More On Music Stores, And Thoughts About Lossless Formats

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 06, 2008

Apple and Amazon and the rest of those in the top five of NPD’s latest list are all terrific. But I have to say I’ve been enjoying my membership on eMusic of late, which was early to the DRM-free MP3 game, and whose music catalog is overall, pretty good. Over the weekend I downloaded some classical albums: Specifically some Resphigi and Dvořák.

But what if MP3s, even high bit-rate ones, just aren’t good enough for your ears? If lossless formats are more your style I just discovered HDTracks.com which offers DRM-free downloads in three formats: AIFF, FLAC and MP3. Your iPod and iPhone will of course play AIFF files, however they’ll take up a lot more space than an MP3 or an AAC file. FLAC is the Free Lossless Audio Codec that is most popular with those who trade concert recordings on sites like Dimeadozen and The Trader’s Den, and it too takes up huge amounts storage space, but isn’t supported on either iTunes or the iPod. For playing FLAC files in iTunes, you can try a free plugin like Fluke which I just discovered this morning. For the iPod you’ll have to convert them to a supported format. Techspansion’s AudialHub is terrific application that is well worth the $18.81 for converting FLAC files into practically any audio format under the sun.

Why bother with lossless files? True, they take up a LOT of space. But the files sound better generally, especially with recordings of live performances. If you want to listen closely to say, the pianist in symphony, or the bassist in jazz band, you’ll have an easier time of it with a lossless file and a good pair of headphones.

On the lossless front, iTunes is sort of a patchwork. It lets you import music in both AIFF and its own Apple Lossless format. But the iTunes Store doesn’t sell any music in lossless formats. The download times would be maddeningly long for the consumer, and for the iTunes Store servers would probably eat up more resources in hardware and bandwidth that it would warrant in sales. Christopher Breen at MacWorld speculated on this topic last year. ITunes Plus, which is the branding Apple uses to sell 256-bit AAC files is great, but someday it would be terrific if Apple were to make certain important albums, and maybe exclusively recorded concerts available in a lossless format.

As CDs become, over time, a less-available option, I’ll gladly pay iTunes a premium price for DRM-free certain items in Apple Lossless format, say landmark recordings of The New York Philharmonic, or the next remastered boxed set of John Coltrane or Duke Ellington. I’ll even buy the extra hard drive space to store it. Apple could call it “iTunes Select” or “iTunes Premium,” and aim it at the music snobs who to now might turn up their nose at the idea of digital downloads in the first place.

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