Itunes Match questions

1) You can download a copy to your local itunes library. This is yours to keep and doesn't require itunes match to listen to them.

2) If it can't match them, it will upload a copy to icloud for you instead.

3) See 1)

1) I think in order to download them you have to remove the original from your itunes library. Note this means you can keep the original as long as its not in your itunes library, but as you are wanting them to replace your current crappy encodes then why do you want to keep the originals?

2) No, but why would it be a problem anyway? It makes all your music available to you in the cloud by any ios device, apple TV or authorised itunes library.

DefBref said:

1) I think in order to download them you have to remove the original from your itunes library. Note this means you can keep the original as long as its not in your itunes library, but as you are wanting them to replace your current crappy encodes then why do you want to keep the originals?

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Right. The way the matching works is kind of confusing. After iTunes matches your file to the better version in the cloud, it leaves your crappy version in your library, and that is what will still be played by iTunes.

In order to replace your original version with the better one in the cloud, you need to delete it from the library. iTunes will ask you if you want to move the file to the trash, or just leave it in the iTunes Media folder. After you delete the song in iTunes, it will still show up as being in the cloud and there will be a symbol in the "Cloud" column which will let you download the good cloud version to your computer. If you chose not to move the original to the trash when you removed it from the library, you will now have two copies of the song in your iTunes media folder.

All very straightforward, right?

Are they obscure cds? Or has itunes already got them? If itunes already has them there's a good chance they will be matched. Unfortunately you cant tell for definite without actually trying itunes match.

If they are old CD's (especially with crappy quality), there is a good chance they won't match, so if you are only looking at using match to upgrade them then you may well be disappointed.

If they are CD's which have been reissued since you obtained them then it is even more likely that they won't match, as iTunes most likely has the newer versions.