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Topic: What to buy: iTunes or CD? (Read 20742 times) previous topic - next topic
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What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Hi to all,

actually I buy original Cd from a friend store (good price), actually I'm evaluating iTunes for buy music.

I have read that iTunes sell music as AAC at 256 kbps, what do you think about their quality?

256 kbps is a good bit rate but the music is compressed... and i'm not sure about the quality versus the same CD.

Is good or it's better to buy the original CD and rip them as ALAC?

I don't have a superb audio hifi system, but I don't hear my music with a cheap audio speaker, but with an entry level HIFI (onkyo) and with a DAC + Notebook (for audio).

What is the best solution?

- AAC collection (and buy in future  from iTunes)
- CD and rip to ALAC with iTunes

Actually I have a collection of 120 original CD, do you suggest to rip them to AAC#256 as the iTunes store, or go with ALAC?

I'm a mac user and I prefer remain in this "eco-system".


Thanks

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #1 –
Put it this way, in X years when iTunes Music Store switch over to lossless, you will be paying $ again to upgrade. If the costs are similar I would always rip to lossless now (Disclaimer: my company makes ripping programs, but even so this is my view).

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #2 –
iTunes does sell most of its music in 256 kb/s AAC. That's a very high bit rate, high enough that 99.9% of music encoded at that bit rate will sound identical to the CD. Even 192 kb/s would be good enough in the majority of cases. (For comparison, the listening tests on this site mostly focus on the 80 - 128 kb/s range, because it's simply too difficult to hear differences at higher bit rates.)

If you want to be 100% sure that your music will sound as good as the CD (instead of 99.9%), then you'll need to buy the CDs and rip to FLAC, ALAC, or another lossless codec. In this way you can be totally sure that you are getting the same quality as CD.

Which choice is right for you just depends on the price.

If the price is about the same, I'd definitely go with the CD. The only disadvantage is that you would have to take extra time ripping the CD.

If the CDs cost significantly more than iTunes, then you might just want to go with iTunes, since the quality is very good.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #3 –
I have acquired some FLAC bundles from NoelGallagher.com, encoded and sold by TopSpin. After comparing the actual CD with these bundles, I have found about 3 lossy files encoded as FLAC. Apart from that, there were no ripping information at all, meaning that, what if there was one tiny error? And the offsets were not corrected in their rips (doesn't matter much). Since this doesn't take a genius to do it, it's very lazy from their part to deploy music in such a way. That's why I will still favour the CD over any online music purchase.

But of course, there are those who don't care at all.

Hope this gives you some insight.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #4 –
I have a strong feeling that the aac or mp3 you purchase might have originated from an outside the record label, by company who was paid to create such files, secure rippers would not have been used for such a task which would have been sent to tender.

Perhaps depends on label, but as far as getting metadata embedded, it could have all come from a stack of CDs. I am sure modern content though is not from CD.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #5 –
For popular music, the mastering of the audio is generally so horrible that any differences of lossy vs. lossless encodes are minor compared to the atrocities you might encounter with either release (examples are RHCP - I'm With You, Track 1, CD and iTunes releases). For pure consumption, I see no problem in sticking with iTunes AAC files, or ripping your own CDs to AAC. Archival of your own CDs of course is a different matter, for that ALAC makes perfect sense. But that is really only a concern for your own CDs, why should you bother to archive iTunes downloads, Apple already does that. From what I know you are allowed to redownload bought songs?
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #6 –
The good thing about having lossless copies is that you can go both:
1. the audiophile way, with the lossless copies
2. the ultra portable way, with ~130 bitrate of good AAC (Winamp etc.), which will likely sound transparent most of the time

256 kbps is neither. And if you convert from that to lower bitrate you run a higher risk of audible degradation than if you converted from lossless.


