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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-16">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Noto+Sans:ital,wght@0,100..900;1,100..900&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="site.css">
<style>
table, th, td {
border-collapse: collapse;
border: 1px solid;
padding: 1ex;
}
td a:link {
text-decoration: none;
}
td a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
caption {
caption-side: bottom;
padding: 10px;
}
colgroup.stripy col:nth-child(even) {
background:rgb(192, 213, 253);
}
</style>
<title>Buying Digital Music</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Why buy digital music?</h1>
<p>Streaming services are great. You can hear new things every day, but:</p>
<ul>
<li>streaming services do not have everything</li>
<li>sometimes music is removed</li>
<li>the artist gets more money when you buy</li>
</ul>
<p>If people do not keep buying music (and movies) then streaming may become the only option. If that happens, the prices will rise.</p>
<p>Owning physical media, books, records, CDs and DVDs is great but I prefer to save that for special items and keep the rest as digital files.</p>
<h1>What to buy</h1>
<p>If it is important to you that you own music which is “CD Quality” or even better (“HD” or “Hi-Res”) then buy <em>lossless</em> music in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless_Audio_Codec">ALAC</a> and <a href="hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC">FLAC</a> formats. Otherwise buy mp3s or AAC and save some money.</p>
<h2>Best option</h2>
<p><a href="https://bandcamp.com"bandcamp>bandcamp</a> is my favorite marketplace in 2024</p>
<ul>
<li>Prices are reasonable and more goes to the artist</li>
<li>The <a href="user_experience.html">user experience is great</a></li>
<li>You can tip</li>
<li>Physical releases are available too</li>
</ul>
<p>In 2023 both bandcamp and 7digital were bought by Songtradr but seem little changed so far.</p>
<h2>Alternatives</h2>
<p>When an artist is not on bandcamp or some of their music is missing it usually mean you have to figure out which stores have the licensing rights for your region of the world. Unfortunately music is often available at only one store per country but sometimes you can shop around and save.</p>
<h1>Services</h1>
<p>All notes below are solely my own personal experiences, corrections are welcome.</p>
<table>
<caption>Features of music sites which offer high quality downloads</caption>
<colgroup>
<col/>
</colgroup>
<colgroup class="stripy"
<col/>
<col/>
<col/>
<col/>
<col/>
<col/>
<col/>
</colgroup>
<colgroup>
<col/>
<col/>
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col" rowspan="2">Service</th>
<th scope="col" colspan="4">Lossless Formats</th>
<th scope="col" colspan="3">Lossy Formats</th>
<th scope="col" rowspan="2">Allows redownloads?</th>
<th scope="col" rowspan="2">Notes</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="col" >ALAC</th>
<th scope="col" >FLAC</th>
<th scope="col" >AIFF</th>
<th scope="col" >WAV</th>
<th scope="col" >MP3</th>
<th scope="col" >AAC</th>
<th scope="col" >Ogg Vorbis</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://bandcamp.com"bandcamp>bandcamp</a></td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">Indefinitely</td>
<td>See above</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://us.7digital.com">7digital USA</a><br/><a href="https://uk.7digital.com">7digital UK</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Indefinitely</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>Operates regional stores for major labels.</li>
<li>Quality generally tops out at 24-bit/48kHz</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.qobuz.com/">qobuz</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Indefinitely</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>Seems to have exclusive rights to lossless Sony/Columbia music in the USA.</li>
<li> Leads with the price for lowest quality</li> <li>Offers 24-bit/96kHz.</li>
<li>Charges a fee for using Paypal!</li>
<li>Recently removed ability to download an album in one file without a special downloader application.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://boomkat.com">boomkat</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Indefinitely</td>
<td>Manchester UK based store which sells worldwide. Hit and miss, but when they offer something it is usually very reasonably priced.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://bleep.com">Bleep</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">➖<a href="#flacnote">⁽ ⃰⁾</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Indefinitely</td>
<td>Originally an offshoot of Warp records, has an awesome electronic back catalog. <a name="flacnote">⁽ ⃰⁾</a>only offers highest quality music in WAV format with no track titles or artist information.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.hdtracks.com">HDtracks</a></td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Limited</td>
<td>US based, rock, pop, jazz & classical. Sign up for discount codes as regular prices are high. Inconveniently requires use of special downloader application.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.junodownload.com">junodownload</a></td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Limited/None?</td>
<td>Electronic music site with regular exclusives. Seldom cheapest but has stuff no-one else does when available in your region. Leads with price for lowest quality.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.beatport.com">Beatport</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">Indefinite</td>
<td>Electronic music site with no FLAC/ALAC. Format selection happens <em>after</em> putting things into your cart which delays seeing the prices even later than others.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://soundcloud.com">SoundCloud</a></td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td>Honorary mention. Primarily an electronic music streaming site but artists do sometimes offer exclusive downloads.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.nativedsd.com">NativeDSD</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❓</td>
<td>Primarily classical. Focussed on extremely high end DSD formats but offering WAV/FLAC.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.prostudiomasters.com">PROSTUDIOMASTERS</a></td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">✅</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">❌</td>
<td class="centered">None/Limited</td>
<td>Often expensive and spotty coverage but occasionally a bargain shows up. Focussed on extremely high end DSD formats (and the truly bizarre MQA) but offering AIFF/FLAC. Unfortunately requires an unnecessary download app.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h1>Lossy Services</h1>
<p>For convenience and breadth you generally cannot beat Apple iTunes and Amazon but for download they only offer lossy music (mp3/m4A). All their high quality stuff is streaming only.
<h1>Choosing a lossless format</h1>
<ul>
<li>Use FLAC or ALAC because they are smaller and usually have track names, artist info and artwork.</li>
<li>ALAC works best for Apple gear and FLAC is otherwise universal.</li>
<li>WAV and AIFF are much less convenient because the files are larger and may not have artist and track info, requiring you to enter it yourself.</li>
<li>Fortunately if your preferred format is unavailable you can always convert between any of these four <em>lossless</em> formats with no loss of quality.</li>
<li>For more info a <a href="https://www.whathifi.com/advice/high-resolution-audio-everything-you-need-to-know">decent explanation</a> of formats, bit rates, kHz, etc.
</ul>
</body>
</html>