Buying Classical Music Online

[Ralph]

From The Wall Street Journal

* RUNNING A BUSINESS
* MAY 8, 2009

New Ways to Buy Bach Online
A site that promises to give classical composers their due

By JOHN JURGENSEN


Technology entrepreneur Pierre Schwob thinks Bach and Beethoven haven't been given their due in the digital age.

Classical Archives, a new digital store focused exclusively on classical music, is Mr. Schwob's answer to mass-market digital retailers with "a complete lack of understanding of how classical music should be offered," down to the way they often categorize recordings. "It's basically a lack of respect when you say Bach is an 'artist,' not a composer," Mr. Schwob says.

For example, when online shoppers type "Beethoven" into iTunes, the top results they get back include a rock medley by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, an uncredited recording of "Für Elise" and individual movements culled from greatest hits collections. It's not that the music seller is skimping on the composer -- customers can find complete works by browsing deeper in the iTunes classical section -- it's just that his oeuvre doesn't fit neatly on the virtual shelves with that of Miley Cyrus and the Black Eyed Peas.
[classical] Polly Becker

An Apple spokesman said that the setup of iTunes encourages browsing across genres, and that the store has bolstered its classical service by adding new features, such as a "power search" that allows shoppers to hone in on composers.

Classical music came late to the digital-music revolution, but the genre is poised to play catch-up as a crop of specialty music sellers jockey to meet the demands of core listeners. With a test version already online, Classical Archives officially opens May 19. ArkivMusic, a popular online store that based its business model on classical fans' loyalty to CDs, began offering downloads last January. Naxos, a record label and retailer that spearheaded the genre's digital push, is preparing to roll out "lossless" downloads, a format with audio quality some experts say is on par with CDs. And Passionato, a digital store that debuted last fall in the U.K., is trying to secure funding for a U.S. launch this year, having overestimated the current demand for digital music in Europe, according to founder James Glicker.

The industry needs such ventures. "The bread and butter of what we do has really been lost in the decline of those great physical record stores," says Chris Roberts, president of classics and jazz for Universal Music Group International.
Online Overtures
ArkivMusic

History: Founded in 2002 and acquired by Steinway last year, this online classical store stocks 95,000 titles. Its fastest-growing business: A selection of 6,500 out-of-print albums that ArkivMusic can produce on demand.

Format: Until recently the company hadn't sold downloads, believing classical fans would stay loyal to CDs. However, when ArkivMusic recently began a trial offer of some releases in digital form, downloads accounted for about 20% of sales. "I was surprised by that number, surprised enough to put more effort into it," says ArkivMusic president Eric Feidner.

Download details: For now, the digital inventory is limited. Purchases are downloaded to the shopper's computer as MP3 files, which can be played on iPods and most other devices. Their audio quality -- measured in technical terms at 320 kbps -- is the highest available for the MP3 format.

Top digital seller: Karol Szymanowski's Symphonies No. 1 & 4, conducted by Antoni Wit and performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring pianist Jan Krzysztof Broja.
Naxos

History: First known for its flood of low-priced no-frills CDs, this record label went on to establish itself as a purveyor of deep repertoire. It was also one of the first labels to offer its catalog online.

Format: Naxos sells downloads on its own digital store -- ClassicsOnline.com -- and through stores including iTunes, Amazon and eMusic. All these digital transactions account for about 65% of Naxos' sales. But CDs are still key to the bottom line, says Naxos of America CEO Jim Selby: "I don't know if we can all shut our warehouses down. Put it that way."

Download details: ClassicsOnline, which is relaunching next week, offers nearly 27,000 albums as MP3s at 320 kbps, and Naxos is experimenting with "lossless" formats that match CD quality. The challenge: Such files can't easily be played on popular music applications like iTunes.

