I buy from iTunes to save money, but I’m tired of their crappy 128-bit max download bit-rate. Is there some way to get higher bitrates from iTunes (download store) or the same music from someplace else with better quality (same cheap price)?
Emusic is the only good one (192k mp3’s and no DRM). But you have to like the indies. They don’t really carry any major label stuff. Death to itunes.
Why death to iTunes? What’s so bad that you can’t be content to just not use it for your own collection?
No.
Not legally.
No.
Not legally.
Because for the same price as the used version of the CD, you can rip the tracks at a superior bitrate and with whatever codec you prefer. Without DRM.
Yeah, but
I mean, I’m right there with you, I bought a few iTunes tracks for novelty but went back to regular CDs right away. I don’t think we’re about to abandon CD production in light of iTunes’ success though.
Because iTunes retagged and reorganized my painstakingly put together file system of 1200+ cd’s that I had ripped WITHOUT ASKING ME. Which took me weeks to fix.
So leaving aside their terrible sounding rips and shitty DRM, fuck iTunes.
I guess I just need to move to ebay purchase of CD’s or something. Problem is, I like picking the one song I like instead of buying 9 more I’ll never listen to…
and I’m not rich, nor a pirate.
Fuck iTunes. Just because most pop music buyers can’t hear the abortion of 128k doesn’t mean I don’t care.
It’s all about soulseek and 192k min rips. If you are playing on a soundsystem bigger than 10k watts, then 320 min.
Note: iTunes’ 128-bit AAC is slightly better than a 128-bit MP3.
But yeah, if you want max quality, you should be buying and ripping your own CDs.
If your a pirate then yea thats a good place to go.
If you like a lot of electronic (Warp, Ninjatune) type music, bleep.com encodes all their mp3s at 256k with no DRM.
Yes. Forgot about Bleep, which is run by Warp if I’m not mistaken. They have a ton of great labels signed up. Lots of IDM, post-rock, microhouse, ambient electronics, etc. And all LAME encoded. I just wish they’d get more of the back catalog of some of these bands and labels.
Fair enough, that is a good reason to be upset with iTunes. I tend to forget that the level of control it wants to assert over your collection by default isn’t something most people who know what they’re doing already would want since I’ve been using it so long.