"So, how have the past five years treated you?" I have spent $0.00 on either the iTunes Music Store or the renamed iTunes Store (iTS). I am still waiting on Apple, Inc. to offer losslessly compressed or linear audio on iTS without DRM. Until then I will continue to buy true Redbook CD-DA Compact Disks. Come on Apple make 2008 the year of Audio HD on iTS by offering 16-bit or better yet 24-bit audio files either linear or losslessly compressed without DRM at 44.1 kHz minimum sampling rate!!!

god I feel impoverished

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.

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“Cannot run out of time. There is infinite time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. This is wrong tool.” 2.3GHz Power Mac G5/4GB/500GB HDD/OS X 10.4.11/30-inch ACD, 60GB iPod (Color)

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.

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?

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.

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“Cannot run out of time. There is infinite time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. This is wrong tool.” 2.3GHz Power Mac G5/4GB/500GB HDD/OS X 10.4.11/30-inch ACD, 60GB iPod (Color)

$19.99 total for the iPod Touch software upgrade. I will buy future sofrware and upgrades for the tTouch, but I buy my music from AmazonMP3 - I prefer the more common MP3 format, better bit rates, no DRM, and cheaper (or free if I drink enough Diet Pepsi).