Top digital seller: The recently redesigned ClassicsOnline offers nearly 27,000 albums in the MP3 format at 320 kbps. And Naxos is about to begin selling "lossless" digital files whose audio quality is on par with CDs. The catch: Such files can't easily be played on iPods and other popular devices.
iTunes

History: Introduced in 2003, the iTunes store transformed the music industry and in 2008 eclipsed Wal-Mart as the nation's biggest music seller.

Format: Because it stocks everything from movies to videogames, iTunes doesn't focus on classical music. But the store has improved its classical homepage with features such as drop-down list of great composers and a "power search" that differentiates between composers and performers.

Download details: iTunes recently removed the technical restrictions that prevented purchased music files from being freely transferred from one device to another. Also, the audio quality of all iTunes music was upgraded, from 128 kbps to 256 kbps.

Top digital seller: With a marketing push that included placement on the iTunes homepage, a collection of Bach violin concertos by Julia Fischer became the classical genre's fastest-selling digital title ever.

Mr. Schwob, a businessman who is largely unknown in the insular world of orchestras and operas, has put some $4 million of his own money into the launch of Classical Archives, which is a new version of a site Mr. Schwob founded 15 years ago. His site's selling points: an emphasis on high-quality audio and a browsing system designed by musicologists (including an architect of one of the Web's most popular music services, Pandora) to satisfy aficionados and novices alike.

There's no guarantee, however, that classical fans will flock to digital stores online. "Just because we're available digitally doesn't mean we've created demand," says Eric Dingman, president of EMI Classics.

In recent years, the genre's annual sales have hovered below 3% of all recorded music, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. That means a digital-only classical store limits itself to "a slice of a slice" of the music business, says Eric Feidner, president of ArkivMusic. As consumers go digital (about 20% of the 3.4 million classical albums sold so far this year were digital downloads, up from 12% in the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan) Mr. Feidner's strategy is to move gradually into downloads.

Anyone jumping into the digital music business has to reckon with the dominance of iTunes, which last year overtook Wal-Mart as the biggest music retailer and sells approximately 80% of all legal music downloads. But Classical Archives, with a staff of just 20 people and no advertising campaign to speak of, hopes to corner the digital market for classical. "We're happy to leave rock and pop to iTunes," Mr. Schwob says.

Classical Archives carries the digital catalogs of some 100 record labels, from majors such as Universal and EMI, to European independents including Harmonia Mundi. The company offers two ways of listening: streaming audio and downloads. For a monthly fee of $9.95 (or $99.50 a year) members can listen to any titles they want to by streaming them over the Internet. Members receive a discount of about 10% on the price of downloads. (The store uses the highest sound quality available for MP3s, a user-friendly format that can be played on most devices, including iPods, unlike the lossless digital formats that many audiophiles prefer.)

Unlike younger musical styles such as rock and roll, which are typically categorized by the names of performers and their recordings, the 1,000-year history of classical music is based on composers and their written repertoire. Classical Archives uses these works as the foundation of its navigation system.

For example, Mozart's repertoire is presented by categories, including operas, chamber works and vocal music. Clicking on "Don Giovanni" leads to a selection of tabs that include a history of the opera and an inventory of 128 recordings of it, which can be sorted by performer or release date.

Edward Bilous, a New York composer on the faculty of the Juilliard School, recently tested the site on a computer in his home studio. He was impressed by the site's level of cross-referencing. Curious about a link to a fiddler and mandolin player, Darol Anger, he was led to an Americana collection by a vocal group Mr. Bilous thought he knew well, Anonymous 4. "It was lovely to find out that they have a recording of American folk music -- and to discover that through the mandolin player's page? I don't know where else I'd go for that," Mr. Bilous said.

Building a system that can make such connections is difficult, in part because of inconsistencies in the data supplied by record labels. Classical Archives relies on a team of eight musicologists who vet every music file. "We want to provide a universal database for every recorded piece of classical music," says Nolan Gasser, artistic director of Classical Archives.

