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Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
You have to download/install the amaxon cloud player in order to download multiple tracks of a CD. You used to be able to even download one track at a time but its been a few months since I bought mp3 music from amazon

That is not DRM.
That is limiting access to getting stuff out of the cloud threw their software only. I can understand Amazon reasoning for that.
Google play has restrictions like that as well.
 

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
One and a half thumbs up. But I have to believe it would still be more cost effective to just offer lossless audio for download. It's why CDs are still around. Lossy audio, even at 320kbps just don't do it for decent high powered home amp or receiver with quality speakers and sub.

People still by CDs?

Yes. Us old bats who still listen to music via an upscale wired home audio system need content that hasn't been mugged by over compression. MP3 and AAC are fine for hand held devices or low wattage portable systems, but when you get into better equipment & quality speakers, you don't need dog ears to tell a song was squeezed into it's wrapper.

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How else can you get singles? I haven't bought a 45 since 1979.

You can buy single songs all day long on Amazon and iTunes. I think that is what the poster is referring to, not old-school physical singles that died out in the early 90s (CD-Single).
 

surma884

macrumors regular
Feb 21, 2011
109
0
We need to drop audio CDs asap. CDs are wasteful for many reasons.

1. To play CDs you need mechanical parts. Any moving part will increase the chance of failure. So if you have a device with 10 movies parts and another with 100 moving parts, the second device has a higher chance of failure. We have solid state storage with 0 moving parts. 0 moving parts means less reliance on factory works and more reliance on automation.
2. CDs are made with plastic. Some plastics are derived from petrochemcials, which means oil.
3. You can store more data on an SD card than a CD with a lot less plastic. If you have 100 albums you can easily put that on your thumbdrive/SD card in a lossless format.
4. Also SD cards are reusable, CDs are not.
5. Physically storing CDs uses more space than storing them on your thumbdrive/SD card. You can put all your CDs in a 200 CD case, but that is still 100 times bigger than a thumbdrive or an SD card.
 

Number 41

macrumors 6502a
Jun 15, 2009
745
970
I would love for them to do the same thing with books........

First thought I had as well.

I love reading on my iPad, but I miss the experience of having a book I can sit and read if I wanted to as well.

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We need to drop audio CDs asap. CDs are wasteful for many reasons.

1. To play CDs you need mechanical parts. Any moving part will increase the chance of failure. So if you have a device with 10 movies parts and another with 100 moving parts, the second device has a higher chance of failure. We have solid state storage with 0 moving parts. 0 moving parts means less reliance on factory works and more reliance on automation.
2. CDs are made with plastic. Some plastics are derived from petrochemcials, which means oil.
3. You can store more data on an SD card than a CD with a lot less plastic. If you have 100 albums you can easily put that on your thumbdrive/SD card in a lossless format.
4. Also SD cards are reusable, CDs are not.
5. Physically storing CDs uses more space than storing them on your thumbdrive/SD card. You can put all your CDs in a 200 CD case, but that is still 100 times bigger than a thumbdrive or an SD card.

I like owning physical media.

Amazon or Apple can't send a "kill" code to delete my music/movie/book collection if it's sitting on the shelf in my house.
 

ctdonath

macrumors 68000
Mar 11, 2009
1,592
629
Have you thrown away your computer and use iPad instead?

I'm getting there. Don't use a PC at home (it was relegated to legacy stuff and iTunes tethering, but just occurred to me I never tethered my latest iPad nor iPhone, and don't use the older ones any more); am this ->||<- close to chucking the 8+ year old dying midget. Use a Mac at work, but mostly because of "there shalt not be any software development for iOS done on iOS."
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,541
6,028
And what of those that bought the digital versions!? Where is our free physical copy!?

Every digital download should come with a free physical copy - burning onto your own disks is so easy!
 

Porco

macrumors 68040
Mar 28, 2005
3,314
6,908
I think this is a great idea and I hope it comes to the UK Amazon (and others) soon too, because I've bought a load of CDs from Amazon in the past.

However, for people saying it's hard to rip CDs if you have a mac without a built-in optical drive - you can of course buy an external USB drive for the price of a couple of new CDs, so if you wanted to it's really not very hard at all…

This is a great reason to continue buying CDs too. I really hope Apple are paying attention, because iTunes Match is looking more pitiful by the day by comparison, they need to do something about improving it soon.

More than anything though, it smacks of the kind of common-sense situation that should have existed from day one, that encourages legitimate purchases over piracy rather than the kind of idiocy that drives consumers in the other direction.

