MSNBC review of iTunes Store

[lonny]

Check out this TOTALLY biased review:

www.msnbc.com/news/909907.asp?0cv=CB20&cp1=1

sure it's a MS site.. but please.. get real!

[moav]

I think he based his entire article after downloading just 1 album. We'll I also downloaded the album last night on two different macs and burned them. Then I downloaded 4 different MP3 copies off of limewire, acquisition and bearshare on my pc. Either this guy is smoking something or Apple needs to look into Microsofts tactics. Hands down the AAC copy from the itunes store sounds better then any MP3 version I downloaded played on my mac, pc or MP3 player. After listening to the AAC version and the original CD about 5 times you can tell that the AAC version does seem to tone down some of the ranges, but unless you are really listening and have nothing better to do I would take the Apple copy any day since I don't want to drive 40 minutes fight a crowd and then return home only to need to rip the cuts back into itunes anyway so that I can put them on my ipod. Time is money for me. I just wasted 3 hours of my time that I could be doing something way more productive.

[genehack]

Once again folks-see my other thread:
we are witnessing the whole nine yards campaign on every possible level now
M$ against APPLE

As simple as that!

[frog_always]

Take it from who it is MSNBC
what a bunch of crap

[Jabberwocky]

I must confess that I have not downloaded any music, so I can't speak from a particular experience. But there is a couple of valid points in the article:

I can make as many legal copies (of the The Wallflowers CD) as I like [...] and those copies all sound great and play on any device[...] I can also rip the songs onto my MP3 players

Fair point - if I buy music (from any source) I should be able to do what I like (legally) with it. I have 2 laptops and a desktop. I RIP my music to MP3 on my G3 which is acts as my storage server, and I copy them to the laptop in use at the time as and when I want to listen to a particular set of music.

Apple will allow you to store the music on up to 3 computers and granted, that is probably enough, but I don't think much of the Orwellian control. If I have 5 houses around the world with a computer in each, I should be able to store the music I have bought on each of those machines in each of those houses as I jet around the world. How do they intend to stop you transferring files around without the process becoming a complete pain in the A? A software key? What happens if you need to back up your hard drive before a drive reformat or upgrade? You back up the files, and not the key, then what - do you have to download again?

He was also saying that the CD he burned would not play in his regular CD players so I don't know what he did, but he obviously did not burn an "audio CD".

[jocknerd]

The guy was right on the money about the quality of the music. I don't care whether you like AAC, MP3, or Ogg Vorbis, none of them match the quality of a CD. I also agree with the author in that why spend $9.99 for the album if you can purchase the CD for almost the same price?

I burned all of my Beatles CD's in AAC at 128. On my ibook. It didn't sound any better than when I burned the albums at 160 in MP3. I wasn't able to compare AAC with Ogg Vorbis although on my Linux box, I have compared MP3 at 160 with Ogg Vorbis at 160 and Ogg Vorbis is far superior. So I burned them again at 192 in AAC and it finally sounded better.

I did go ahead and download Elvis Presley's 30. I then made an audio CD from it. I have to say that the 128 AAC downloads sound better than the 128 AAC I burn myself. But the audio CD sounded somewhat lousy on my home stereo.

AAC might be good enough for the computer or iPod, but it falls way short in comparison with the CD.

Suggestion for Apple:
Offer a real CD of the albums that we can purchase for say $11.99 along with the download version for $9.99

[Rhino_G3]

Originally posted by jocknerd

AAC might be good enough for the computer or iPod, but it falls way short in comparison with the CD.

Suggestion for Apple:
Offer a real CD of the albums that we can purchase for say $11.99 along with the download version for $9.99

The shipping costs would be outrageous for apple, not to mention the man hours needed to fill such an order. it would be cost prohibitive.

Somebody will always complain about audio quality, regardless of how good (or bad) it sounds. I've seen people that have been completely happy with 64 kbps mp3's that made my ears bleed. To each his own...

The iTunes store was never meant to completely replace record stores. It was to provide easy, legal access to your favorite songs... If it's not your cup of tea, don't use it. Everybody already knew that apple was using 128kbps AAC's. It wasn't a surprise. Most people also know that AAC is still a lossy CODEC. You will have quality loss, regardless of bitrate.

[Jabberwocky]

Everybody already knew that apple was using 128kbps AAC's. It wasn't a surprise. Most people also know that AAC is still a lossy CODEC. You will have quality loss, regardless of bitrate.

On my TiBook, iTunes rips my CD albums @ 160 to MP3s and I can then mix and burn selected audio tracks to CD to play in my stereo without noticeable loss of quality.

So why have they decided to use a different codec?

I don't think I want to pay for audio that is of a significantly lower quality when for a not significantly greater amount of money, I can buy the CD and rip MP3s at whatever quality I want for the requirement at the time. And I can do it again and again at different qualities.

I stress that I have not downloaded any music from the store and cannot speak from experience of the qualities involved. But then, as a discerning buyer I can hypothesize!