iTunes Match

I don't currently use iTunes now but I looked it up. 256kbps playback? I think I'll pass, along with any other members here who care at all about lossless quality...

I signed up almost immediately. Seems like the est solution for having all of my music available on my iPhone without worrying what to sync.

Its taking a LONG time to get going though. but thats with a 17k song collection.

As for the quality being 'only' 256k, please. That is easily enough for virtually all human ears as countless listening tests have borne out. No need to get into this here obviously, but for home and especially on the go listening it will easily suffice.

I was thinking of it as a home solution when I wrote that... True, with a portable setup I couldn't care less whether the music was 256kbps or 2560kbps, even if I could hear a difference. But with a good source and home rig, there is definitely an audible difference between the bitrates.

I'm in. Not only do I get an off-site backup for my library, the matched files are an upgrade for more than 2/3 of my collection. Given my gear and budget, that's a win for me.

Is 256kbps enough, well no, not for me. I might not hear the difference (I really don't think that I would) but google music stores and streams my music at 320kbps so why would I choose less?

Google Music only seems to support 320kps MP3's, atm (FLAC, Vorbis and AAC's get transcoded).  The general rule of thumb is that WMA/Vorbis/AAC files are usually the same SQ as the next step-up with MP3.  So 256kps AAC's are about the same SQ as a 320kps MP3.    This is, of course, a very general statement.

I purchased the iTunes Match subscription service on Day One, mainly for the matching technology.   For $25 a year, I essentially have the ability to upgrade all my old Yahoo! Music / eMusic / Zune Pass files to 256kps AAC's - it's already paid for itself within one week of use, for me.  I'm actually re-vamping my entire lossy backup collection to AAC's and am getting away from MP3's and Vorbis.  I figure AAC is at the point now where it is supported on enough devices to be a viable alternative to MP3.

The matching is definitely not perfect, as there are some glitches where a song refuses to be matched. And different masters will cause problems, as well as stereo / mono versions (i.e. the Beatles in Mono is a problem as some files get matched with their stereo counterparts).  However, for competitors digital files the matching seems to work very well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacePalmMonkey 

Yay or Nay? Who is planning to purchase the yearly service? Are you concerned about possibly getting caught as far as pirated music is concerned?

As far as piracy is concerned - not going to be judge and jury, here.  But if you have a large pirated collection, common sense tells me that you'd probably want to avoid uploading it to any storage service be it Apple, Amazon or anywhere else where your privacy can be switched off at any time.  My 2 cents.

One thing that does bother me about Match is that my source files will eventually get wiped - i.e. my eMusic and Yahoo! Music backups (assuming that the upgraded files are what I want to keep).  So my only source files will be Match - I will lose my "proof" that I owned files before Match.   But I also don't want to keep the old files, so it's a bit of a dilemma that I have to work out for myself - I'm guessing that no one's going to be knocking on my door asking, however.

I bring up Yahoo! Music specifically because they are no longer in the music download business - they likely won't have records of my purchases either in 5 or 10 years time.  Walmart was another one that had a service that got discontinued.

I guess I'm coming at this from a different viewpoint.  My lossy library got chucked in the bin a few years ago when hard disk, and MMC based portable players,  and Sony's mini disk's kept frustrating me and I gave up on them.  Now my much smaller collection is all on Compact Disk and Vinyl,  I'm not ripping and storing the vinyl, I'll buy those disks later, but my CD's are my source and my flac rips are my backups (I burn copies for the car, I've ruined too many good disk taking them for rides) and google music is just an easier way to access it away from home.  I wouldn't benefit from using apple's copies of my music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sexiewasd 

I guess I'm coming at this from a different viewpoint.  My lossy library got chucked in the bin a few years ago when hard disk, and MMC based portable players,  and Sony's mini disk's kept frustrating me and I gave up on them.  Now my much smaller collection is all on Compact Disk and Vinyl,  I'm not ripping and storing the vinyl, I'll buy those disks later, but my CD's are my source and my flac rips are my backups (I burn copies for the car, I've ruined too many good disk taking them for rides) and google music is just an easier way to access it away from home.  I wouldn't benefit from using apple's copies of my music.

Agreed - every solution has its pros and cons and people need to weigh them depending on their needs.   In your case, the main items are FLAC backups of CD's, so the Match service really isn't a big benefit to you, other than reducing the initial upload time.   And if you have an Android device, iCloud is completely useless given that there's no Android client.

Right now I personally like iCloud, but only for Match.  In a year, I (and possibly many others) might not re-subscribe.  I also have Amazon Cloud Services free for a year, but when that comes up for renewal I might have to look hard between it and Google's offering.  But I have some time before that happens.