I also in general discourage purchases from stores like iTunes/Amazon/Google and would rather see people buy directly from the musicians or, if that's not an option, at least from better stores like Bandcamp, which give a bigger cut to the musician, provide lossless copies at no extra charge and don't require any extra software to make the purchase.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Brand on
I also in general discourage purchases from stores like iTunes/Amazon/Google and would rather see people buy directly from the musicians or, if that's not an option, at least from better stores like Bandcamp, which give a bigger cut to the musician, provide lossless copies at no extra charge and don't require any extra software to make the purchase.
My main gripe with Bandcamp is that it doesn't allow me to create a non-artist user account, and by such allows me to redownload previous purchases, so it practically forces me to download albums in lossless, since I will only be able to get that one copy. You cannot really compare that to iTunes or Amazon. Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly recommend Bandcamp everywhere I go, and I download a good deal of music there, but they really need to improve their service to end users to be anywhere near competitive to iTunes.

EDIT: I just found out that you only get one-time downloads from Amazon, too.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #8 –
Oh. Yeah, that's not great. I personally never made an account for a purchase there and actually considered this as an advantage over the more intrusive stores, which make you register before you can do anything. But indeed, it's an option that can come handy and I'm sure they're working on it.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: krafty on
TopSpin


i bought a flac album from an artist's own website which also uses top spin. i tried to verify it against the accuraterip database with foobar2000+foo_verifier

Code: [Select]
AccurateRip verification failed: Not a correct gapless rip


that hardly inspires confidence.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #10 –
That probably means the track length is not divisible by (2352 / 4) samples, the minimum sample block size which comes off a CD. If the track was not ripped from CD then it would not have to be.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #11 –
Generally I'm in the camp that feels lossless/CD gives you the most flexibility to choose what encoding to use on your player. 

In 10-20 years the current crop of lossy files may be tricky to play, just like  most players today won't do the once popular MOD files.
With lossless you will be able to transcode them to newer formats without degradation.

Itunes (and other on-line) still has the advantage that you can buy single tracks when you don't like the whole album.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #12 –
I always buy CDs for their physicality, don't like digital files.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #13 –
The way I see it the 256 from iTunes is overkill (for me at least). The music that I actually carry around on my portable player is in the range of ~128. When I buy from iTunes (and I do) the files are a lot larger than they need to be, but I don't feel safe transcoding them to a lower bit rate. So to me that is wasting space on my portable player. I only buy this way if I can't find a CD copy somewhere.

All things being equal I will always go with a CD. I can rip to lossless so that I never have to buy it again. I'm older, so there are actually things I have bought on LP, multiple copies of the cassette (glad that's over) and then the CD. Now that I have everything copied it's no big deal if a CD gets trashed in the car. I can just burn another copy. I know that's not what the industry wants me to do, but TFB, this is the real world.

If I change players/formats I can just transcode from the lossless file. I can also make a smaller, more portable file that doesn't waste space on the player.
--
Eric

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #14 –
I use iTunes for that one track from an album, or recordings that I know I just won't find locally. Otherwise, I buy CDs, mostly to support good local stores.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #15 –
CDs may well be a thing of the past in the near future. Whether one likes physical media or not, there may not be a choice in the not-too-distant future. Signs seem to indicate that, with the exception of niche, specialty markets, downloads will be the delivery method for recorded music from this point forward. As one whose house is all too full of records, tapes and CDs, I'm all for their demise! 

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #16 –
Given the choice I always prefer a even a used CD over a download, even lossless files.  I used to regularly purchase lossless audio and gave up because often it was CD rips, sometimes badly done with audible artefacts; you have to wonder about a record company which needs to rip their own CDs instead of using their archived audio.  I've bought several albums of files with rasping clicking, and others with the kind of clipping that makes me strongly suspect that the source was a low quality lossy file.  I did complain and get the chance to download corrected rips where available, but since then I've stuck to buying CDs or occasionally lossy files (usually when Amazon bribe me with a promotion, and I even got an mp3 album for £0.13 the other day).  Even with a well used CD it's almost always possible to extract error free audio (and to know that I did), and I get the booklet too.  I definitely prefer my scans over the usual too small and slightly fuzzy jpg, or huge, unwieldy pdf.  There are some labels I'd happily buy files from if no CD was available, such as Hyperion or Linn or Harmonia Mundi because they are about quality, not volume, but so far I've always been able to purchase a CD.  With mainstream popular music they usually don't even care about the quality on CD (brickwall mixes, obvious distortion), you can guarantee any files will be offered by whatever means are quickest and cheapest for the record company, screw the quality.  Outside of classical/baroque/early music I usually don't buy a new CD, instead I track down CDs from before the Loudness War era.  Apart from the 2009 Beatles remasters I'm struggling to think of a modern reissue or remaster that wasn't worse than the first CD issue.  I'm sure there are some but I didn't hear them.