Mr. Gasser has been developing the sites's framework since joining the company seven years ago. A musicologist with a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Mr. Gasser is a composer whose works have been performed by groups such as the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. In the tech world, however, Mr. Gasser is best known as an architect of the Music Genome Project, which analyzed songs down to the detail of tempo, atmosphere and lyrical content. This project, which relied on human analysis, was used to power Pandora, an online music discovery service.

Classical Archives is still filling out its inventory. In another recent test, pianist Jonathan Biss started with a simple exercise -- he searched for himself. The 28-year-old musician performs about 100 times a year and has recorded four albums for EMI. But the most recent of these releases -- a rendition of Mozart's Piano Concertos Nos. 21 and 22, issued last fall -- wasn't on Classical Archives.

Mr. Gasser says Classical Archives hasn't yet received or fully processed some titles from its record label partners, a process he says should be complete by the site's official launch.

Mr. Schwob, who was raised in Switzerland and moved to the U.S. in 1973, made his money with inventions such as a piece of radio software that became standard in car stereos. A science patron who recently donated $1 million to Stanford University's astrophysics department, he's the sole financial backer of Classical Archives -- a fact that helped convince at least one key record label to supply its catalog. "He's quite passionate about classical music, so that goes a long way for us," says Jim Selby, CEO of Naxos of America.

Classical Archives currently has about 10,000 paying members, most of them left over from the site's first iteration. Mr. Schwob says the company needs a total of at least 30,000 members to become profitable. To hit that target he's is willing to risk his personal wealth "because I think it's a good cause," he says, "and I think I can make a lot of money if it's done right.

Write to John Jurgensen at john.jurgensen@wsj.com

[Chalkperson]

The catch: Such files can't easily be played on iPods and other popular devices.

Steve Jobs Rules, no point in arguing about that...

Even you Laddie...

[John F]

I'm not a customer - downloads aren't for me, I want to hold the disc in my hand - but it's interesting to read about the classical music market, and I hope the new venture does well.

Incidentally, the weird results of jamming classical music recordings into a pop music database can also be seen on the Time Warner Cable Music Choice channels Classical Masterpieces and Light Classics. (There used to be an Opera channel but it's been dropped.) Talk about square pegs and round holes.

[Lance]

I leave the downloading of files to the younger generation. Like John Francis, I want the disc in hand along with its accompanying notes and artwork. When/if CDs no longer become available, I stop collecting. This time I mean it. I said the same thing about CDs when I was collecting LPs, but I was/am convinced of the CD format, because it didn't take me long to value the CD format. Still, with the CD, I had the genuine article, notes and all. Besides, I can happily live with all I have amassed in a half century!

[arglebargle]

square pegs and round holes

It would be a minor programming challenge to figure out how to make databases work for classical - one can only assume the reason it hasn't been done yet is lack of urgent economic incentive. I'd expect this to change as programmers get 'caught up' getting things working optimally for the larger pop market, it's the sort of thing that may be sitting on companies' get-to-when-time-available features list.

The new resource certainly looks interesting but I'll admit I had a little trouble navigating, I tried to see how many complete sets of Beethoven quartets might be available, by whom, and at what price but it wasn't entirely clear even after eventually selecting the 'album' tab instead of the default 'works' tab. Suggest this is something they need to get working right, online shoppers can be a tad flighty, if it takes too many clicks and gyrations to find something, they'll bail.

[Kuhlau]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

[John F]

It would be a minor programming challenge to figure out how to make databases work for classical - one can only assume the reason it hasn't been done yet is lack of urgent economic incentive. I'd expect this to change as programmers get 'caught up' getting things working optimally for the larger pop market, it's the sort of thing that may be sitting on companies' get-to-when-time-available features list.

It isn't the programmers but the vendors who haven't bothered to get it right, which would involve creating a separate database with fields suited to classical music data. I suppose the reasons are (a) they're ignorant about the classical "product" and its consumers and (b) they don't care because (c) the classical market is so small compared with the pop market, which is what the download phenomenon has always been based on. Which of course has to do with economic incentive, as you say - but I shouldn't think the incentive is likely to soar any time soon, especially not with more competitors coming in to take their pieces of the pie.