Now if they could only do it for movies, ebooks etc, that'd be really great (wishful thinking, I know…).
 

janstett

macrumors 65816
Jan 13, 2006
1,235
0
Chester, NJ
Wow amazon is still using the old and somewhat outdated MP3 format. Get with the times, Amazon. MP4 based AAC has been available for a long time now. If Apple can do it, so can you.

Will AAC work on other devices? It will work on Android but not everywhere else... For example my car. MP3 will always be the defacto standard.
 

GenesisST

macrumors 68000
Jan 23, 2006
1,802
1,055
Where I live
A lot of singles are now released on digital and vinyl only. Downloads may have killed the CD single but 45s are back, even if sales are not huge.

I think crappy artists with hit singles in mind have killed the CD, well maybe more "albums"... A good album is awesome to listen to from end to end, regardless of media.

As a CD listener, I loved Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever". The moment of silence for listeners on tape or records that had to turn it over was priceless!
 

janstett

macrumors 65816
Jan 13, 2006
1,235
0
Chester, NJ
We need to drop audio CDs asap. CDs are wasteful for many reasons.

1. To play CDs you need mechanical parts. Any moving part will increase the chance of failure. So if you have a device with 10 movies parts and another with 100 moving parts, the second device has a higher chance of failure. We have solid state storage with 0 moving parts. 0 moving parts means less reliance on factory works and more reliance on automation.

I'm not looking forward to buying 30TB worth of SSDs. :D

Hard disks have spinning mechanical parts too... I'm recovering from a failure in my 8 disk 24TB array... Worst case if I lost/lose anything I can go back to disc to re-rip again.
 

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,574
3,872
New Zealand
Over the years I've bought far more than 14 CDs from Amazon, but that's what I got from AutoRip today.

Well you're lucky; I got zero. Yet the side bar has entries for "since you bought X, you might like Y".

Edit:
It might be worth pointing out that this is US only at the moment.

That could explain it, despite the tagline being "play your music anywhere" :rolleyes:
 

balamw

Moderator emeritus
Aug 16, 2005
19,366
979
New England
Sounds like he was downloading a virus from Amaz0n.com or something. :rolleyes:

Actually what someone else said earlier appears to be accurate. You can no longer download music form Amazon without their MP3 downloader plugin.

That's a bit limiting. It used to be that single tracks would download using a browser.


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Well you're lucky; I got zero. Yet the side bar has entries for "since you bought X, you might like Y".

They know you're in NZ. So no soup for you. :)

B
 

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,574
3,872
New Zealand
They know you're in NZ. So no soup for you. :)

So it would seem. You'd think that a company like Amazon would realise that the Internet is accessible globally though!

Edit: I just opened the page again for the sake of it and I suddenly have 77 songs (5 albums) in there. It seems that it does work after all, and maybe more will show up if I try it again later :)

Edit Edit: After checking my order history, I've actually only bought 7 albums from Amazon in total. I thought I'd bought more than that!
 
Last edited:

nrose101

macrumors 6502
Sep 9, 2011
355
466
We need to drop audio CDs asap. CDs are wasteful for many reasons.

1. To play CDs you need mechanical parts. Any moving part will increase the chance of failure. So if you have a device with 10 movies parts and another with 100 moving parts, the second device has a higher chance of failure. We have solid state storage with 0 moving parts. 0 moving parts means less reliance on factory works and more reliance on automation.
2. CDs are made with plastic. Some plastics are derived from petrochemcials, which means oil.
3. You can store more data on an SD card than a CD with a lot less plastic. If you have 100 albums you can easily put that on your thumbdrive/SD card in a lossless format.
4. Also SD cards are reusable, CDs are not.
5. Physically storing CDs uses more space than storing them on your thumbdrive/SD card. You can put all your CDs in a 200 CD case, but that is still 100 times bigger than a thumbdrive or an SD card.

CDs sounds better!
 

balamw

Moderator emeritus
Aug 16, 2005
19,366
979
New England
I buy the CD if I really like the band and the album. I still care about the artwork and package of the album.

That kind of thinking is what occasionally drives me to paying a slightly higher price at iTunes vs. Amazon. The artwork/booklet is often better quality. I still buy ~1 album/month at least mostly from Amazon or iTunes.

I have far too many physical CDs to be looking at them very often. I store them in sleeves and cases from http://mmdesign.com so they don't take up too much room, but I have to ditch the jewel boxes or they'll eat my alive.

B
 
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