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Amazon Launches Public Beta of DRM-Free Music Store

yoak said:
I envy the people who can´t hear any difference between iTunes and CD quality
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That's not the test for many people.

For many (and me) online downloads only have to sound better than FM radio. And they do. Those are my 2 choices: radio or iPod. As long as the iPod keeps sounding better than the radio I could not care less what CDs sound like.
 
It looks like I finally found a music store I can live with. Bigger selection than eMusic and I don't have to wade through all DRM on iTunes to find the select songs offered in iTunes Plus.
 
gkarris said:
That's LAME.... :p

Looked up a couple of songs I *just* bought on iTunes and on Amazon, they are unprotected, higher quality, and only 89 cents... :mad:

I've bought Amazon Unbox for direct to my Tivo. It's cool, just rent a movie from work, and when I get home, it's ready to watch on my TV.

Amazon is getting cooler by the minute...
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The one thing that they lack is unity. With iTMS it just works. With Amazon, I've never seen any movie/music rental services anywhere..
 
I love that for all their bitching and moaning about Apple setting pricing, the record companies are now selling DRM-free tracks at a price even lower than $0.99. In their usual incompetent fashion, they have shot themselves in the foot again. Time for Apple to renegotiate their deal for distributing tracks trough iTunes store.
 
Eidorian said:
DRM-free MP3

Everyone wins.
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I wish it were DRM-free AAC, but I probably won't hear the difference on most tracks. Well, being half-deaf, I almost certainly won't hear it, but some of you may.

Good albums prices, too, I'm sure knocked a buck or two off for beta launch to smack iTunes but will rise to $10. A bargain right now, anyway. And I've been saving quite a bit in new music purchases to fool around with the WiFi Store on my iPhone; but if Apple can't manage to get that iPhone update out by end of today, even though the iTunes interface is better I could always fool around with Amazon's new store with that money.
 
orbital said:
Hum except that a 256kbps Mp3 is not equal to a 256kbps AAC. Infact all it means is the songs are no better than those found on the iTunes Store.

Well what ever its a step in the right direction
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256kbps MP3 is better than 128kbps AAC, so don't delude yourself, EVERYTHING on the Amazon store is better quality than MOST of what's on the iTunes store.

When comparing 256 MP3 and 256 AAC, well, I've never done a test, but websites obsessed with audio quality have, and most of them say that unless you are an audio buff and using very expensive headphones, you won't notice the difference.

Oh, and the Amazon store has EMI AND Universal on, that's two major labels to Apple's one as far as DRM-free goes. Plus Amazon has "thousands" of indie labels, which Apple has none of.

Apple has clearly been one-upped. Hopefully they can renegotiate their contracts and get us more DRM-free music. Also, let's hope Sony BMG and Warner hop on the DRM-free bandwagon soon.
 
Voted negative, but only because it's not available in the UK :(
Great to have some competition for iTunes and whilst I'd have preferred 320kbps for MP3, it's better than nothing
 
yoak said:
Hopefully this will have an impact on the quality of the offerings at iTunes. 128 bits is just not good enough in my opinion. I envy the people who can´t hear any difference between iTunes and CD quality
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I used to have that ability. But I have progressive degenerative hearing loss and can't anymore. So don't envy us too much. But still, I've been able to cheap out buying AAC iTunes downloads and lower-end models of high-end brands of audio equipment without sacrificing my perception of audio fidelity. I'm going deaf but I'm getting richer. Go figure.
 
A big plus for me: They have radiohead, albums that iTunes has never been able to grab a hold of.

parafish13 said:
Wait...did I see Amazon offering DRM-free Radiohead downloads and albums at $8.99?
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YES! and I'm buying the ones I don't have yet as soon as I get the heck out of the office.

Why are people complaining about mp3's? If you ran an online music store, wouldn't you like to have your stock in a codec that everyone could use?

This is great, and I can't wait to get home to download "The Bends", which Disc-O-Rama didn't have last time I stopped over :( The more stores the merrier!
 
CIrawI3riCIge said:
MP3, pfff. Just goes to show how the vast majority of people are satisfied with mediocrity:(

Selling compressed music at nearly the same price of a CD is shameful. -Especially using MP3.
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The first one I checked was 6.99 download versus 15.99 CD. Hardly the same price. And CD's don't give you the option of buying individual songs.

Although I'd rather see these as 256 AAC, I'd bet you couldn't pick out 256 mp3 versus cd in a blind test.

This is a great option to have in terms of convenience, price, and even the quality isn't too bad. I've been hesitating to buy some things from the iTunes store because of DRM, I'll probably start buying stuff from amazon right away and seeing how they've done.
 
milkmanamok said:
I love that for all their bitching and moaning about Apple setting pricing, the record companies are now selling DRM-free tracks at a price even lower than $0.99. In their usual incompetent fashion, they have shot themselves in the foot again. Time for Apple to renegotiate their deal for distributing tracks trough iTunes store.
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Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

The content providers wanted the freedom to sell their product at the prices they dictated, and to be allowed to "bundle" product as they saw fit. Which they weren't allowed to do with the iTMS.

Why is this so hard to understand?

:rolleyes:
 
Believe it or not - I love iTunes and Apple but I love my own money as well and I will compare prices and features between the two services and get myself the better deal.

Having said that - I believe Amazon is a real competition for Apple.
 
Sandfleaz said:
Can't imagine that the folks at Apple are that upset.
I think this will help them sell even more iPods. From the figures they released a while ago, most music on iPods comes from sources other than iTunes.

Can't wait to try it!
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I don't understand the argument that this is going to sell more iPods. Folks who buy music online (mp3s, aac, whatever) already have a media player (ipod or zune or whatever else) that they use to listen to that music. How is this supposed to help iPod sales? Just because you can buy mp3 on amazon means now you'll buy an ipod?

Of course lets say hypothetically that amazon only sold AAC format. Maybe then I can understand that helping iPod sales becasue iPod is the only music player that plays that format.
 
Well I just purchased my first track from the new store.

"Monday Night" by Ryan Adams

242kbps (VBR), encoded with LAME 3.97

Pretty damn great. Kudos, Amazon.
 
Westside guy said:
It looks like the same artist list that's in iTunes Plus. Has anyone found anything that's on Amazon's DRM-free store but not on iTune's?

I love the marketing - "world's largest catalog of DRM-free MP3s". Well, yeah, because iTunes doesn't sell MP3s. :D

Regardless of the marketing silliness - this is only good news for the consumer.
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Allman Brothers "Beginnings," for one. It's 8.99 on amazon at 256 with no DRM and 9.99 on itunes at 128 with DRM....tough call...what to do??? ha.
 
This is kind of sell-out bizarre for Radiohead, though. It's always been presented as sort of a, Radiohead says, No way on digital distribution of any kind for some recordings. And then they pop up on Amazon's store after again recently refusing to put all their music on iTunes.

I like Radiohead, but I think their integrity marker just dropped a bit for me.

Maccus Aurelius said:
A big plus for me: They have radiohead, albums that iTunes has never been able to grab a hold of.



YES! and I'm buying the ones I don't have yet as soon as I get the heck out of the office.

Why are people complaining about mp3's? If you ran an online music store, wouldn't you like to have your stock in a codec that everyone could use?

This is great, and I can't wait to get home to download "The Bends", which Disc-O-Rama didn't have last time I stopped over :( The more stores the merrier!
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