Music downloading

Feek · 18-09-2009, 13:10

Music sharing always seems to be a hot topic in the press these days, most recently with Lily Allen saying her bit about it.

I have a big problem nowadays and that's convenience and quality. I want both. I know that there's practically no easily audible difference between an MP3 at 320kbps (or even 256kbps) and a lossless format but I'm a bit of a snob about audio and if I can get it lossless then I'd much rather go that way. The fact that I don't really have the audio hardware to tell the difference is really unimportant, I'm taking future upgrades into account.

If I want an album, I generally want it straight away. I don't mind waiting half an hour or so, but now means now. Not tomorrow, not next week but now.

This is what happened yesterday evening.

I wanted the new Muse album. I looked on iTunes and it's there but iTunes is a 256kbps download and I strongly feel that if I'm paying for music, I want it in a format where I get to decide how I store it, this means that the original format I download must be lossless.

Amazon is the same. It's not a lossless download.

So what options do I have? I can wait until today and buy it in the high street but that means I have to wait until I get home before I can listen to it, or I can order it online which will take a few days to arrive. I'm impatient, I want it now.

If iTunes or Amazon were to give me a lossless download, I'd buy it straight away but they don't so it's off to the less savoury parts of the internet to try and find it. I quickly found a FLAC version which downloaded in little over twenty minutes, I converted it to .wav, threw it into iTunes, converted to Apple Lossless, added album art, sorted out the tags and job's done in less than half an hour. Convenience and quality, I have both. I'm satisfied.

The issue now is that because I've got the album (it was convenient and the quality is superb), I don't feel the need to go and buy the physical media. I know I should, but there is no direct benefit to me to do so.

What's the solution to this? Well in my case it's not blocking illegal downloads but making full exact duplicates of the original source available to buy online. Five years ago it made sense to compress music downloads because bandwidth was limited but in these days of fast internet connections there is no reason not to sell music at the best quality setting.

18-09-2009, 13:10	#1
Feek ex SAS Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: JO01ou Posts: 10,062	Music downloading Music sharing always seems to be a hot topic in the press these days, most recently with Lily Allen saying her bit about it. I have a big problem nowadays and that's convenience and quality. I want both. I know that there's practically no easily audible difference between an MP3 at 320kbps (or even 256kbps) and a lossless format but I'm a bit of a snob about audio and if I can get it lossless then I'd much rather go that way. The fact that I don't really have the audio hardware to tell the difference is really unimportant, I'm taking future upgrades into account. If I want an album, I generally want it straight away. I don't mind waiting half an hour or so, but now means now. Not tomorrow, not next week but now. This is what happened yesterday evening. I wanted the new Muse album. I looked on iTunes and it's there but iTunes is a 256kbps download and I strongly feel that if I'm paying for music, I want it in a format where I get to decide how I store it, this means that the original format I download must be lossless. Amazon is the same. It's not a lossless download. So what options do I have? I can wait until today and buy it in the high street but that means I have to wait until I get home before I can listen to it, or I can order it online which will take a few days to arrive. I'm impatient, I want it now. If iTunes or Amazon were to give me a lossless download, I'd buy it straight away but they don't so it's off to the less savoury parts of the internet to try and find it. I quickly found a FLAC version which downloaded in little over twenty minutes, I converted it to .wav, threw it into iTunes, converted to Apple Lossless, added album art, sorted out the tags and job's done in less than half an hour. Convenience and quality, I have both. I'm satisfied. The issue now is that because I've got the album (it was convenient and the quality is superb), I don't feel the need to go and buy the physical media. I know I should, but there is no direct benefit to me to do so. What's the solution to this? Well in my case it's not blocking illegal downloads but making full exact duplicates of the original source available to buy online. Five years ago it made sense to compress music downloads because bandwidth was limited but in these days of fast internet connections there is no reason not to sell music at the best quality setting. __________________