a listen when a download becomes available.

[Judas Oyster 1,914]

Uh. I bought the physical CDs. Where can I get my update. 

lol haha

edit: idk, but aren't CD's already mastered? and digital songs are in "worse" quality as a consequence of making it a lighter file to upload for digital downloading?

[DirtyIceCream 9]

WTF, 2014 and there just now giving us the explicit TFM songs on American iTunes Might as well have given us Bad Kids explicit.

[zexion_armando 241]

ITT: Placebo effect...

[RAMROD 107,765]

Cool that they did this.

Perks for those that buying the album. :whitney:

[hausofaxel 16]

I want to buy them, but I need to save money. 

[Ty3009 232]

WTF, 2014 and there just now giving us the explicit TFM songs on American iTunes Might as well have given us Bad Kids explicit.

 

The explicit version of The Fame Monster has been available on U.S. iTunes for years.  It's only the deluxe version that includes The Fame that now has an explicit counterpart.

[giskardsb 12,565]

I ripped ARTPOP myself, listened to other rips people done and to me the iTunes version sounded better.

 

To me, after listening to various Born This Way rips... this certainly sounds a little clearer. Go listen to Americano and Hair and you should be able to hear the difference.

 

but did you rip to lossless or to aac or mp3?  Only lossless will give the same sound quality as the original CD.  If you ripped to apple or mp3 formats then the quality will depend on settings. 

[Zoey Brooks 0]

I really doubt they actually went to the bother of remastering an entire album just 3 years after it was released, but even if they did, the original is how it was meant to be heard. If the producers wanted the vocals clearer, they would have mixed them that way. I'll stick to my lossless rips, thanks.

[Benji 20,113]

but did you rip to lossless or to aac or mp3?  Only lossless will give the same sound quality as the original CD.  If you ripped to apple or mp3 formats then the quality will depend on settings.

I ripped it in flac so the quality was pretty much untouchable. I'm not really discussing the quality though, if you have a CD rip of ARTPOP, go download the iTunes version and compare, there's quite a difference in what is more present in instrumentation and vocals.

[giskardsb 12,565]

I really doubt they actually went to the bother of remastering an entire album just 3 years after it was released, but even if they did, the original is how it was meant to be heard. If the producers wanted the vocals clearer, they would have mixed them that way. I'll stick to my lossless rips, thanks.

 

Mastering for iTunes is not remastering the original album as I understand it, it's getting better control over the conversion to AAC.  Its a set of tools that help decide the best way and options to convert original lossless masters into lossy files using AAC codec.

[Zoey Brooks 0]

Mastering for iTunes is not remastering the original album as I understand it, it's getting better control over the conversion to AAC.  Its a set of tools that help decide the best way and options to convert original lossless masters into lossy files using AAC codec.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I said I doubted they would remaster the entire album. I was just saying that even if they had remastered it, as the title suggested, I would prefer to listen to the originals. I probably should have phrased that better.