Buzzsonic.com

One of the undoubted ‘limitations’ of music downloads from the current explosion in paid digital music services is that tracks downloaded from major stores like iTunes (in AAC format), Rhapsody (RA), Sony Connect (ATRAC) and all the WMA formatted stores (just about all the rest) is that all the music on offer is, to grossly understate matters, of greatly inferior quality than what you would expect if you purchased the same track on CD. All these services provide only “lossy” compression audio files.

AAC, WMA, ATRAC, MP3 and RealAudio (or RA files) are all by differing degrees, heavily compressed ‘lossy formats’ compared to the quality you’d expect from an original CD recording that is, some frequencies in the original signal are lost in the encoding process, and can’t be restored in playback. All lossy compression codecs work by removing portions of the original signal which are determined to be essentially inaudible a technique known as “perceptual coding.”

So in effect music retailers are grossly misleading the public into thinking that the music they are downloading is of similar quality to the equivalent CD. “CD Quality” is often claimed for music ripped at bitrates of 160kbps or 192kbps, but considering that the actual CD bitrate is 1400kbps its plainly misguided to repeat the mantra that the relatively low bitrates hawked by major stores are the same as buying the CD.

The main problem for the consumer in downloading uncompressed music is file size. With a minute of CD audio taking up around 10mb compared to 1mb of MP3 audio, lossless audio delivery will only be feasible when high bandwidth availability improves drastically.

As much faster internet connections become more affordable and widespread some music punters are looking for better quality downloads at much higher bitrates. Catching on in popularity with online distributors and audio enthusiasts alike right now is the relatively new (compared to the ageing MP3) FLAC. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) compresses audio like ZIP compresses files — it doesn’t lose any quality but it does result in about a 50% reduction in file size compared to a full-sized WAV or AIFF file. What’s more, FLAC files can easily be converted to WAV or AIFF formats — thus you get a full CD-quality audio file that you can use on any media device, including standard CD players.

Ironically one of the bands promoting the use of the high quality FLAC codec is Metallica, the band still reviled by many for their much publisized legal battle with the original shackle free Napster. Most of their live shows are now available for download as either MP3 or FLAC files. Mindawn.com is an online download store specializing in progrock and independent bands and all tracks are offered in the option of both “lossy” compression in the Ogg Vorbis format–Ogg Vorbis is an open source, licence free music codec that gives similar results to the popular MP3 format.–, or lossless files in FLAC format and more importantly for the customer, no DRM limitations. Royalty rates for artists range from 55-75% in favour of the artist.

Another early adopter of FLAC is internet only label and distributor Magnatune who offer all their tracks in a wide variety of audio formats, again DRM free and available in lossy or lossless quality downloads. Florida based digital dance distributor EDM Digital are another store that have the option of FLAC. DiscLogic.com, MusicToday.com, and AliveAudio.net are joining the early movers too and although the overall choice is limited, its getting broader. The FLAC format is increasingly favoured by live music traders, who prefer the full audio experience in comparison to the stripped down MP3 version. If your looking for a free comparison test head over to the bulging collection of live downloads at the Live Music Archive where you can grab a huge collection of concert recordings from the obscure to known ‘trade friendly’ names like: And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, the Grateful Dead, Phish, Hank Williams III, String Cheese Incident and 100s more. All free of DRM shackles, the threat of lawsuits and with a choice of lossy (Ogg/MP3) or lossless (FLAC) audio flavours.

Related Reading

Mindawns Role Model for Digital Music Purchases [the Inquirer]
Giving Apple Some Flac [MacWorld.com]
Flac Etree Wiki [Etree.org]
Live Music Archives (Freeand legal Flac Downloads) [Archive.org]
Flac Wikipedia [Wikipedia.org]
Music Everywhere-It’s all About the Algorithm But Which One Will Win? [IEEE Spectrum Online]
Lossless Compression of Audio [FirstPr.com.au]
Monkeys Audio [MonkeysAudio.com]
Shorten Audio [UMBC.edu]
Live Lossless Music Traders Database [ETree.org]
Audio Coding Wiki [AudioCoding.com]
Audio Data Compression [WikiPedia.org]
Lossless Codecs Forum [HydrogenAudio.org]
the DRM Debacle [TBray.org]