where to purchase music in lossless format?

[Hicks12]

Right well im going to buy a couple of new cd's soon but thought id see if its possible to get it online... i see mp3 downloads everywhere, thats fine but id rather have a lossless format to make use of my AD700's. Anyone know if any etailers do this?


edit: posted in wrong section, woops .

[matty-hodgson]

It'll be alright in here while a mod moves it .

I thought that all CDs were lossless tbh, might need some more reassurance though.

[Terbinator]

As lossless as your ever going to get unless you can do vinyls and caveats associated with them.

[nibbler]

I can't tell the difference between 320kbit and CDs, probably says something about my speakers, but I think 320 is pretty good.

[Hicks12]

sorry maybe didnt word it correctly, im looking to download similar to say itunes/amazon but not in mp3(or equivalent compression) but instead in lossless like FLAC etc etc.

[nibbler]

Apple can do pretty high bitrate I think, look into it. They certainly do a format called ALAC or something which is 1411kbit.

[Hicks12]

dont have any apple related electronics, not using itunes after seeing what happens to my mates computer . Just want it in standard FLAC or something not with drm or apple specific, basically playable on say a sansa clip (can play everything bar some apple stuff iirc) and for my pc .

[Terbinator]

Thing is here, your in the pound seats.

CD's usually cost less than digital and as you've found, come in higher quality too!

You also get to flick through the album notes and stuff

[kalniel]

Apple can do pretty high bitrate I think, look into it. They certainly do a format called ALAC or something which is 1411kbit.

Can you buy in that format though? I thought it was just for ripping.

[Funkstar]

iTunes doesn't sell anything higher that 256kbit AAC, ALAC is not available in the store**. If you want lossless you will have to go to some of the specialist download sites, most of them cater to the high resolution audio market (24bit and 88.2khz or higher) and have very limited catalogues.

My advice? Just buy the CD and rip it. That's what I do for all my music.

No, I probably can't hear the difference between a good MP3 at 320kbit and a FLAC encode, but at least with FLAC I know I can create any other lossless or lossy format without incuring any generational loss on the compression. It's also a completely open format and cannot suddenly be dropped or mangled by a large software company. If FLAC does die out, well I can just do a batch transcode to any other format. I will never need to rip my library again.


** ALAC isn't 1411kbit, that is for uncompressed PCM audio from a CD. Like FLAC, ALAC averages out to be about 50% compression over a library. Some tracks can compress up to about 60%, and some will only get about 40%.

[neonplanet40]

Pretty much what Funkstar said mate. Thats what I do. I do think they need to make a higher bit-rate option available on the likes of amazon though. There is no real reason why they shouldn't!

Then again your average joe has an average sounding ipod with terrible stock earphones so they wouldn't notice the difference which is why I think they are in no rush to make high bitrate an available option.

[Hicks12]

cheers for the replies guys , thought id have to get it on cd.. just a lot of albums i like say 50% of the songs and so if someone did an online download that would have saved a fair amount. Will see if i can pick some up cheap though

[nibbler]

Yup looks like you can't download ALAC, was just looking at some v high quality rips I had and was thinkign that maybe apple did them. CDs are the way to go then.

[Funkstar]

cheers for the replies guys , thought id have to get it on cd.. just a lot of albums i like say 50% of the songs and so if someone did an online download that would have saved a fair amount. Will see if i can pick some up cheap though

I couldn't even begin to count the number of tracks that I previously thought weren't very good that have gone on to become favourites after numerous listenings. I can see why some people would buy individual tracks, but fo me, the album will remain king.

Pink Floyd have the ight idea, they have been sueing their label for making all tracks individual doanloads. The band wany only singles and full albums available to purchase, which in my opinion is the correct way to do things.

[TheAnimus]

Also buying the CD in Fopp or Amazon or Play.... Its often quite a bit cheaper than buying the digital album, this bugs me.

But recently I've been renting mine, all fairly low quality 256kbits, but as I listen to some dave burbeck right now its a compromise I'm willing to make because I don't have this recording, and I can always buy it if I really like it.

[spoon_]

Then again your average joe has an average sounding ipod with terrible stock earphones so they wouldn't notice the difference which is why I think they are in no rush to make high bitrate an available option.

In case this isn't obvious yet - why would you want to play ALAC/FLAC on a portable music player [iPods or your Sony X whatever] + earphones? I don't see any point at all.

UNLESS of course go gonna get yourself proper player, good pair of headphones and portable amp.

@OP

Its hard to find any decent site which has legal music on it... allflac[.]com looks good but its not legal.
Search brings up tons of sites, hardly any legit ones..