What Online Music Store do you use. - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

mykalberta · 04-13-2009, 10:45 AM

I normally use iTunes as it is very easy, however they dont have a song I want, just the live version.

Amazon has it, but its not avaailable to Canadians.

Just wondering if anyone has had any luck with any other stores.

Yes I know I could get it off more nefarious ways.

FanIn80 · 04-13-2009, 11:00 AM

Although not really the same thing, I've taken to ordering a few things from CD Universe lately.

Russic · 04-13-2009, 11:05 AM

Canadians seem to be a few years behind the states for things like this, so I'm like you in that I use itunes as it's the best thing we have. Now that the music is DRM free I find I use it a lot more. I also find that I'm using it more often because of the iphone. They've made it so easy that it borders on scary-easy. I couldn't sleep on my vacation last week and I remembered that the hip released their new album the day before. I reached over, picked up my phone, previewed all the tracks and bought a few that stood out to me.

One thing that does irk me is that the drm is still very prevalent on the movies and tv shows you buy from itunes. I bought the first season of Lost to take on vacation and getting the episodes to work on my laptop was more painful than I expected. I authorized the machine and everything, but the files just would'nt play smoothly. I tried throwing them onto my iphone and then plugging that into my computer, but of course itunes won't let you play content off your iphone if it isn't your primary computer. Drove me nuts actually. It would have made way more sense to just steal the season via bit torrent and use those files (and leave the files I purchased at home).

Rathji · 04-13-2009, 01:08 PM

If I can't find the song on Itunes, I generally will order the CD from Amazon. If I can't find it there, then I either try and find an alternative to get the actual CD or use the "alternative to paying music store" at my favorite torrent tracker. The times I have needed to resort to torrents for music in the last 5 years since I got my ipod can be counted on one hand.

edn88 · 04-13-2009, 02:15 PM

Technically I use Itunes, but most of my minimal music purchases occur at brick and morter stores - specifically HMV.

I guess I like owning the physical CD.

Mike F · 04-13-2009, 02:16 PM

I'm not the biggest music buff, so I can't vouch for it's catalogue, but Puretracks has served me well in the past.

mykalberta · 04-13-2009, 02:39 PM

Yah, I checked there and they didnt have the song I was looking for.

Thanks anyways though.

Weiser Wonder · 04-13-2009, 02:54 PM

My buddy uses Russian sites where you can get entire albums for 99 cents. Pretty sketch.

Funny conversation I had with him as I see him take out his credit card while surfing the web:

Me: What are you buying?
buddy: more songs from that Russian site. We'll see how it goes. Last time I did it the bank shut down my account for suspicious activity, hopefully that doesn't happen again.
Me: uhhhh. Good luck with that.

T@T · 04-13-2009, 09:37 PM

Limewire still works great for me

Jedi Ninja · 04-13-2009, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Russic

Canadians seem to be a few years behind the states for things like this, so I'm like you in that I use itunes as it's the best thing we have. Now that the music is DRM free I find I use it a lot more. I also find that I'm using it more often because of the iphone. They've made it so easy that it borders on scary-easy. I couldn't sleep on my vacation last week and I remembered that the hip released their new album the day before. I reached over, picked up my phone, previewed all the tracks and bought a few that stood out to me.

One thing that does irk me is that the drm is still very prevalent on the movies and tv shows you buy from itunes. I bought the first season of Lost to take on vacation and getting the episodes to work on my laptop was more painful than I expected. I authorized the machine and everything, but the files just would'nt play smoothly. I tried throwing them onto my iphone and then plugging that into my computer, but of course itunes won't let you play content off your iphone if it isn't your primary computer. Drove me nuts actually. It would have made way more sense to just steal the season via bit torrent and use those files (and leave the files I purchased at home).

If you buy a DRM free track in iTunes, can you now convert it to MP3 format?

Engine09 · 04-13-2009, 09:59 PM

I don't even know what Itunes looks like or how it works, not going to be paying money for mp3s anytime soon.

I buy all my CDs from Amazon, Ebay or HMV.

Russic · 04-13-2009, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jedi Ninja

If you buy a DRM free track in iTunes, can you now convert it to MP3 format?

Ya you can pretty much do whatever you'd like with it. Technically you could convert it to mp3 before, you just obviously couldn't share that file. One of the oddest things was iTunes music drm, because you could just burn it to a cd and then re-import the newly drm stripped tracks. It was oddly simple.

Igottago · 04-14-2009, 12:11 AM

Pretty happy with itunes now that its DRM free. I also use Emusic, you pay a subscription price and get a certain number of downloads per month..also DRM free files....although its more geared to indie music and doesnt have many mainstream artists. Emusic and Itunes usually do the trick for me. For my absolute favourite artists I still like to get the CD.

Tyler · 04-14-2009, 12:14 AM

I haven't bought a physical CD since the iTunes store launched in Canada.

