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Topic: Buying AACs (Read 7037 times) previous topic - next topic
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Buying AACs

Does anyone buy on iTunes ?
I have to say it is a very big store.. the problem I'm facing is psychological: I still prefer to touch what I'm buying..
Moreover.. I'm confused about the quality. I suppose for a normal person like I am it would be very hard to tell the difference between the CD and the AAC files encoded from the master @ 256 Kbps !!
But, you know, many people are performing blind tests.. and I supposed they are scared exactly as I am

The questions are..

1. did you ever buy on iTunes or tantamount stores ?
2. how much do I need to spend to appreciate the difference between the CD and the lossy files ? Of couse, disregarding my own capability.. suppose I have the best ears in the world
I know everything could be relative.. I only have to understand, in average, how far I am from the detectable little differences.. in the case of a long distance I may prefer buying online..

TNX !

Buying AACs

Reply #1 –
I've bought quite a few songs from iTunes store. Generally, when I want to buy an entire album, I go out and buy a CD. But when I'm only interested in several songs from a particular album, I tend to buy those songs on iTunes. Regarding quality, iTunes store songs sound good to my ears: there are no obvious distortions or artifacts. However, I haven't done any ABX test of iTunes store music vs. CD.

Buying AACs

Reply #2 –
I prefer having the luxury of choosing my own codec and bitrate.  For me, 256kbits is far too bloated for my portable, especially since I can often get transparent results at around half that.

Buying AACs

Reply #3 –
Perhaps regrettably, I rarely buy music now. However, on moving from lossless to lossy rips, I realised CDs are essentially pointless to me. They just get bought, ripped, and left on a shelf--to sit there forevermore, and probably eventually go to landfill. So, I moved to buying downloads--first on the iTunes store, which got much better when DRM-free 256 kbpc became its sole format--and later on Play.com and Amazon UK, which can be cheaper, use MP3 instead, and don't embed/hide the buyer's personal information in their files.

I can be paranoid about certain things (never useful ones ), but surprisingly I've never been too worried about using lossy, even in the case of 128 kbps AAC from the old iTunes Store. I did buy some favourite CDs to have a physical/lossless copy, and the occasional album that wasn't available on online services, but most I've wanted have been available.

Buying AACs

Reply #4 –
Typically it isn't anywhere as near as nice as vinyl, but when you buy a CD, you do get artwork and the like.

Embedded personal information doesn't bother me, though I'd hate to be liable if someone stole my data.

Buying AACs

Reply #5 –
@Irakli: nooooo.. why are you going out ? Click & Buy on play.com  Well.. if you live in Europe..
@greynol: bloated ? It sounds strange to me nowadays worrying about space.. but is even more crazy observing better encoders and bigger hard disks at the same time.. !!
@dv1989: I can understand you.. I never found anyone worried about using JPEG instead of TIFF when shooting photos.. is it that matter so different ? Interesting your note about the metatags.. I felt down as soon as I read: "Files with no email address inside sound superior"

Buying AACs

Reply #8 –
Quote from: greynol on
Typically it isn't anywhere as near as nice as vinyl, but when you buy a CD, you do get artwork and the like.

Good point. One of my favourite albums of late apparently has quite detailed notes alongside the lyrics, and there's no PDF available either with the iTunes version (I don't recall either of the other two stores offering any PDFs at all) or elsewhere online. It'll be a slightly expensive import from America, I guess! Aside from that, I rarely worry about artwork, though I can see the appeal, especially for those for whom music is a greater / more in-depth hobby.

Quote
Embedded personal information doesn't bother me, though I'd hate to be liable if someone stole my data.

I wonder if Apple or anyone else would pursue the buyer of a file that ended up 'in the wild'. I just find the information pointless and would rather my files not contain it, for some reason (if nothing else, I've used several email addresses over time, so the non-uniformity would be annoying). That said, I believe iTunes likes to add other (rather pointless) fields to the user's files, so worrying about clean/'minimalist' tags is perhaps futile!

Buying AACs

Reply #9 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
Perhaps regrettably, I rarely buy music now. However, on moving from lossless to lossy rips, I realised CDs are essentially pointless to me. They just get bought, ripped, and left on a shelf--to sit there forevermore, and probably eventually go to landfill.

