best CD quality (or better) online music?

Check out Musicmatch's online radio service. It's served me good since I bought it. I still wish MM's interface was a lot more speedy.


They also provide the highest bitrate for digital msuic downlaods if you're intereted. 160kbps WMA which sounds noticably better than 128kbps AAC from iTunes.

I use Rhapsody and I have tried them all. It has been rated the best streaming quality of all the sevices. I don't even rip music or buy CDs any more because I can play anything I want at any time with Rhapsody. check it out, it is amazing.


they are adding a lot of content every day.


good luck


Mark

I use iTunes Music Store. They sell 128k AAC-encoded content. I set up numerous listening tests between myself and a few trusted colleagues. We determined that AAC content sounded as good as 256k MP3's, and on a few occasions as good as 320k MP3's. Much more efficient encoding format.


However, uncompressed CD audio files still sounded better to us.


So, you know...I still like to buy CDs some of the time...

there is a site based in russia that allows downloads on a pay per mbit basis. they also allow dynamic encoding of many formats and many bitrats, so you can choose anything from 128 cbr mp3 to 320 vbr wma or ogg or aac. also very cheap (one cent per meg). the site has been around for about 3 years, so the mpaa certainly knows it exists and hasnt gone after it. of course, being based in russia might have something to do with it.


i have used it successfully with paypal, and the songs were encoded quite nicely with proper tags. can't beat the price either - its not free, but cheap enough that it isnt worth messing around with p2p sites, and the quality is far above other download services.


k