People have been predicting the death of the CD for at least a decade but I don't see it happening for a long time.  It's definitely in decline in terms of units shipped but that's very different from dying.  Popular music might move almost entirely to files but there are whole other worlds of music where a physical medium of known quality, accompanied by a comprehensive hard copy booklet, is always going to be preferred by a big part of the prospective customer base; failure to offer a CD or SACD would be a real test of credibility.  When Naxos quit offering physical media I'll agree the CD is doomed.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #17 –
I've had good luck buying used CD's from Amazon.  I rip them to lossless (Monkey's Audio).

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: slks on
iTunes does sell most of its music in 256 kb/s AAC.


A little note of correction: all music sold on the iTunes Store is encoded at 256kbps AAC and is completely DRM free.  Apple no longer sells 128kbps DRMed AAC files anymore.  Even music videos are now all DRM free, encoded at 480p, and have ~256kbps AAC audio.  Audiobooks, eBooks, movies, apps, and TV shows still have DRM music music and music videos are all DRM free and use higher nitrates.

Quote from: Kohlrabi on
From what I know you are allowed to redownload bought songs?


That is true.  You can re-download any purchased song anytime you like for an unlimited number of time.  Even content that was purchased back in 2003, long before Apple implemented iCloud, can be downloaded again free of charge.  Granted, the old 128kbps DRM AAC files that were originally purchased will be downloaded again (so you can't upgrade to 256kbps DRM free files without paying anything) but they are better than nothing.

As for the topic at hand, purchasing the CD will always be the better option when it comes to flexibility.  The iTunes Store has a few advantages in that it is always available and content is delivered immediately but you will always be stuck with the lossy files you download.  A CD can be ripped to a lossless format and those files can be transcoded over and over again.  You can easily transcode them to a new lossless or lossy standard rather easily while the iTunes Store tracks will forever be 256kbps AAC (unless Apple adopts ALAC in the iTunes Store, then you will likely be able to pay a "small" fee to upgrade your music again).  I almost always try to buy the CDs when I can.  There was a time when I lived in a small town with the nearest Best Buy being about one hour away and the only local store that sold music was Walmart.  I had an Amazon account but didn't feel like spending $25 every time I wanted an album just to get free one week shipping (and Amazon's CD prices normally aren't as good as Best Buy's when the CD is first released).  So I turned to the iTunes Store for my music.  Now I just buy content that is either only available on the iTunes Store (like the soundtrack to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) or something that is a small EP (like the new one from Skrillex).

I don't see anything wrong with relying on the iTunes Store for primary purchases but I prefer the flexibility that buying the CD gives me.  I also encode my music at a setting lower than 256kbps (I actually use 160kbps VBR iTunes AAC) so anything I purchase from the iTunes Store will be a lot larger than CDs I rip myself that go onto my iPod/iPad for listening.

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #19 –
For me, the issue with CDs has become the physical space they take up. I have a shelf that holds like 1000 CDs, and it's full. Unless it's some special collector's edition, I'll always opt for the download now (although I prefer Amazon to iTunes). I just don't want to buy another shelf.
 

What to buy: iTunes or CD?

Reply #20 –
For me, the itunes files are excellent quality,too excellent for a portable. AAC at 128 is adequate for portable use.

I would take the CD if the price was equivalent or even a bit higher, mke my own rips at the quality I like to use.

$.02