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Apple and other digital music retailers are in discussions with record labels to improve the quality of the song files they sell, executives involved in the talks say.

As a result, online music stores could eventually offer songs that sound truer to their original recordings, perhaps at a premium price.

Professional music producers generally capture studio recordings in a 24-bit, high-fidelity audio format. Before the originals, or "masters" in industry parlance, are pressed onto CDs or distributed to digital sellers like Apple's iTunes, they're downgraded to 16-bit files.

From there, the audio can be compressed further in order to minimize the time the music will take to download or to allow it to be streamed on-the-fly over the internet.

Why don't record labels at least give retailers the option of working from higher-grade recordings?

"Why?" Jimmy Iovine, a longtime music executive, asked rhetorically. "I don't know. It's not because they're geniuses."

Iovine, in addition to being the chairman of Universal Music Group's Interscope-Geffen-A&M record label, has a venture with hip hop artist Dr. Dre called Beats Audio. The company designs high-end headphones and other audio equipment.

Work from Beats Audio will be included in the upcoming TouchPad tablet computer from Hewlett-Packard. HP has sold 1 million laptops with Beats Audio technology.

CNN has the details HERE!