Having mountains of CD's used to be cool before iPods, but try moving homes or trying to find space for your hockey gear when you have 500+ cd's and it just becomes annoying.

My move to all digital has been a good decision, and I don't at all miss not having my 'physical copy' anymore.

Seriously.. do people still listen to music on the CD players anymore, except maybe in a car? I don't know anyone who does.

Igottago · 04-14-2009, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyler

I haven't bought a physical CD since the iTunes store launched in Canada.

Having mountains of CD's used to be cool before iPods, but try moving homes or trying to find space for your hockey gear when you have 500+ cd's and it just becomes annoying.

My move to all digital has been a good decision, and I don't at all miss not having my 'physical copy' anymore.

Seriously.. do people still listen to music on the CD players anymore, except maybe in a car? I don't know anyone who does.

Agreed...I used to be so attached to my CD collection, its still sitting at my parents house in Calgary. But now I find i'm totally cool with having all my music in digital format. Not having many cd's eliminates a lot of clutter from my condo. The rare time I still buy a CD it ends up on the Ipod anyways, so I've resorted to buying digital 90% of the time.

Temporary_User · 04-14-2009, 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weiser Wonder

My buddy uses Russian sites where you can get entire albums for 99 cents. Pretty sketch.

Funny conversation I had with him as I see him take out his credit card while surfing the web:

Me: What are you buying?
buddy: more songs from that Russian site. We'll see how it goes. Last time I did it the bank shut down my account for suspicious activity, hopefully that doesn't happen again.
Me: uhhhh. Good luck with that.

wdf? Why doesn't he just use a free source to d/l his music? I don't know anything about this/these sites, but it doesn't seem like a 100% legal site. Are the record companies/artists receiving any of this money your friend pays? I doubt it.

flip · 04-14-2009, 02:14 AM

Until Itunes switches to a lossless format I'll be buying most of my music in CD format or DLing it <removed> in Flac or Wav.

Anyone who cares about music should be up in arms about the MP3 revolution that has occurred in the last 10 years.

We have basically gone from DVD to VHS in the last 10 years and no one cares. If you listen to anything but Flac, Wav, Apple Lossless you are ruining your music and destroying your ability to hear good music by listening to lossy formats.

Rathji · 04-14-2009, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flip

Until Itunes switches to a lossless format I'll be buying most of my music in CD format or DLing it <removed> in Flac or Wav.

Anyone who cares about music should be up in arms about the MP3 revolution that has occurred in the last 10 years.

We have basically gone from DVD to VHS in the last 10 years and no one cares. If you listen to anything but Flac, Wav, Apple Lossless you are ruining your music and destroying your ability to hear good music by listening to lossy formats.

I agree, which is why I burn whatever I can from CD, however the ease of downloading a new album is just far to great from itunes for sound quality that most of the time I cannot even hear.

OBCT · 04-14-2009, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flip

Until Itunes switches to a lossless format I'll be buying most of my music in CD format or DLing it <removed> in Flac or Wav.

Anyone who cares about music should be up in arms about the MP3 revolution that has occurred in the last 10 years.

We have basically gone from DVD to VHS in the last 10 years and no one cares. If you listen to anything but Flac, Wav, Apple Lossless you are ruining your music and destroying your ability to hear good music by listening to lossy formats.

I partially agree. Everyone's set-up is different. Many of us have PC speakers, ear buds, or even home theater systems incapable of usefully conveying the difference between "good" lossy and lossless music. Also, everyone's ability (and interest) to hear the difference between lossy and lossless music varies.

Personally, I highly highly doubt I could consistently tell the difference between any song encoded as a 320kbps MP3 and a lossless FLAC, even when played on ideal equipment. True double-blind testing would offer similar results for most people, I'd reckon.

Reason being, MP3 algorithms have come a long way. For example, nowadays, at 320kbps w/ LAME encoding, few MP3 tracks lose much 'integral' audio data to begin with. Fewer yet lose data that is even (immediately) perceptible to the human ear. Abberations are most often very subtle. Lossy encoding is a science, and it has come a long way. (Not to say that there isn't a place for lossless music... there certainly is.)

I say all of this to (maybe; partially) rationalize my standardized use of 224kbps MP3 encoding for my entire music library (~10000 tracks). I've found it to be the best compromise between sonic integrity and file size for everyday use on my home computer. Everyone has different priorities, and for me, storing all that music as lossless tracks just isn't entirely practical. Though, I will admit, with the way prices on large storage external hard drives are tumbling lately (just one example), that could change.

kermitology · 04-14-2009, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flip

Until Itunes switches to a lossless format I'll be buying most of my music in CD format or DLing it <removed> in Flac or Wav.

Anyone who cares about music should be up in arms about the MP3 revolution that has occurred in the last 10 years.

We have basically gone from DVD to VHS in the last 10 years and no one cares. If you listen to anything but Flac, Wav, Apple Lossless you are ruining your music and destroying your ability to hear good music by listening to lossy formats.

At a high enough bit rate you cannot tell the difference.