Comments on: Real iTunes killer: Review of Amazon’s DRM-less music download store

By: James

James — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:57:57 +0000

As other commenters have pointed out, regular iTunes is AAC @ 128 kbps, not 192 kbps. (Check Wikipedia.) Also, at the same bit rate, AAC is superior to MP3, but at 256 kbps audio is pretty much transparent for both formats.

For a long time I was buying my songs from RealPlayer, because they were offering AAC @ 192 kbps. That was the highest audio quality available for quite a while. It’s good to see Amazon, Real, and Apple moving to 256 kbps.

By: Terrence

Terrence — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:52:11 +0000

Apple will still make money.
Everybody is just following the bouncing business model.

By: Otter

Otter — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:15:56 +0000

I don’t know any of you but I had to jump in with a comment here.

This is the first time in 10+ years I’ve paid for music in any form… and man… I love it. It’s truly WORTH IT! iTunes was never worth the cost because you couldn’t do what you wanted/needed to do with your own music that you paid for. iTunes plus? c’mon… I have to pay more and I still have to install stinky iTunes?

This is basic in concept and awesome in practice. Their search system could use a little fine-tuning but after a couple clicks I’ve so far managed to find every CD I wanted that was available for download (some still are not, but they’re adding more every day). The Amazon download software has been rip-roaringly fast for a 256k file and the files themselves are beautiful. I don’t care if my name is encoded into the header of the file because I’m not going to share it… it’s all mine! but damn.. at least I can put it on my mp3 player, take it home, put it on my media center computer, put it on my work computer, play it in my car cd-player, leave a copy at Church if I need to do some work there after hours and just happen to want to play it over the av system, etc…

Applauds to Amazon for pulling the record companies into this kicking and screaming… finally someone who was able to make it happen!

Because of this service I have sworn discontinue torrent and other forms of p2p use all together for acquiring media content. No more guilt = win!

By: Danny Mendez

Danny Mendez — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:58:17 +0000

I’m sorry about not focusing more on the search experience. For me, as with many other users, it was very easy to find what we were looking for, but you’ve mentioned some features that would be neat to see made part of the store. Perhaps I’ll send Amazon a suggestion to add filtering options when searching.

By: Walter F. Nickeson

Walter F. Nickeson — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:27:59 +0000

This review completely ignored the search experience, which is horrendous. As an example, I typed “barracuda” in the MP3 Download search box. The results? Two bands were listed with the word “barracuda” in their names. What if I had intended to find a song I thought I heard called “barracuda”, but couldn’t remember the artist? There’s no option to make a search more specific than general keyword. Further, in the results list of songs, sorting by song title, artist name, album title, or even song length is not an option. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, or are just browsing to see what you run across, searching Amazon MP3 Downloads is very frustrating. Limiting and filtering searches and results is vital. The lack of such options really detracts from Amazon’s service.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 05:13:18 +0000

I’ve not had too much of a problem with iTunes and the DRM since I mainly listen to my music thru my computer or my iPod (which is with me 95% of the time). If I need an MP3 version of a song or album, I burn the disc and re-rip it. (The disc gets made anyways for backup.) I’ve supported iTunes hard stance on keeping their songs priced at $0.99 ea. because you hear about those record companies that try to charge more for “hits” or “popular” music. It just seems like when people try to cut in line because they “know somebody.”
However, if Amazon can offer the same convenience of online purchasing with the same selection at a lower price, I may be switching over. Since I’ve been able to sit at my computer and instantly find a song that was played on the TV show I was watching or was just told about in an email, I’ve been buying music like crazy these past couple of years. Most of the music are artists you probably wouldn’t find at Target or Wal-Mart or they cost $3-5 more at BestBuy if you’re lucky enough that they carry it. As of right now, Amazon cannot match iTunes’ selection for the music I’m into. Most of it is not mainstream, but it’s not local stuff either. These artists are easily recognizable to anyone reading magazines like SPIN, Rolling Stone, Paste, etc. (eg: Wilco, Peter Bjorn & John, Rascal Flatts, Rilo Kiley, Bjork, Damien Rice, Tegan & Sara). I went thru and searched on Amazon for albums I’ve purchased in the past 4 months and only found 16 out of 41. So, I’ll be keeping an eye on Amazon, but until they catch up, I’m sticking with iTunes.

And to comment on the speed of download, I did a small test on a couple of singles from either site and found them to be comparable with iTunes still going a bit faster (~11.3 seconds/mb compared to Amazon’s ~14.5 s/mb). Overall, the songs from Amazon did take longer, but they were also larger (probably attributed to the larger bitrate).

By: MikeFM

MikeFM — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:32:20 +0000

Unless they can offer DRM-free, extremely low cost, MP3s it’s still easier and cheaper to download the music from free file sharing services. When I get music I don’t download a song – I download every song the musician has done. This way, I discover a lot of good content I otherwise wouldn’t have known I was even interested in. I often download artists I’ve never even heard of just to see if I like their stuff. I like being able to just Google the artist and a few seconds later be downloading their entire discography at breakneck speeds with BitTorrent.

Let me download stuff for free and then try to upsell me. I’d often buy a CD, DVD, poster, tshirt, etc for artists I like. e.g. I spent hundreds of dollars this year buying Weird Al’s latest CD, concert tickets, tshirts, hats, and various other collectibles despite the fact that I’d downloaded his new music and videos before his CD was offically released. I especially am likely to buy stuff from artists I like that don’t make me feel like a criminal for downloading their content – my way of making sure they keep that opinion. I’m considering buying a lot of NIN stuff since they came out supporting downloading of their content. I’d go so far as to make a direct donation to them if they had a place on their website to do it.

By: Danny Mendez

Danny Mendez — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:15:12 +0000

For the record, I’m not anti-Apple. I love Apple. I own a MacBook Pro, the new iMac, and the iPod Touch, but I can recognize when a company like Apple tries to spin that their product is better.

Have you read the book 1984?

1984 Government:
“Freedom is Slavery”

Apple:
“AAC is better than MP3″
“Web apps are better than an open platform for iPhone”
“EDGE ‘is great’ for the iPhone”

Yes, eat into Apple’s lies.

By: Danny Mendez

Danny Mendez — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:06:12 +0000

Yes, that’s what some people say, but only the people with the most sensitive hearing who are looking for differences could tell the difference on speakers/headphones an average consumer would use. Those differences, however, could be affected by Apple’s attempt to rewrite the history books in claiming that their (highly limited and DRM-able) file format is “superior”.

I’ve heard that AAC is better, and I’ve seen test results in which people conclude that MP3 is better bitrate for bitrate. The matter of the fact is that MP3 at 256kbps sounds really great, lacks DRM, and is highly supported.

By: Pakk99

Pakk99 — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:04:01 +0000

Um, for the record 128-bit AAC is easily on par with 256-bit MP3 in terms of music quality. There are other factors affecting sound quality beyond just the bit rate. Also, 256-bit AAC absolutely kills 256-bit MP3 for sound fidelity. Learn a little something about sound before offering a misleading comparison.