[Macworld]

Post your comments for The iTunes Store: Five years and $2,315.60 later here

[Mississauga]

$1500 and counting... so far. I love iTunes Music Store! Nothing is better.

[Chris Breen]

I think you may have to make a convincing argument that in a blind listening test you can tell the difference. Some have tried, few have succeeded.

[nom]

god I feel impoverished

[Rhywun]

I have spent a rather embarrassing $1000 on music. However, at least $500 of that was paid thru CoinStar from spare change I had lying around (I don't use change; I toss it all in a jar or a drawer) so I don't feel so bad about it.
Because of some recent unpleasantness with my iMac, I was on Vista for over a month recently, and long story short I decided no more DRM for me. I'm back on Mac now, but I don't ever want to be in a situation where my music doesn't play again. So, it's exlusively emusic and Amazon from now on.

[mdawson]

While it is true that in a double blind listening test most people, excepting a few keen audiophiles, would be hard-pressed to distinguish between AAC files purchased through the iTunes Store, particularly the 256 Kbps versions, and music played from a CD, but that is no reason to cease the quest for audio perfection. For some 50+ years there has been a mission to gain the holy grail of audio reproduction, then MP3s came along and far too many people became willing to settle for mediocrity for easy access. It was one thing when the crappy quality was the result of small-scale copying (e.g., making tapes from a friend's music collection), but now we are accepting less than the best from the distributors. I for one find that unacceptable and will also continue to buy CDs.

Numerous other advantages exist for physical media over music from the ether. Should the worst happen to my computer, short of a house-wide catastrophe, I still have all of my music and I can recover it for free. I do not relish the idea of having to re-rip 1100+ CDs, but at least it costs me nothing more than time to do so. Secondly, my collection is completely platform and software agnostic. AAC effectively should be, especially now with the popularity of the iPod and iTunes, but many software-based music managers and digital music players still do not support AAC; yet these idiot developers/manufacturers will often support Microsoft's proprietary WMA.

Then there are the hidden gems. I have lost count of the number of songs that I have incidently found after forgetting about them-particularly with music from my childhood, teen and early adult years-becuase I had the album. With the iTunes Store, and just about every other online music service, all you get is an often less-than-helpful 30 s sample. Owning the albums I can listen to entire songs until something plays that triggers a memory. Even in some recent acquisitions of more current music-some 80 CDs I acquired last month-I have found some 10 songs that I either forgot about or did not know the title or artist of that did not come across as anything I wanted when previewed on the Web.

While the myriad of information on the Internet has been useful in helping me find some older and many rare gems, Web-based offerings still have a long way to go before they suit the needs of serious music collectors and audiophiles.

[Chris Breen]

I agree that physical media has some advantages ? fidelity certainly. As for losing your music collection when your computer goes down, so too will you lose your photos, financial data, etc if you don't behave responsibly ? as in backing up your data. One might argue that this ether-born data has the advantage that you can keep it both close at hand (on your computer) and off-site (backed up and stored elsewhere). Should your house go up in flames and take your CD collection with it, sayonara music collection.

As for the point about double-blind listening tests, I was largely replying to the "come on Apple!" sentiment. If the vast majority of listeners can't tell the difference between iTunes Plus tracks and uncompressed versions, why should Apple invest in greater storage and pay for even larger pipes to deliver uncompressed (or, heaven forbid, 24-bit) versions of The Store? I'd suggest that those who would care about such fidelity have already invested in the gear and media that makes them happy. Should Apple supply pristine audio they may still stay away as there would be some other hurdle ? the iPod's audio converter, for example.

[Chris Breen]

You want to reply to the point that you can't possibly tell the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit audio and therefore why Apple should spend a boatload of extra money to provide it to you?

[Rhywun]

Quote

far too many people became willing to settle for mediocrity for easy access

Yep, it's a trade-off. This is the same argument that people with super-sensitive hearing were making back when CD's replaced vinyl. Hardly anyone cared then, and hardly anyone cares now. OK, I'm leaving out cassettes but the less said about them, the better.

[mdawson]

I think you and I are pretty much in agreement as I did finish off by stating that, “Web-based offerings still have a long way to go before they suit the needs of serious music collectors and audiophiles.” For the masses that are incapable of discerning high fidelity from what is just good enough, or that simply could not care less, the iTunes Store is a great asset for purchasing and, to a (much) lesser degree, finding music. I for one am not totally in the “come on Apple” camp until such time that storage capacity makes it feasible for Apple to do such a thing at minimal cost.
I can also agree that there are advantages to having music on one’s computer, hence the reason my entire CD collection is ripped into iTunes as 160 Kbps AAC files and my record collection awaits digitization. But from my perspective having the content without the tangible media is taboo. (And, I did mention the fact that in the case of a house-wide catastrophe, it would make no difference what format my music is in.) As to photos, financial records, etc., I do not keep such things on my computer, but the point is well made for those that rely solely on their computer for such things.

[mdawson]

> {quote:title=MacPCJustCreate wrote:}{quote}
>
> I guess without a double blind listening test to prove everything out it is not worth trying to improved [sic] the quality of recorded sound, is it?
I do not think that Chris’ point was that fidelity does not matter so much as the fact that quality is lost on the masses and, as he mentioned in response to me, there is a huge financial burden in the storage requirements of high fidelity audio. Most music buyers will settle for good enough as long as they can get the music and many that acquire their music illicitly could not care less as long they are getting something for free. The latter would be the same people that settled for acquiring most of their music via taping source material from others onto normal bias cassettes without any form of noise reduction.