So how many people actually purchase mp3's?

[irrelevance]

Up until quote recently I've been a cd hard copy advocate as I hate the idea of buying compressed music. My attitude is changing however as I find there are some who release music as wav but these are in the minority right now it seems. So if this is a case of satisfying current demand I wonder why so few people are questioning the reasoning behind purchasing lesser quality music often for the same price that wav (cd quality) can be had depending on what and where you purchase and according to your backup requirement. Some labels don't even mention that thier digital downloads are mp3/lossy quality which I guess shows how ubiquitous the format has become. I'm not happy with the state of affairs, why should we not have the option to choose as presumably the files exist anyway and multi format was successful with hard media ( I presume) choice is a good thing wouldn't you agree?

[valis]

I prefer FLAC (or maybe Apple lossless sans drm) if I have the choice. Wav is ok but I will generally encode to a lossless format at least to save space. Very easy to expand & reencode to mp3 for a device that needs it, use a mass-tagging tool to copy/paste and you're done. I do purchase mp3's as well, where I can't find lossless. Mp3's are certainly more 'impulse' buy if they're priced right, there's not much of a commitment in terms of storage & portability and it's not bad for things I may not listen to much.

I still buy vinyl for the collectible/vinylslut/DJ side of things, but have largely stopped buying CD's since I tend to just wind up converting them anyway. If I can get a CD+instant download I'll opt for that if the release is worthy of shelf-space (recent EMIT re-releases of Gas & so on).

[irrelevance]

Flac downloads are even rarer! I convert all cd's and wav to flac also. The process for me when I receive a new cd is exact audio copy wav and m4a output lossy is for itues/ipod listening wav then gets flact Ableton live plays flac so I can store and play back at top quality. Still buying vinyl eh!? I've gotta say it's definately more satisfying mixing on a nice weighty direct drive never tried traktor or others but live does a nice job.

[darkrezin]

I still prefer hard media for music. Vinyl is the first thing I'll look for... if that's not available then I'll settle for CD. If it's not even available on CD and a download is the only way to get it, then I'll go for a lossless DRM-free version if possible. I've never had to resort to buying lossy DRM-crippled music yet (and I hope it stays that way).

The reason I prefer real media is that it's a tangible thing and is usually great quality. I like printed artwork, and I like to be able to sell things if they don't age well and I get bored of them. I've been selling a lot of old 90s electronic/downtempo/d+b stuff on discogs.com, and in almost every sale I've made more than I originally paid.

[astroman]

same here - vinyl for eternity...
My CD players are from the 80s, I constantly find myself questioning if they start to fade or if some protection on the disc produces errors or if some mastering whizz idiot made the track way too hot... annoying.
Usually the previews in shops like iTunes reflect the quality you get and if it's ok I'll buy it.
For example I want a copy of Bowie's Low (for quite some time), the iTunes version is shite, so I have to keep looking for the original black disk, which seems hard to get in mint condition

cheers, Tom

[valis]

I've never purchased from iTunes, and have a bit of a beef with what they did in terms of profit structure. My wife buys from them all the time though and doesn't understand the gobbledygook i spout about difficulty in porting your collection between formats etc (she just uses her iPod.) That's fine by me really, but I don't look forward to the day that I have to manually port everything for her. I'm no fan of encumbered formats either.

I don't ever feel a lack for physical media, it's just that digital formats are much more convenient for impulse purchases. I do agree about enjoying the physical aspect to the music, but I've had close to 2500 CD's at one point (down to about 3-400 due to a fire and a theft) and I've got 4500 records on vinyl still. I might actually start parting some of those out to pay for studio upgrades, it's looking like Fall might be meager for me income-wise and I want to be productive musically if that's the case.

[petal]

Time and technology will solve the issue raised in this topic - hurra

[wayne]

I want a copy of Bowie's Low................, which seems hard to get in mint condition

cheers, Tom

My copy died around '82

[siriusbliss]

I never buy mp3's. They're a rip-off.

Greg

[garyb]

hard copy, please.
i'll pay for it.

i'm not really a music "consumer" at this point in my life. there's never a shortage of it....

