brian1cj

i had no idea aac had more capability. sucks i didn't read your comment earlier, i just bought a new deck on sale that takes usb, plays mp3 and (shuddering i say) wma. who the hell uses wma...i know 20 times the people that use aac. anyway...thanks for the info.

EMoShunz

DW

iPod - naturally.
Zune - Yup.
Sansa - Yup.

That covers most of the MP3 players out there. Creatives, not so sure... but then again, #1 and #2 are on the list, and the top non-iPods.

Well, what about other players?

Sony PSP - Yup.
Sony PS3 - Yup.
Nintendo Wii - Yup. (You actually lose MP3 playback... grr)
Xbox360 - Possibly with the iPod AAC download (free).
Most phones also support AAC as well.

MP3s have compatibility everywhere, but AAC is also a strong alternative. Funny how that is, given Ogg Vorbis has been around longer, but is still considered a niche format.

The only thing you may have to do is rename the .m4a to .aac to work in some places. Though a lot of players also recognize .m4a as well.

FLAC FTW, though.

Worf

Uh, Apple distributes iTunes for free, but only for OSX and Windows. Recompiling it from OSX to BSD or Linux would be pretty easy but they haven't done that. It would be just as valid to say:

Do you think Apple will ever release a version of iTunes for Linux voluntarily?

shawn_dude

dsevil

I can't believe people are complaining about bit rates when 99% of the people out there can't tell the difference between 256 and lossless. it's not like they're issuing everything in 128.

RalphWiggum

Or you could listen to real audio afficiandos (Here's hoping the lengthy URL goes:
[wiki.hydrogenaudio.org]

lianna_g

NeoPoliticus

I'll stay away from isohunt and torrenting that stuff in general -- good to know it exists, but I'm fine with paying for music. Just saying that the Beatport/Russian Site model is what I'm looking for.

Thataboy

@Thataboy: are you kidding me? do a search on isohunt, you'd be hard pressed to *not* find torrents for albums in flac. i'm not familiar with beatport, but the legailty of the russian sites is usually shady at best.

firesign

unless of course you can point me to a "service" that sells uncompressed music.

Yeah, they are called "record stores." And you get a free hard copy backup with every purchase.

superbad

clevin

Galley

EMO, my professional audio opinion is to not go back in time. I prefer neither MP3 or AAC because it is losing sound quality. But, when necessary to save file space, I don't hesitate using AAC because it has twice the sampling frequency as MP3 is capable of no matter the bitrate. Also AAC is a great deal smaller in file size comparing a 192kbps MP3 to a 192 Kbps AAC.

If you like to listen to your MP3's ... that's great. I think I have some 8 track tapes laying around I could hook you up with.

Effero

Beatport sells WAV and of course there are the Russian sites.

Thataboy

EMoShunz

firesign

and there not trying to cater to the people who want high quality files, there trying to cater to the masses who don't give a damn about a 320kp file vs a 192kp file they just want it to play on there mp3 player have it be a ipod, zune, sandisk player, creative etc. and that it sounds good enough for them.

@ KAISER-MACHEAD im waiting for paypal too

utube2007

firesign

When Amazon sells FLAC or iTunes sells Apple Lossless, then I'll be back. Until then, I will just have to use services that offer uncompressed music.

Thataboy

Anyone here tell them that?

oh and ""Consumers want flexibility with respect to what they can do with music once they purchase it, and we want them to have that flexibility". They mean "see as how you are going to do whatever you like with it anyway, we thought we would say you could. This hopefully makes us sound cool and groovy".

timtempest

Pixelantes Anonymous

Gann

Are you really going to argue about who helped usher something in?

I actually am not arguing anything - I merely spew my worthless opinions on a regular basis and entertain myself by pretending someone cares.

Before the iTunes Music Store, did anyone in the world know what DRM-controlled music was? One could argue that Apple started DRM-controlled content. Personally, I would no more support Apple being the founding father of DRM than Apple being the barbarian that destroyed it.

Monty

A horrible, slow, agonizingly painful death caused by simultaneously burning and drowning and starving. With relief just two inches too far from its reach. With people watching, laughing.

RIAA can certainly be next, followed by the FCC.

GOKOR

Kaiser-Machead

dallasmay2

Thanks for the tip on bitrates. For me, the only differences I've ever really heard are at 128Kbps or lower, and that was with a pretty decent set of $1,000 speakers. I worry most about people ripping CDs at low bit rates in any codec, then having to go back and re-rip.

Wilson Rothman

Amazon is doing exactly what SJ wanted all along. Making music availiable for the Mac.

Apple doesn't care who sells the music, just so long as Apple doesn't have to beg and plead for the rights to play it.

dallasmay2

Marty_MacFly

Not very impressed. They couldn't have gone with 320?

halloweenjack

I love Amazon's store, and have been buying the majority of my music from them since it opened. I'm a Mac fanboy but not a DRM fanboy, and as much as I like using the iTunes store (especially the iPhone version), it's too frustrating to wade through everything looking for DRM-free music.

bubba451

Monty

Apple, which helped usher in the DRM-free music initiative

By that logic, EMI helped usher in the DRM-free music initiative more than Apple. However, reality is that would-be customers continued to 'borrow' music and numerous companies suddenly realized that the only way to stop it was to give customers what they really want. Apple has done some great things, but helping to usher in DRM-free content is not one of them.

Monty

Wilson Rothman

Monty

EMoShunz