I wouldn't go so far as referring to myself as an "audiophile", however I can definitely tell the difference between AAC files @ 256 kbps and those with the bitrate of a CD. That said, I've spent the past 3 hours searching for an answer to the cause of my frustration - iTunes Match is down-converting my ALAC files. When I originally signed up for iTunes match a few months ago, I specifically remember reading somewhere (was just now unable to find where so I could quote it) on the Apple website that your original files in your library would be unchanged.





What happened - I noticed today that several of my "matched" songs had the iCloud download icon next to them. At the time, I was streaming from a Macbook Pro to my home theater receiver and using AirPlay and my iPad for the remote. I inadvertently clicked on the download icon, which would have been understandable were I streaming straight from the Music app on my iPad, but since I was accessing my library on my Macbook that struck me as odd. This particular song had been ripped from a CD as an ALAC file somewhere in the ballpark of 900 kbps bitrate.





So I went back to my MBP and pulled up my library - I had played several songs from this same album and only downloaded the one. All the songs that had played were replaced with 256 kbps AAC protected files.





Why it matters - iTunes match has been around for several years. I only recently upgraded to it because I was forced to - I wanted to try Apple Music, and you can't do so without enabling iCloud sharing, aka iTunes match. Long ago I was in college and knew "everything" we were downloading MP3s as fast as our dial up connections and Napster would let us. It occurred to me that digital music would be the future, so I ripped all my CDs to my computer (and at horribly low bitrates). Now I have a nice stereo and can truly appreciate the difference between compressed and uncompressed music - granted my ears aren't discerning enough to hear a significant difference between 44.1 kHz/16-bit music and 192kHz/24-bit Hi Res audio files. That said, I have begun repurchasing my music library in some cases for the third time. I'm buying CDs and ripping them into my iTunes library as ALAC files. At least until iTunes deems it necessary to down convert these files for me.





So I suppose what I'm asking is this - is there any way around this or am I just wasting my time with Apple Music and iTunes Match? Would setting up a second library for only lossless songs be a solution? Is it possible to only include one of my libraries in iTunes Match? Should I give up on my wish that I can do everything in iTunes and switch my library to something like JRiver Media Center?





For what it's worth - I just pulled up the album in Finder and the original file is still there, it's just been replaced in the iTunes window by the lower bitrate file.