Many have bemoaned that the shift toward high definition television has not been accompanied by a shift to high definition audio. Most recently Neil Young said he'd talked about this with Steve Jobs and Apple do seem best poised to introduce a new digital audio format.
Of course, there are services being proposed to add extra features to the delivery of music which don't focus on improving the quality of the digital file. There's one subscriber model outlined here which looks to make a new format with more fan-oriented features.
Anyway, it was interesting to see this quote on the difference between analogue and digital audio mastering in an article on Apple's new mastering feature:
"Most listeners today swear they love the bottom end on vinyl, but I remember in the heyday of vinyl, it was all about top end," VanDette told Ars. "'If we could only have a clear top end without all those pops and clicks' we thought," he said, noting the tendency of low-end record players to introduce unwanted noise. "Back then, bottom was the enemy. It made the grooves [in the vinyl] too wide, and forced us to turn down the overall level of the disc."
To conclude this meandering collection of thoughts, IF Apple were to develop a new format for higher fidelity audio and consumers appreciated the extended quality and sought music which emphasised this detailed sonic spectrum then I guess iTunes would change music.
But it doesn't seem like the new Mastered for iTunes format shows Apple is taking higher fidelity seriously yet, with one engineer claiming it doesn't improve on CDs.