[From koreatimes.co.kr]

The new format, which has a file extension format of MT9 and a commercial title of Music 2.0, is poised to replace the popular MP3 file format as the de facto standard of the digital music source, its inventors say.

The MT9 technology was first conceived by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and is being shaped into commercial use by venture company Audizen. It was selected as a candidate item for the new digital music standard at a regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the international body of the digital music and video industry, held in France late April.

…

The distinctive feature of MT9 format is that it has a six-channel audio equalizer, with each channel dedicated to voice, chorus, piano, guitar, base and drum. For example, if a user turns off the voice channel, it becomes a karaoke player. Or one can turn off all the instruments and concentrate on the voice of the main singer as if he or she is singing a cappella.

[Source]

[Rob's Opinion] I do not see this format taking off in a mainstream way like MP3 did.  Not many people really understand why MP3s took off like they did.  At the time, MP3 was very high-quality for the file size, and the speed at which one could download them made MP3 files very accessable to even those on 56K modems.

Today, I can’t stand 128Kbps MP3.  256Kbps is better, 320 is awesome, and AAC format audio files are even better than that.  Add to all of this that the speed of encoding and ripping audio-CDs has gotten to the point where it could take no longer than 4 minutes to fully import a normal album.

While the dedicated channels is a nice idea, I personally don’t see this going anywhere with mainstream music files.  For a group like Nine Inch Nails, this isn’t a problem since they already release their tracks in multi-track format for software like Logic and GarageBand.  However, the RIAA and associated labels and music groups, I feel, would rather keep all of the components of the music mashed together.

Want to know what I want?  Higher sample rates and bits-per-sample.