Music Download Service

[Johnny]

When you join these program you are mostly renting the song, not buying it ..

 

[rushm001]

I've used Napster for about a year now and I have never really had any problems, use it mainly just to listen to tracks though, don't buy too many.

 

[NetRyder]

When you join these program you are mostly renting the song, not buying it ..

You're renting if you use a subscription service like Yahoo, Napster or Rhapsody; not MSN Music or iTMS.

 

[madmatt]

Speaking of music services I read an interesting article that 35% of people surveyed say they buy/download their music legally now.

 

[NetRyder]

Speaking of music services I read an interesting article that 35% of people surveyed say they buy/download their music legally now.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=musicNews&storyID=8844425

 

[Geffy]

Speaking of music services I read an interesting article that 35% of people surveyed say they buy/download their music legally now.

yep, mainly cause its easier than hunting through Kazaa, bittorrent, exeem or whatever else looking for what you want.

 

[dreamliner77]

I refuse to pay for music in a compressed format. Your local record shop isn't too far away...

 

[Geffy]

I refuse to pay for music in a compressed format. Your local record shop isn't too far away...

I would rather get compressed music than pay twice the price for a cd that I am just going to rip anyway

 

[LordOfLA]

I refuse to pay for music in a compressed format. Your local record shop isn't too far away...

I'm assuming you dont have any CD's then as cd's loose audio data by nature of the fact its a digital medium..

 

[Xie]

I refuse to pay for music in a compressed format. Your local record shop isn't too far away...

I wish I had one close that didn't charge double the price of your average CD. I buy most my tunes on iTunes now unless I see a specific new release sale for a CD I've been awaiting. For all other music it's usally just concerts I grab from http://bt.etree.org

 

[Johnny]

I haven't been to a record store in years. I don't believe in supporting the RIAA ..

 

[dreamliner77]

I'm assuming you dont have any CD's then as cd's loose audio data by nature of the fact its a digital medium..

PCM is a completely different concept than lossy coding.


Also, I usually hit up Newbury Comics here or some of the mom and pop shops in Boston. Most sealed discs are $12 or $13 and used is normally about $5-$8.

 

[LordOfLA]

PCM is a completely different concept than lossy coding.

Sure, but by nature of the digital signal you cannot record all of the audio tones that you would using an analogue signal all the way to the recording medium.

In the case of a CD that means 44, 100 samples of audio data at 16 bits per sample for every second of audio. When you consider than an analogue signal has an infinite number of samples you have to loose some information when converting to digital. Which is by definition "lossy encoding".

However I understand what you mean. If you compress to a lossy method again (ogg, mp3, mp4, etc) or even just reduce the frequency and bit-depth of the audio you will loose more still.

If you are an audiophile its bad enough with what you loose to the nature of CD's never mind adding MP3 to the mix.

 

[dreamliner77]

Sure, but by nature of the digital signal you cannot record all of the audio tones that you would using an analogue signal all the way to the recording medium.

PCM is perfectly capable of representing an analog wave within the human hearing range, mostly owing to Nyquist's theory.

It has even been proven in double blind testing that so-called audiophiles can not descrimitate between a pristine analog source and a digital source. Usually where you hear that so-called audiophiles can hear a difference is when an inferior analog signal path is used and distortion is mistaken for "warmth."

 

[mfarley]

Here's a brief Attack of the Show post on what they found. Not an indepth analysis (that's for sure) but it does give a bit of insight.

Stop stealing music and check out these fee-based music services.

iTunes Music Store
You can download from a library of over 1.5 million songs. iTunes boasts the largest legal download catalog of any service. Unfortunately, the iTunes Music Store's 99 cent AAC copy-protected songs will only play in iTunes or on your iPod. However, PC-based iPod users have another option. They can use Real Network's Rhapsody (see below) to purchase songs and transfer them to their iPod.

Rhapsody To Go
Rhapsody is Real Network's music download service and offers a catalog of over one million songs. When you sign up for the subscription-based Rhapsody service, you choose from several different options. We chose Rhapsody To Go as it was the only option that allows you to download most of the Rhapsody catalog to a subscription compatible device at no extra cost. That means you can fill and refill your Dell DJ (or any other supported device) with thousands of songs for just $14.99 per month. However if you cancel your service, your device will no longer play any of the songs you have downloaded (this is true of all subscription-based services).

Note that you will not be able to burn any Rhapsody songs to CD unless you purchase them at a cost of 89 cents each.

We liked the Rhapsody user interface and appreciated the music suggestions and variety of streaming commercial-free radio stations available. These things are important when you consider that there are more than one million songs you can listen to at any time.

Rhapsody also offers a free service called Rhapsody 25, which lets you listen to 25 songs a month for free. It's a great way to try out Rhapsody.

Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Yahoo! Music Unlimited offers basically the same thing as Rhapsody except it's much less expensive - $6.99 per month. You'll still be able to stream music and download songs to a subscription-compatible device. However, if you want to burn any of your selections to CD, you'll have to pony up an extra 79 cents per song.

There were a handful of things we didn't like about the Yahoo! service but the inexpensive monthly fee was hard to beat.

If you want to hear us rant about Yahoo!, you came to the right place.

Why Y! Music Unlimited is less than perfect:

• We found the Yahoo! Music Engine Software clunky and unattractive.
• Yahoo's music suggestions and streaming radio stations were not as good as Rhapsody's.
• Download speeds on Y! Music Unlimited were dodgy - sometimes slowing to a crawl.
• It's not compatible with iPods.
• The Music Engine installer forces you to install Yahoo! Messenger.
• And if you're not careful, Yahoo's installer will:
  • make Yahoo.com your home page (we'll keep ours as about:blank, thank you very much)
  • make Yahoo! your default search engine (as if!)
  • make Yahoo! Music Engine your default music player for almost every audio filetype.

Music to Our Ears
Even though the Rhapsody service outshined Y! Music Unlimited, we liked Y! Music Unlimited best because of its inexpensive subscription fee and services comparable to the $14.99 per month Rhapsody To Go service. What can we say, we're cheap. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try out the free Rhapsody 25 service to see if the extra features and cleaner (and FASTER) interface are worth the extra money.

If you only want to listen to streaming music and don't want to download anything, then the $9.99 per month Rhapsody Unlimited service is your best bet. You'll still have the entire Rhapsody catalog at your disposal, albeit in a streaming format. Rhapsody Unlimited just works and looks better than the Yahoo! service and is definitely worth the extra three bucks.

You'll need a broadband connection to use both Y! Music Unlimited and Rhapsody to their full potential. Dial-up users might want to stick with the iTunes Music Store for now.

Both Y! Music Unlimited and Rhapsody To Go let you copy downloaded songs to a compatible portable music player. However, we found that some songs and albums were only available for streaming and not as downloads. Sometimes we weren't even able to purchase burnable copies of certain songs. These are the pitfalls of legal online music.

If you're a music lover, any one of the subscription-based services are the way to go. You'll have a huge selection of high quality (160 kbps) streaming music available to you at any time from any computer. This is your chance to actually learn about and listen to music and songs you've never heard before. This is your chance to listen to every Bob Dylan song or study the roots of rock and jazz without spending a fortune. This is your chance to never use the iTunes Music Store again. It's up to you.

iTunes Music Store
Rhapsody
Yahoo! Music Unlimited