[Seán]

I'm not a customer - downloads aren't for me, I want to hold the disc in my hand - but it's interesting to read about the classical music market, and I hope the new venture does well.

Me neither. The move from Vinyl on 12'' to CD on 3.5'' is enough for me, thanks.

[Auntie Lynn]

Between Sheet Music Plus and Hutchins and Rea, I get everything I need. I want to SEE it, too - not just hear it - I can hear it in my head...that's the easy part.

[Kuhlau]

... I can hear it in my head...that's the easy part.

Wish I could do that.

FK

[maestrob]

I leave the downloading of files to the younger generation. Like John Francis, I want the disc in hand along with its accompanying notes and artwork. When/if CDs no longer become available, I stop collecting. This time I mean it. I said the same thing about CDs when I was collecting LPs, but I was/am convinced of the CD format, because it didn't take me long to value the CD format. Still, with the CD, I had the genuine article, notes and all. Besides, I can happily live with all I have amassed in a half century!

What stood out for me in the article is that downloads are 65% of Naxos's sales: that's pretty impressive. I tend to download from eMusic occasionally, because it can be really cheap if I'm not sure I really want the recording permanently (it's about 30 cents/track), but I mostly buy CDs for classical, simply because the sound quality is better than mp3s and yes, I want the physical product.

If they ever put together a website that offers .wav files, AND printable notes, then I'll consider downloading new releases. Not before.

[ch1525]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

Total agreement here! I just don't understand why a new service like this would not have a lossless option. How can they try to do away with physical CDs when you are not purchasing content that is equivalent to the actual CD? Storage is no longer a concern and the bandwidth isn't really too big a problem either. I think the music industry would be smart to move to lossless distribution. There are certainly no shortage of other places, albeit with less legality, to download content in lossless.

[Chalkperson]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

You obviously don't have an i-Pod...

[Chalkperson]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

Total agreement here! I just don't understand why a new service like this would not have a lossless option.

As I said above, you don't use an i-Pod, Apple invented/invested in Apple Lossless to keep their share of the market as high as possible, ultimately everyone demanding FLAC etc will have to accept Apple's version or Buy a Zune...I know there are some here (Hi David) who disagree with me, and suggest that FLAC is superior to Apple Lossless, but, that is not the issue, it's basically revving up for a Format War, and Steve hates to lose...anything...ever...

[DavidRoss]

As I said above, you don't use an i-Pod, Apple invented/invested in Apple Lossless to keep their share of the market as high as possible, ultimately everyone demanding FLAC etc will have to accept Apple's version or Buy a Zune...I know there are some here (Hi David) who disagree with me, and suggest that FLAC is superior to Apple Lossless, but, that is not the issue, it's basically revving up for a Format War, and Steve hates to lose...anything...ever...

Functionally, there's no appreciable difference between FLAC and Apple Lossless--the only virtues of FLAC are that it's free, open source, already the de facto standard, and has nothing to do with Apple. (Hi, Chalkie. Hope Starr's recovery is still progressing well.)

I would happily pay a very modest amount for digital tracks over the web in order to preview CDs I'm considering purchasing. I will not pay approximately the same price for downloads as for CDs, but might for some other hard copy digital file storage medium with equal or better longevity, sound quality, and accompanying documentation.

[Chalkperson]

Functionally, there's no appreciable difference between FLAC and Apple Lossless--the only virtues of FLAC are that it's free, open source, already the de facto standard, and has nothing to do with Apple.

Exactly, Jobs knows that and thus produced his own version so as to gain marketshare, Slim Devices that manufacture the Squeezebox and Transporter offer a ripping service, but, they only Rip into FLAC for exactly the reason you stated, they suggest you get two files made at the same time, Lossless and then Lossy for the i-Pod, in fact there are occasions when my Transporter skips a few beats here and there, it's because Apple Lossless works too fast and they have problems keeping up with it, hopefully they will produce a fix, apart from the fact that most people don't care about the quality it's only us Audiophiles that demand Lossless files, my feeling was that now storage is so cheap they would offer it but the i-Phone and i-Pod Touch only hold 16 and 32 Gigs of Music respectively, so lossless fills them up too quickly and that's another reason for Apples decision...but, it will all come to fruition over time...