My personal angle on this is that the original CD gets put away somewhere safe and never gets touched again after the initial lossy rip with the CODEC and bitrate of my choice. My oldest music CD dates back to around 1984 and still rips fine (I checked it a few weeks ago) with no audible errors, so I'm not overly concerned about my lossless 'backups' becoming unreadable any time soon.

Buying AACs

Reply #10 –
I've never puchased an AAC song, but I have purchased a small number of MP3s (about 30) from Amazon, Napster, and Rhapsody.  I don't have any complaints about the quality. 

I have also encoded most of my CD collection to high-quality MP3.  I haven't done any ABX tests, but most of the time when I've heard something "wrong" with the MP3, I listen to the CD and I find that the original CD has the same defect!

Quote
.. the problem I'm facing is psychological: I still prefer to touch what I'm buying..
I also prefer to have the physical CD.  I'll usually buy the CD (online)...  I've never downloaded a whole album.    But, sometimes the CD isn't available or I just don't want the CD because it's a "one hit wonder", or a novelty song, or maybe I already have a "greatest hits", CD from a particular artist, and I'm missing one song etc.  (Sometimes I'll look for a "various artists" CD that contains the song I'm looking for.) 

Buying AACs

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Slipstreem on
Quote from: dv1989 on
Perhaps regrettably, I rarely buy music now. However, on moving from lossless to lossy rips, I realised CDs are essentially pointless to me. They just get bought, ripped, and left on a shelf--to sit there forevermore, and probably eventually go to landfill.
My personal angle on this is that the original CD gets put away somewhere safe and never gets touched again after the initial lossy rip with the CODEC and bitrate of my choice. My oldest music CD dates back to around 1984 and still rips fine (I checked it a few weeks ago) with no audible errors, so I'm not overly concerned about my lossless 'backups' becoming unreadable any time soon.

Exactly, and for me, wanting to avoid wasting both resources and space (I have enough clutter already!), that makes the CD almost useless. Again, since making the 'move', I've bought, and probably will again, physical copies of some favourite albums, but in most cases I'm content to settle for decent-bitrate lossy (e.g. 256 kbps AAC, LAME -V2/0, etc.)

Buying AACs

Reply #12 –
Quote from: DVDdoug on
I've never puchased an AAC song, but I have purchased a small number of MP3s (about 30) from Amazon, Napster, and Rhapsody.  I don't have any complaints about the quality. 

I have also encoded most of my CD collection to high-quality MP3.  I haven't done any ABX tests, but most of the time when I've heard something "wrong" with the MP3, I listen to the CD and I find that the original CD has the same defect!

Quote
.. the problem I'm facing is psychological: I still prefer to touch what I'm buying..
I also prefer to have the physical CD.  I'll usually buy the CD (online)...  I've never downloaded a whole album.    But, sometimes the CD isn't available or I just don't want the CD because it's a "one hit wonder", or a novelty song, or maybe I already have a "greatest hits", CD from a particular artist, and I'm missing one song etc.  (Sometimes I'll look for a "various artists" CD that contains the song I'm looking for.)


Good point.. what do you do when a CD you want is difficult to retrieve ? I found some of them for 5€ on iTunes.. I'm still thinking about the purchase.. of course they are very chip, and I may decide to give them a try.. even if I prefer to buy something once, not many times because I need to switch the carrier..

PS: sorry if I only mention iTunes.. since I'm living in Italy there aren't many other good alternatives.. 7digital, perhaps.. little store in any case..

Buying AACs

Reply #13 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
Quote from: Slipstreem on
Quote from: dv1989 on
Perhaps regrettably, I rarely buy music now. However, on moving from lossless to lossy rips, I realised CDs are essentially pointless to me. They just get bought, ripped, and left on a shelf--to sit there forevermore, and probably eventually go to landfill.
My personal angle on this is that the original CD gets put away somewhere safe and never gets touched again after the initial lossy rip with the CODEC and bitrate of my choice. My oldest music CD dates back to around 1984 and still rips fine (I checked it a few weeks ago) with no audible errors, so I'm not overly concerned about my lossless 'backups' becoming unreadable any time soon.

