Just bought my first downloaded album and it

[J*E*Cole]

sucks! Got it off iTunes, and am just really disappointed with the sound quality of this purchase. I paid $10.89 for an album of 11 cuts, and basically it sounds very compressed, with a distinct loss of upper high end and a muddled low end. I burned it to a Maxell music cd-r, and have so far only played it thru my H/K DVD22, and I know my system sounds better than this, I switched to some different store bought cd's and it sounded like it usually does, anyhoo, don't think I'll be doing this again. I thought that some time ago I downloaded just a couple of tunes and burned them to a cd, and they were actually kinda impressive sounding, not quite store bought, but OKAY, ya know? Tomorow I'm gonna buy the same album at the store, and see if I can tell a difference.

So anyone have similar exp. or perhaps a better one?

What did I do wrong?

Could it just be a badly recorded album?

Thanks for any input at ALL, I really thought this would make buying music easy and fast, but if it always sounds like this, then it's not worth it.

[Lensman]

You didn't do anything wrong other than make the purchase. The thing about downloading music is that it's compressed audio. Most audio compression formats use something called “lossy” compression - this means that an algorithm has been applied to the music to remove data from the original audio, creating compressed versions that take up less space. As an example, a typical CD can hold about 70-80 minutes of uncompressed audio or around 10 hours of audio in typical MP3 format. Compressed audio is great for devices like iPods, where the headphones are cheap and owners are more interested in squeezing in as many songs as possible then they are in how the songs actually sound. But play such audio on a quality system and the difference is, as you've noticed, painfully obvious.

[Florian]

Do they offer them in uncompressed WAV format? The download would be a bit big (around 500MB) but uncompressed.

[anamorphic96]

Here is an interesting site. All they sell are lossless files. But a bit pricey.

http://www.musicgiants.com/

[J*E*Cole]

Here is an interesting site. All they sell are lossless files. But a bit pricey.

http://www.musicgiants.com/

Any idea how that compares to a store purchased CD?

[Kaboom]

If you burn the CD slowly enough, it should be bit-for-bit identical to a store-bought CD, at least as far as the music is concerned.

[teledynepost]

You don't have to burn it slowly. Burn it, then make sure to 'verify data' after burning. It will check bit for bit if it's the same. If it's NOT however, then yes, set it to burn at a slower speed. .WAV files are identical to what's on the CD, essentially. Does iTunes offer Apple Lossless? Buying music online never appealed to me, let alone to buying COMPRESSED mp3 or wma files. Come on, hah. I also find it funny that mp3 player manufacturers, like Apple, will advertise that it holds '15,000 songs*' or some such number roughly found by assuming each song is 128kbps and 4mins each. But they expect you to be buying this $200 player and 15,000 songs at 99 cents each? Heh. How much does iTunes charge by the way?
Hard drives are big enough now that lossless formats are more feasible. I use FLAC for most things I rip now, otherwise 192kbps LAME is enough for stuff I don't care, I know in general listening I won't notice that it's an mp3.

I know of at least one online shop that offers some stuff in FLAC, and a few artists that have done web-releases in FLAC.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

[westcott]

If you burn the CD slowly enough, it should be bit-for-bit identical to a store-bought CD, at least as far as the music is concerned.

But how do you know what the original files resolution is? Even CD's vary, depending on the mastering.

I tried to find information on their site and it could not be had. I would be skeptical.

[emorphien]

Legal or not, the only site worth downloading from is allofmp3.com if you want to get it cheap but get good quality. They give you a good range of lossy and lossless compression options as well as uncompressed all for considerably less than iTunes.

Granted it's a pay service and I have no idea where your money goes, but if you'd rather feel like you're paying for something, don't want to spend $18 on a crappy CD and just want a few tracks you could get them as LAME 320CBRs (or any of the major alt.presets) for probably 20 cents a piece.

[Woochifer]

The other issue with downloaded lossy files is that the sound quality can vary a LOT depending on which program was used to rip the original uncompressed file. Just on my laptop, I use both Cakewalk Pyro and the Real Player for MP3 encoding, and the sound quality from the two programs can be very different. The Real Player is a lot better at encoding lower bitrate MP3 files, and with changing formats. After noticing the sound quality differences, I limited my usage of the Pyro program to crossfading and editing.

[zincalloy77]

had the same worries

[BillyB]

I have the same issue with my napster purchased music. Fortunately we only use it for MP3 portable player so it's not a huge problem. I don't think I could listen to my downloads on my audio system. It's annoying because we are paying for the source. I have no experience with the other music sites.I hear a lot of people talking about free music downloads but I haven't tried. I just assumed there was a catch as with most free downloads. Good luck