[Trilogy]

I do not like downloading music, regardless of what people say, the sound quality imo is inferior to that of actual cds. I will continue to buy cd's because I like to be able to browse through my collection and pick out what I want to hear.

Moreover, large cd collections look cool in a room

[Chalkperson]

I do not like downloading music, regardless of what people say, the sound quality imo is inferior to that of actual cds. I will continue to buy cd's because I like to be able to browse through my collection and pick out what I want to hear.

Moreover, large cd collections look cool in a room

I only have 1,000 discs at home, mainly SACD's, but, I have 15,000 lossless CD's on Three 2 Terrabyte Drives that take up less space than a shoebox...and everything is accessible in an instant...

[DavidRoss]

I do not like downloading music, regardless of what people say, the sound quality imo is inferior to that of actual cds.

Lossless files, whether downloaded or ripped from CDs, contain ALL of the digital information present in the original CDs. Lossy files, whether downloaded or ripped from CDs, contain only some of the information present in the original CDs. Lossy files are inferior. Lossless files are not. Opinion has nothing to do with it. One's ability to hear the differences between lossy and lossless or Redbook CD files depends on type of music, quality of recording, quality of playback equipment, listener ability, listener training, and listener state of inebriation.

[Chalkperson]

I do not like downloading music, regardless of what people say, the sound quality imo is inferior to that of actual cds.

Lossless files, whether downloaded or ripped from CDs, contain ALL of the digital information present in the original CDs. Lossy files, whether downloaded or ripped from CDs, contain only some of the information present in the original CDs. Lossy files are inferior. Lossless files are not. Opinion has nothing to do with it. One's ability to hear the differences between lossy and lossless or Redbook CD files depends on type of music, quality of recording, quality of playback equipment, listener ability, listener training, and listener state of inebriation.

And you can always convert Lossless Files to Lossy ones, but, not the other way around...if you Rip Lossless you will never need to do it again, but, until they offer them Commercially we are stuck buying the recording and then Ripping them ourselves...I buy a lot of CD's and I bring them home and listen to the disc from start to finish, then, unless I want to replay it immediately I Rip it to Apple Lossless, I never play the disc again, only the Lossless Files, there is no longer a difference in Sound Quality, David may still disagree about this BTW, in fact the Transporter or Network Music Player has such a good D/A Converter that I play my CD's thru it as well, but, I also have a Tube D/A Converter and one in my Linn Unidisc, so with three players and Three D/A Converters I have up to nine different kinds of sound in playback and I can cater that to the disc...of course with SACD's it's different as you can't copy the SACD Layer only the CD one, so I keep those discs and play them as SACD's, they are the best available sounding Recordings, well, except for Blu Ray's Uncompressed Audio of course, that even blows the socks off SACD's...

[barney]

I do not like downloading music, regardless of what people say, the sound quality imo is inferior to that of actual cds. I will continue to buy cd's because I like to be able to browse through my collection and pick out what I want to hear.

Moreover, large cd collections look cool in a room

I only have 1,000 discs at home, mainly SACD's, but, I have 15,000 lossless CD's on Three 2 Terrabyte Drives that take up less space than a shoebox...and everything is accessible in an instant...

What would frighten me about that is the possibility of the hard drives dying. Are all 15,000 CDs backed up? And what program do you use to copy them - Itunes or something else?

[ch1525]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

Total agreement here! I just don't understand why a new service like this would not have a lossless option.