Exactly, and for me, wanting to avoid wasting both resources and space (I have enough clutter already!), that makes the CD almost useless. Again, since making the 'move', I've bought, and probably will again, physical copies of some favourite albums, but in most cases I'm content to settle for decent-bitrate lossy (e.g. 256 kbps AAC, LAME -V2/0, etc.)


AhAh  just today I was thinking I must visit IKEA

Buying AACs

Reply #14 –
Quote from: SHiV on
1. did you ever buy on iTunes or tantamount stores ?

I tried iTunes when if first opened with 128 kbit AAC and DRM. The early files were obviously flawed to my ears. The DRM restrictions were obnoxious. I went back to CDs and, although they have since fixed bitrate and DRM issues, I have never bothered to return iTunes. Now I get my music from eMusic and Amazon.

Quote
2. how much do I need to spend to appreciate the difference between the CD and the lossy files ? Of couse, disregarding my own capability.. suppose I have the best ears in the world

I'd like to try on the best ears in the world[/] for a day. I can only tell you that my ears can't tell the difference between the current crop of download formats (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon) and the CD. And I believe that's the general science-based consensus at this site.

As far as touch is concerned, I enjoy not having to touch my music - just click on what I want to listen to and not have to put it back on the shelf when I'm done. Downloads are better for the environment. Downloads have higher profit margin so, in an ideal world, the artist is getting paid better from them. I do miss the liner notes though. Allmusic.com is helpful. You'd think the music industry would have figured out how to deliver this to their customers.

Buying AACs

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Notat on
As far as touch is concerned, I enjoy not having to touch my music - just click on what I want to listen to and not have to put it back on the shelf when I'm done. Downloads are better for the environment. Downloads have higher profit margin so, in an ideal world, the artist is getting paid better from them. I do miss the liner notes though. Allmusic.com is helpful. You'd think the music industry would have figured out how to deliver this to their customers.

I completely agree with the beauty of "click and listen" - I don't miss handling CDs at all (and as a child of the 80s and 90s, I grew up with them!).

However, liner notes and artwork are a different story.  iTunes - and finally Amazon - have the *option* for record companies to include PDFs with their downloads, but very few are actually taking advantage of that, which is unfortunate as the few PDFs I've gotten from iTunes have been excellent, especially when viewed full screen on my 50" plasma (and that's the beauty of PDF - you can view them on anything at the display's full resolution, which potentially makes for a much more engaging experience than a 5" square booklet...and if you want to print them, go right ahead).

What I would seriously pay extra money for (say, $2-$3/album) is to have the vinyl sleeve(s) for a downloaded album mailed to me...really.  *That* is a fantastic way to "experience" the liner notes and artwork, and is the only aspect of vinyl that I find any romance/superiority in.
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."

Buying AACs

Reply #16 –
Guys, I really must say I'm surprised.. anyone of you told me anything against the quality of downloaded music.
If I had to bet I would bet on a big debate.. but you're all telling me: don't worry, Amazon, iTunes or whatever are smart enough.

Does it means audiphiles are almost crazy people and there isn't a real appreciable difference compared to the source ?
I'm here asking again.. what about the quality of the hi-fi ? We haven't yet discussed it.

Bye

Buying AACs

Reply #17 –
Quote from: SHiV on
Guys, I really must say I'm surprised.. anyone of you told me anything against the quality of downloaded music.
If I had to bet I would bet on a big debate.. but you're all telling me: don't worry, Amazon, iTunes or whatever are smart enough.


If you're surprised that people don't complain about the quality of really high bitrate lossy files, then you probably haven't read this forum very much.
 

Buying AACs

Reply #18 –
That hasn't been discussed because sound quality is highly subjective and the only proper way to determine anything is for you to conduct a series of blind ABX tests.  We don't have your ears, equipment, musical tastes, or listening environments.  Only you have the ability to determine what is transparent to your ears.  We can look back on previous statements and public listening tests that show -V 0/256kbps CBR/256kbps ABR Lame and 256kbps VBR_constrained iTunes AAC as being overkill for the majority of people.  However, blanket statements such as those are often disregarded for the reasons I previously pointed out.

You have come to the wrong forums if you were expecting anyone to get into a large debate regarding the sound quality of either the Amazon mp3 store or iTunes Store.  You will have to determine if they provide enough quality for your needs.