All the recent news of The Fabs imminent appearance on iTunes has promted me to do a little thinking about mp3 in general, and do a little research into cost comparisons. That, and I'm bored at home with a stinking cold!

First of all I can see the convenience value that it has - I want that song, and I want it now - download in seconds to your iPod, or whatever, great. You can imagine all the impulse buying going on - one touch purchasing, and so on. And they say gambling sites are bad! Anyway, fine for those thhat use iPods and the like. I and many others (still) do not use them. I work a bit from home, and when I'm not I don't really have time to be listening to music. Some folks don't have the capacity to play mp3's on their hi-fi's, so they'd have to convert the files to .aiff/wav, then burn them to CD, thereby losing more sound quality. It's starting to look less convenient.

I could connect my laptop to the hi-fi I suppose, but it doesn't sit anywhere near it and I haven't gone wireless yet. But then I'd be listening to mp3's through my hi-fi, and call me old fashioned, but I fail to see the point in that! I hae a DVD-Audio/SACD player for better sound quality, so why would I want to listen to mp3's on it?

Then there's the cost. If you buy your music on the net - which I almost exclusively do - there's really not much of a saving, if any at all. I just did a price comparison, and this is what I found. I've chosen a brand new album, and the last CD I bought:

Introducing Joss Stone:

iTunes: 7.99
Mp3. No cover or case

CD Wow: 7.99
Full music files. Cover and case. Free Delivery

Amazon Marketplace: 7.77
Full music files. Inc. delivery

XTC - Skylarking:

iTunes: 7.99
Mp3. No cover or case

CD Wow: 5.25
Full music files. Cover and case. Free Delivery

Amazon Marketplace: 7.00
Full music files. Inc. delivery

I might have to wait a week or so for delivery, but that's fine with me. And for that I get proper factory pressed CD's in a jewel case or digipack, or even a box if I'm lucky, with a booklet and cover. Now tell me why I should pay for mp3's?

I bought a DVD-Audio/SACD player because I wanted better soound quality. In these days of faster broadband connections and 500gb hard disk's isn't it time that the likes of iTunes started offering lossless files as well? Then we can all choose which format we want. And I can always convert them to mp3 easily if I want to.

Is it just me?

I agree with you. I am partly biased because I don't have an iPod or mp3 player, thus I have nothing to play mp3s on, but to me, I wouldn't want to pay just for a group of files. If I buy the CD, I have all of the album artwork, CD (for playing on my stereo), plus I can just upload the files to my computer if I wanted to listen to them as mp3s.

Quoted from Mairi

plus I can just upload the files to my computer if I wanted to listen to them as mp3s.

My point exactly. Best of both worlds and it doesn't cost more.

There's a weird thing going on at the moment. We've got remastered cd's, dvd-audio, sacd, blue-ray. Massive hard drives, and huge bandwidth. And what's being pushed to become the most popular thing? Lossy bloody mp3!! The best never seems to become the most popular. The Mac operating system is without question better than Windows. Remember Betamax anyone?

I agree with you guys 138% - but I'm afraid it's probably an old fashioned point of view. On the whole I would say that people under a certain age, or those who haven't been brought up with or collect vinyl, don't care about sleeve notes and sound quality. After all, the majority of downloads are played through crappy-sounding mp3 players! And they have no concept of sleeve art etc because they haven't seen a vinyl copy of Sgt Pepper or Physical Graffiti - and they can download a 10cm x 10cm pic of the sleeve from the internet anyway!!

It has a lot to do with impatience I think - everything has to be instantaneous nowerdays! Even "Records" (ha, showing my age!) don't seem to climb the charts anymore - they hit number one then disappear into thin air!  

^Well said, The End ...

Quoted from The End

[...]they hit number one then disappear into thin air!  

... no need to say more: fast food!!!

And look at this (Wayne's favorite artist):

http://www.vanleest.nl/pages/productview.asp?productid=1085478&navid=46

Order the CD for 9,99... OR... Download it for just 9,99! Good deal.

Quoted from The End

I agree with you guys 138% - but I'm afraid it's probably an old fashioned point of view. On the whole I would say that people under a certain age, or those who haven't been brought up with or collect vinyl, don't care about sleeve notes and sound quality. After all, the majority of downloads are played through crappy-sounding mp3 players! And they have no concept of sleeve art etc because they haven't seen a vinyl copy of Sgt Pepper or Physical Graffiti - and they can download a 10cm x 10cm pic of the sleeve from the internet anyway!!

It has a lot to do with impatience I think - everything has to be instantaneous nowerdays! Even "Records" (ha, showing my age!) don't seem to climb the charts anymore - they hit number one then disappear into thin air!  

Well, as far as the future of the singles market is concerend - if there is one - downloading will undoubtedly be the thing. CD singles in Denmark, for instance can cost anything up to 5 quid, so that makes downloading one track at 79p pretty attractive. And I don't think it's impatience, but impulse buying. Most sites now offer 'one click buying', so you can't change your mind.

But people keep going on about the death of the CD. My tiny bit of research shows me that it just ain't cost effective to download an album. And who are the majority of music buyers on the planet? I haven't looked it up but I'd put money on it being the over 35's, and they are exactly the people who don't want downlooads, but are more interested in good quality.

I buy all of my music in CD form. I love to have a physical music collection. If I just had digital files on my computer of an album I really loved, that would really bug me. I would have nothing to hold or look at. Just something to click on.

I do own an MP3 player though. When I buy a CD, I always copy it over, just so I can still listen to my music when I'm not home. I don't really fancy dragging a bag of CD's around with me and a stereo. It's just out of convenience. The fact that the music will be slightly less in quality doesn't really bother me because you can't get the same effect out of 2 tiny speakers that you can out of a pair of huge 35 year old Celestion Ditton 15 XR speakers! (I have some very tasty speakers)!