As I said above, you don't use an i-Pod, Apple invented/invested in Apple Lossless to keep their share of the market as high as possible, ultimately everyone demanding FLAC etc will have to accept Apple's version or Buy a Zune...I know there are some here (Hi David) who disagree with me, and suggest that FLAC is superior to Apple Lossless, but, that is not the issue, it's basically revving up for a Format War, and Steve hates to lose...anything...ever...

Actually, I have an iPhone and an iPod Touch, Chalkie. I just don't really use them much. I don't even have any music on my iPhone at all. However, I'd still be perfectly happy if these services used ALAC. It takes me less than a minute using a program called dbPowerAmp to convert an album from FLAC to ALAC or vice-versa. Also, FLAC and ALAC are very, very similar in the file size that results as well as the processing power that is needed to encode/decode. They both work perfectly fine on my Squeezebox, too.

Moreover, large cd collections look cool in a room

Can't argue with you there!!!

...and listener state of inebriation.

HAHA!

What would frighten me about that is the possibility of the hard drives dying. Are all 15,000 CDs backed up? And what program do you use to copy them - Itunes or something else?

Oh yes, he backs them up! I have my 40,000 plus tracks backed up as well. I am on a PC and use Exact Audio Copy to make perfect, secure rips of my CDs into FLAC. iTunes can be used if you want to rip into Apple Lossless. However, a lot of audiophile types I know that use Macs use a program called XLD. I think it has more sophisticated error correction, etc. than iTunes does.

[Chalkperson]

I'm backing up right now...

217,639 Songs
694 Days 14 Minutes 22.39 Seconds
4,230.36 Gigabytes

[Corlyss_D]

Moreover, large cd collections look cool in a room

Not nearly as impressive as a wall of lps.

[Kuhlau]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

You obviously don't have an i-Pod...

Correct. I'm one of the fortunate ones who doesn't suffer from the delusion that just because Apple makes something, it must be good.

FK

[barney]

I'm backing up right now...

217,639 Songs
694 Days 14 Minutes 22.39 Seconds
4,230.36 Gigabytes

Does that take days? Obviously 500GB portable hard drives would be a nuisance - what do you back up on to?

I have an Iphone, which work pays for, which I got chiefly because I never had an MP3 player, but (as I said before) I don't listen to much music on it because I'm walking and there's too much peripheral noise, or in the train (ditto) or in the car (ditto). I use it mostly for podcasts, though I have a few days of music on it just in case. I don't see how an Ipod could be an optimum musical experience except in the same situation where you could actually play the CDs, ie at home in quiet.

So what am I missing? What is the advantage of turning them into computer files?

[Chalkperson]

Does that take days? Obviously 500GB portable hard drives would be a nuisance - what do you back up on to?

I have an Iphone, which work pays for, which I got chiefly because I never had an MP3 player, but (as I said before) I don't listen to much music on it because I'm walking and there's too much peripheral noise, or in the train (ditto) or in the car (ditto). I use it mostly for podcasts, though I have a few days of music on it just in case. I don't see how an Ipod could be an optimum musical experience except in the same situation where you could actually play the CDs, ie at home in quiet.

So what am I missing? What is the advantage of turning them into computer files?

As far as an i-Pod is concerned I don't use them that much because it only takes me ten mnutes to get to the Studio, but, when I travel I take three with me, about 200 CD's of music from across the Board, I can listen to lossless files and with High End Headphones, they completely lock out any ambient noise and are as good a listening experience as being at home (with headphones)...

As for Backing Up, I do it onto exactly the same drives, 2 Terrabyte ones, there are three to lower the problem should one crash, which has never happened, in fact at the Studio we have about 70 Terrabytes of Images stored on literally Hundreds of Drives, I have only ever had one drive fail, but, they were all backed up too...it takes only about 15 minutes per day to update the Music, all that changes in previously ripped Music is that I keep refining the Composer/CD/Conductor/Soloist info so the Filenames and some Folders change slightly, then the last thing I do is BackUp at night onto the Internal drives any new Recordings, I change Folders about every 200 Gigabytes or so, periodically I switch Drives at the studio and update any info, the music has not been changed, just some Folders...it's dead easy...

