[mrarroyo]

CD's all the way! Besides amazon.com there are stores that specialize in used CD's.

 

[BIG POPPA]

OH YEAH, CD's are way worth it!

 

[Meliboeus]

Buy CDs, maybe used, but possessing a physical medium is all what "being an audiophile" is about...if it's vinyl it's even more hardcore

 

[Uncle Erik]

Another vote for the CD!

You don't necessarily have to buy used ones online or through a store. There's a local swapmeet every month where I find them averaging $2-$3 USD each. Sometimes a little less if you buy several. Look around, you should find some used ones for sale.

No one has mentioned this, but having a physical CD is the ideal backup. You won't lose them if your hard drive crashes and you won't have to negotiate with Apple or anyone else if they decide that you don't really own the music you paid for.

 

[iriverdude]

I couldn't believe it you can't re-download your purchased albums, say if your computer HD went down. I thought once you login it shows your purchases, and you can re-download it, or perhaps in a higher bitrate.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

CD! You can rip it into various bitrates, and like Uncle Erik said, you have the most ideal physical backup in case something goes wrong with those digital files.

On a side note, my roommate today exclaimed to me, "How come I have never heard of Rhapsody before? I gave him a quizzical stare before replying, "You mean like the music service?"

"Yeah!" he said. "I can just stream the music! No more buying off iTunes."

I just nodded and smiled.

 

[Jaska]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif No one has mentioned this, but having a physical CD is the ideal backup.

It was mentioned in the very first reply in this thread

Of course it's worth repeating, though.

 

[leveller1642]

In Australia, the Itunes Music Store is poor value in my opinion. Around $AU17 for an album off iTunes and a new CD sells for an average of say $23. I buy my CDs secondhand and rarely pay more than $15 for a new release, but average around $10.

If it was under $10, i'd buy off iTunes.

 

[holyharry]

Thanks again for all the great advice.

I did some very fast research, and here's what I found:

I've heard about this newly released beauty of a recording from Radiokijada - "New Sounds From Black Peru", and am interested in buying it it.

My local shop would have to order it - about 18 Euro.
HMV, posted to Ireland - 14 Euro
iTunes+ download - 9.99
Amazon.co.uk, posted to Ireland - 10.86

So, first lesson... huge price variation, it's worth shopping around.
Second lesson... it is definitely possible to buy a hard-copy cd for similar money to itunes download right now, thanks to fall in sterling. And based on the sound advice in this thread, I'll be buying the cd!

That's just one cd, with a quick search, so I expect that on average there's plenty of bargains to be had, even better than this example.

 

[gadgetman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif Seems lazy.

Said the ignoramus who typed a 2-words reply.

Convenience has its price. I'm not saying it's better than CD in quality, but it has high points in convenience, selection and efficiency for delivering lossy files.

 

[haloxt]

I think when music in better-than-cd quality becomes popular, it will mostly come from online music download sites like itunes rather than in physical discs. Once internet bandwidth and hard drive space allows for it, it will be advertised as mercilessly as Bose, "better than cd quality for half the price" blah blah blah. But since we're far away from that, I say get cd's rather than support itunes

help delay the inevitable.

 

[deaconblues]

The old 16bit/44.1khz standard is fine for audio. What I would really love to see is mainstream distribution of lossless audio at 16bit/44.1khz or 16bit/48khz and an end to the loudness wars. That will do a whole lot more for the music than adopting formats which reproduce inaudible frequencies and ridiculous dynamic range while continuing the loudness war (which pretty much defeats the insane dynamic range of 24 bit anyway).

 

[haloxt]

What about ultrasonic bone conduction hearing? You got no appreciation for the human organism...

 

[analogbox]

With the new itunes pricing, some albums are actually cheaper buying the actual CD. I agree that the itunes plus formats sound pretty good for critical listening but the only reason I've bought 'em was because they were cheaper but now that the price has gone up, that novelty has worn off. I'm back to buying CDs again, which I appreciated anyway.

 

[K_19]

The only time I use Itunes is to acquire songs that are more or less one hit wonders or if I only see one or two good songs in an album... in which case I consider it a waste of money to buy the entire CD. Otherwise, my favourite artists and recordings are bought as CD.