Having been legal for quite some time, I've spent a bit of money at iTunes but on reflection, I'm not pleased and may find alternative methods of downloading music.
99 cents per song is fine, unless it's a big album and you want the whole lot - in which case, you're better off going to Amazon and buying, then ripping the CD yourself.
The copy protection that Apple puts on their songs is somehow incompatible with my Xbox 360 so I can't stream any songs I purchased through iTunes (whilst anything I ripped myself is just fine).
My biggest beef is with the sound quality of some of the tracks I have bought. If I've paid full price and gone the legal route then surely I deserve the best quality, downloaded track?
Yet I have several tracks that have hard cut offs at the end, glitches within the track (like some 12 year old ripped it on some piece of junk CD-ROM) and tracks with low sampling rates. I downloaded "Little Britain", the radio series, from iTunes and the quality is worse than if I'd ripped it myself from the BBC internet stream.
Wonder what everyone else thinks? Prepared to put up with it or thinking of defecting like me?
I've thought of finding places where you can download "evaluations" as there's a couple of places on another site I visit.
But then I think I'm a woman headed for my mid thirties and a mother and all that and don't because I'm meant to be more responsible than that.
What does piss me off is some CD's that you purchase legally cannot be downloaded onto an iPod/MP3. If I bought it I feel I can copy it as many times as I like. Below is a link;
http//www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=32341
Yep, I rip mine at 320 or VBR using Lame and it's as good as the CD. Runs multi pass to ensure you don't get the pops and farts.
I only ever downloaded one iTune and it was like listen to AM radio!
There are "clubs" that allow music swaps but in order to be in, you must rip at the same quality, so you allways know what your getting
I had iTunes for about a month. They sucked.
I go the "alternative" route.
I had iTunes for about a month. They sucked.
I go the "alternative" route.
Say no more. :wink: I find Torrent Spy very helpful to replace my old vinyls or damaged CD with clean copies.
The copy protection that Apple puts on their songs is somehow incompatible with my Xbox 360 so I can't stream any songs I purchased through iTunes (whilst anything I ripped myself is just fine).
What you have to do is burn a cd of songs from iTunes, then rip that CD into mp3 format.
/told you iTunes sucked
Well, I use iTunes to listen to Virgin and to rip CD's (bought from Amazon UK) as I'm one for loving the whole packaging thing as well. Hence we have a collection that would make a record store look pathetic so the lure of buying MP3's has never appealed, however, the simplicity of iTunes in working with the Nano is why I use it.
When I have listen to downloaded MP3's hey seem to lack some "meat" to the sound, but ripped at a good rate work nicely for the iPod..
Andrew )
I used to go to various Mp3 websites such as
http://www.youaintnopicasso.com and get sample tracks from different artists. There are oodles of othe rsites in the links bar which offer music from a huge variety of genres. If you can keep yourself from going to places like tofuhouse, indiesurfer, and places like that and just downloading whole albums you can convince yourself to buy an album you like.
Or....you can end up with two 1 gig jump drives a day filled with 5-10 albums each. Pretty sharpish you'll have way waaaay more music than you'll ever listen to.
Totally agree - i tried itunes but it worked out cheaper to buy the albums on cd - so now I use
http://www.emusic.com , not so many mainstream artists but i've found a whole bunch of stuff thats been on my wish list for a long time, and its only $15 per month for 65 downloads. makes you look for the best value too, searching out those longer tracks. have some really cool jazz albums now, and those groovy sonic youth eps too. aah the digital age is upon us and I embrace it wholeheartedly (as long as it does what i want it to)
If you can eventually track down iTunes technical support and bitch about a particular track, they get back to you within 24 hours and apologise, and give you a credit to download something else.
I complained yesterday about a track I downloaded that had mini-drop-outs all the way through it and completely spoiled it.
As luck would have it, I found it free elsewhere online and ripped at a decent quality.