As for what you are missing by not Ripping your CD's, it's just very convenient to have the ability to play any CD in less than a minute, I can program the days music or I can, for example, play the same music by different Soloists to compare the playing styles or dip into 15,000 CD's and play anything, it's purely convenience, also my Job here as Disposable Income Specialist is much easier when I have all the information at my fingertips...

[Chalkperson]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

You obviously don't have an i-Pod...

Correct. I'm one of the fortunate ones who doesn't suffer from the delusion that just because Apple makes something, it must be good.

I was not pushing Apple Products, just making the observation that if you were looking for FLAC files the chances were that you did not have an i-Pod because they can't play FLAC only Apple Lossless...

[Chalkperson]

Oh yes, he backs them up! I have my 40,000 plus tracks backed up as well. I am on a PC and use Exact Audio Copy to make perfect, secure rips of my CDs into FLAC. iTunes can be used if you want to rip into Apple Lossless. However, a lot of audiophile types I know that use Macs use a program called XLD. I think it has more sophisticated error correction, etc. than iTunes does.

I don't use XLD because i-Tunes is an integral part of my Database, and it keeps things simple, I know many people complain about i-Tunes but i'm quite happy with it, in Florida we just use i-Pod Docks and have no CD's whatsoever down there, I rotate the i-Pods periodically there too...

[unagi]

I don't see how an Ipod could be an optimum musical experience except in the same situation where you could actually play the CDs, ie at home in quiet.

There are some earphones and headsets that keep the peripheral noise out of your ears.

So what am I missing? What is the advantage of turning them into computer files?

A couple of hard drives eat up less space than thousands of CDs, and their content can be accessed (and searched) quickly through a database.

[Muniini K. Mulera]

I am a very happy dinosaur - still buying and listening to brand new high quality vinyl LPs whenever I can find them [and there are plenty of them.] I am collecting 45RPM re-issues of Blue Notes [jazz] that do justice to the work of the great jazz musicians of the late 1950s and early 60s.

It took me years to get used to the "modern" CD sound. The sound has improved greatly over the last 12 - 15 years and I now enjoy CD/SACD recordings. Between my vinyl and CD collections, I have plenty of music to last me a lifetime.

But then again, the downloaded music may someday get to the audio quality that I demand. Then, and only then, will I borrow my daughter's i-Pod or whatever will be the gadget of the day.

Muniini

[Kuhlau]

The big disappointment for me about this relaunch is that 'highest quality' means MP3 at 320kbps.

When they start delivering FLAC, I'll start buying ...

FK

You obviously don't have an i-Pod...

Correct. I'm one of the fortunate ones who doesn't suffer from the delusion that just because Apple makes something, it must be good.

I was not pushing Apple Products, just making the observation that if you were looking for FLAC files the chances were that you did not have an i-Pod because they can't play FLAC only Apple Lossless...

I know plenty of people who enjoy FLAC on their iPods. But then, they use Rockbox.

FK

[Chalkperson]

I know plenty of people who enjoy FLAC on their iPods. But then, they use Rockbox.

That is an interesting alternative, but, unfortunately Third Party Applications were not available when I started Ripping more than three years ago, so i'm stuck with i-Tunes, also I have four Logitech Transporters/Squeezeboxes which prefer FLAC to Apple Lossless...but, with Twelve Computers at home and work accessing the Files I feel it best to stick with Apple...

[arglebargle]

Simplify Media 2 is supposed to support FLAC (plays tracks from home computer over wireless or 3G on iPhone) - may check it out sometime in the next week, not sure how much different lossless will make on a mobile though.

[Chalkperson]

Simplify Media 2 is supposed to support FLAC (plays tracks from home computer over wireless or 3G on iPhone) - may check it out sometime in the next week, not sure how much different lossless will make on a mobile though.

It makes a huge difference if you have decent earbuds, I have to admit to never even trying Apple's earbuds...