Looking for a music buying service that uses MP3

[Turkeyscore.com]

iTunes, musicmatch, napster and buymusic.com all use lame audio formats. I want just straight MP3s. I have a cheap MP3 Player that only plays MP3s.

[tazdevl]

Don't think you're going to find it these days. MP3s don't have any DRM built in like AAC or WMA. A place that sells MP3s would get its ass sued off by the RIAA for promoting or facilitating music piracy... unless you're buying direct from the publisher or artist.

This is purely hypothetical but I believe DVDJohn came up with a way to get by Apple's AAC DRM scheme. I'd bet there is a converter out there to transcode an AAC file into MP3 once you strip out the DRM.

Question is... is AAC a lossy or lossless codec. If it's lossless you won't lose quality in the conversion, if it's lossy, you will. Probably not too much, though a lot depends on what bitrate the original file is encoded @.

Head over to hydrogenaudio.org and peruse the forums. Might be some more info there.

[treemana]

Turkeyscore, I'm in the same boat. My MP3 players only work with MP3s.

I purchased a few tunes from iTunes. After purchasing them, iTunes will let you burn a CD of them. After which, you can rip/encode them to MP3. This, although a bit of a hassle, worked fine. The sound quality is good.

So, after a 5-10 minute delay of burning/ripping, you can have your MP3s.

[tazdevl]

Turkeyscore, I'm in the same boat. My MP3 players only work with MP3s.

I purchased a few tunes from iTunes. After purchasing them, iTunes will let you burn a CD of them. After which, you can rip/encode them to MP3. This, although a bit of a hassle, worked fine. The sound quality is good.

So, after a 5-10 minute delay of burning/ripping, you can have your MP3s.

Tree, I haven't bought anything from iTunes... do they limit the number of CDs you can burn?

The other issue is what's the bitrate things are recorded @? I looked @ buy.com and the bitrate the music is encoded @ in wma is unacceptable IMO. That's one of the bigger issues out there with most online music stores IMO.

[aviationwiz]

Turkeyscore, I'm in the same boat. My MP3 players only work with MP3s.

I purchased a few tunes from iTunes. After purchasing them, iTunes will let you burn a CD of them. After which, you can rip/encode them to MP3. This, although a bit of a hassle, worked fine. The sound quality is good.

So, after a 5-10 minute delay of burning/ripping, you can have your MP3s.

Tree, I haven't bought anything from iTunes... do they limit the number of CDs you can burn?

No, you can burn up to 10 CD's of the same playlist, after which it well not allow you to burn that playlist anymore. So then, you re-create the playlist, with a slightly different title.

The other issue is what's the bitrate things are recorded @? I looked @ buy.com and the bitrate the music is encoded @ in wma is unacceptable IMO. That's one of the bigger issues out there with most online music stores IMO.

It is encoded at 128 bit AAC format, the rips are not from CD's either, they are from profesional copies (for most of them). 128 bit AAC is similar to maybe 160 bit or 192 bit MP3. (Or is it 196? I always get the 2 confused.)[/quote]

[dodecahedron]

It is encoded at 128 bit AAC format, the rips are not from CD's either, they are from profesional copies (for most of them). 128 bit AAC is similar to maybe 160 bit or 192 bit MP3. (Or is it 196? I always get the 2 confused.)

192
192=3*64=3*2^6

[treemana]

tazdevl, aviationwiz & dodecahedron are correct, as usual. Although, I didn't know about that "modify the play list" work-around. But, 1 CD burn is enough for me, because I convert the songs to MP3 format.

I don't know whether 128 bit AAC = 160 or 192 bit MP3, but I can tell you that they sound pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the recordings.

But, for me, the best thing about iTunes is no monthly fee. Other sites want you to pay $10 a month, or so, for the privilege of shopping at their store. No thank you.

<rant>It reminds me of the Oakland Raiders (local team) wanting folks to purchase a license so that they would be allowed to purchase tickets! (Rip Off.)</rant>

Anyway, I'll probably stay with iTunes until something better comes along.

[TheWizard]

Hmm, aren't we talking about kbits? All the MP3's and WMA's I know are measured in kb/s. For example, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo. Speaking of this example, I believe 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo is considered CD quality. Is AAC measured in kbits too or is it definitely bits? If it, too, is measured in kbits, then wouldn't 128 kbit AAC be the same as 128 kbit MP3? I mean, 128 kbits is 128 kbits, no?

[aviationwiz]

Hmm, aren't we talking about kbits? All the MP3's and WMA's I know are measured in kb/s. For example, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo. Speaking of this example, I believe 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo is considered CD quality. Is AAC measured in kbits too or is it definitely bits? If it, too, is measured in kbits, then wouldn't 128 kbit AAC be the same as 128 kbit MP3? I mean, 128 kbits is 128 kbits, no?

Yeah, it's techinically kbps, but I find it easier just to say bits, since it is commonly refered to as bit-rate and you just say like 128, 160, etc.

I can't really explain about why the AAC would sound better (which it does, from personal expirience) I think it has something to do with the way that the AAC file is encoded to AAC, maybe it takes off less than MP3 does?

[treemana]

Hmm, aren't we talking about kbits? All the MP3's and WMA's I know are measured in kb/s. For example, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo. Speaking of this example, I believe 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo is considered CD quality. Is AAC measured in kbits too or is it definitely bits? If it, too, is measured in kbits, then wouldn't 128 kbit AAC be the same as 128 kbit MP3? I mean, 128 kbits is 128 kbits, no?

Yes MP3 are in kbps. However, as avaitionwiz noted, the "kbps" part is often understood and folks just say 128-bit MP3, etc.

You're right 128 kbps = 128kbps, but what folks are saying is at a 128 kbps AAC file "sounds better" than a 128 kbps MP3 file. They say that in sound quality 128 kbps AAC = 192 kbps MP3.

However, I converted my iTunes AAC files to 128 kbps MP3s, and ... They sound just fine!

[CDRecorder]

My MP3 player also will only play MP3 files.

However, I did the same thing as Treemana and burned the files to CDs and ripped the tracks back to my hard drive so that I could convert them to MP3.

[Turkeyscore.com]

what do you use to convert to mp3?

[CDRecorder]

I use Roxio Soundstream because I had purchased it in the days before I'd ever seen Nero, and I didn't want to search for another program. I'm sure there are other good MP3 encoders out there, though.

BTW, I use CD DAE (from the same people as CDSpeed and InfoTool) to rip the CDs, and it works very well.