[dawman]

One thing I notice that I miss were the live recordings done on vinyl.
Certain bands live were awesome, Bowie being one because of his showmanship and the heavy pre production. Micheal Jackson actually benfitted from studying Live @ 69th street in Philly. I saw that same show and had no idea how talented Bowie was.
But groups that were really much better live like the Grateful Dead had many of these bootleg 8 track tapes, cassettes and albums, and not only do you get a better performance, the sound is better. Especially the 8 track tapes. I have to go out in my garage and crank on my ancient Kenwood/JVC rack every now and then just to have some fun.
The big benefit of mp3's are the cost & convenience.
I can always tell when I get in a car with an mp3 player. It's like having cotton in my ears or something.

[spacef]

i buy mp3 when they are without drm and when the bitrate is 256 or 320.
I never buy cds anymore (for a long time already, as they end up in mp3 format and because i throw away all the decorative artistic stuff twhich i find unecessary and has better use in the recycling industries).

[valis]

320k mp3 is ok but I find it tends to make transients smushed a bit unless it's encded with Fraunhofer "mp3pro" (which will be the 320k layer plus more info on top.) Drums go pah puh pah pah instead of cracking.

LAME -V0 to -V2 (-V0 being the 'best') with 3.97.xx on up (standard compiles) is the best so far in my judgement, as it does a great job on transients as well as more tonal portions of the signal. Think I'm currently still using 3.98.2 or so...

[braincell]

Apple sells mostly mp4 (soon they are dropping DRM totally) and Amazon sells mp3 encoded at 320kbps. DRM isn't really an issue anymore. It would be better if these companies stored them online forever for you to download. I don't like hard copies because they take up too much space and it's difficult for me to find what I want to listen to. The quality really isn't any different. They are still only 44.1 khz 16 bit sample rate which is a shame.

I have purchased from Amazon and from Apple lately. I like both but Amazon is better.

[valis]

They are still only 44.1 khz 16 bit sample rate which is a shame.

Wrong, neither AAC/Mpeg4 lossy nor mp3 are restricted to 44.1khz, and neither have 16bits (or any linear pcm data even) before being decoded. It is true though that most mp3's & m4a/aac files are encoded from 44.1khz sources, one would presume from cd masters for older music and web-only releases vary based on who did the encoding. Nothing is stopping mp3's from being 48khz nor AAC from being 96khz (or higher) technically, though compatibility with players is presumably the main concern for webshops.

[garyb]

suckers.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/bus ... 40,00.html

A bookseller who had mistakenly sold pirated copies of a book would never have snuck into customers' living rooms, pulled the offending books from their shelves and left cash to the value of the purchase price on the kitchen table as recompense. In real life there are practical and legal obstacles to this sort of behaviour. But in the electronic world, it was simple. Probably Amazon won't even have to worry about legal problems relating to the action.

[braincell]

Yes Valis, I was talking about what is available.

Yes Gary, the Kindle uses DRM. I would not buy one or use Audible.com. I am against all DRM but in many cases you end up having to use it because there is no similar alternative without it. An example is Sonic Core software. How I would love to transfer my software to another card without paying them and waiting and praying Ralf doesn't screw up.

[siriusbliss]

Yes Valis, I was talking about what is available.

Yes Gary, the Kindle uses DRM. I would not buy one or use Audible.com. I am against all DRM but in many cases you end up having to use it because there is no similar alternative without it. An example is Sonic Core software. How I would love to transfer my software to another card without paying them and waiting and praying Ralf doesn't screw up.

Sorry your reality is so thwarted there BC. I've transferred keys twice over the years and have never had to pay, and Ralf hasn't screwed up the past two keys I got over the past 3 months.

Scope IS hardware, not some wimpy-ass cracked encoder from 1990 that spread like the plague through the industry.

Greg

[garyb]

besides, this wasn't about some acronym. it's about deleting stuff that was ALREADY sold without asking or anything, because a virtual copy is volatile. there are no ownership rights for the purchaser. hey, it's your world. i'm old getting older...besides, most of the current product is for discarding anyway.

[braincell]

I'm against all DRM not matter how "legitimate" you may think it is.

Greg, I "did" have to pay and my request was repeatedly screwed up.
No matter what your opinion is of me or my views this is a fact. Other companies let the customer transfer keys but somehow this wasn't possible for them, instead they put a human being between me and my keys, one who doesn't speak English as his native language and one who has multiple tasks he may be asked to do acting like my request was an imposition on him because he was too busy with the ASB, something I had no intention of every buying so I could care less about that anyway. Clearly they didn't want to do this or they wouldn't charge for it. I don't know how you got yours for free. Perhaps it was the very expensive Xite.