[Branxx]

According to this story published in Yahoo Deutchsland the prestigious German audiophile magazine Stereoplay has conducted the first quality test of legal music download services (to be published in their December issue).

They rate the Russian site www.allofmp3.com and the US site www.magnatune.com the best. According to the story both sites functioned well and offered no DRM impaired files and choice different encoding methods and bit-rates (MP3, WMA, OGG, MPEG-AAC, MPC, WAV).

Runners up were www.emusic.com and www.weblisten.com. They were not able to test the 'expensive' iTunes site as it is not open to non-US billing addresses.

The Dutch site www.museekster.com publishes the comparative list of legal music download services.

I have tried both Allofmp3.com and Magnatunes and they both work well and fast. Average price for an album is $1 and $5 respectively (Magnatune gives you option to pay more if you want). Magnatune is the only site that gives a choice of lossless compression. Allofmp3 allows bit-rates up to 380kbps. Both sites offer full length sampling before purchasing.

[alextgreen]

Cheers for that - I might give them a try come payday.

[Branxx]

The nice thing about the allofmp3 and magnatune is the cost. Magnatune sell a CD (downloaded as WAV) for only £2.95 while allofmp3 offers for £0.59 (downloaded as WMA @ 320kbps).

Allomp3 will sell per song as well, the average const is £0.07. Unless you are in serious financial strain they are very affordable and high0quality.

[zAndy1]

wow, that allofmp3 site is well cool, thanks for the info!

Cheers
Andy

[zAndy1]

By the way, what's the best format to download stuff in and can anyone recommend a good convertor for converting e.g. MP3 to WAV for burning as an audio CD?

Cheers,
Andy.

[Miyazaki]

andy, a lot of new cd players can play mp3's.

Nero is good for burning cds.

try www.loc.gov/copyright/ for lots of mp3's to download.

Link edited by Reiner

[Branxx]

Most of CD burning utilities like Nero would automatically convert any compressed audio format into WAV prior to burning.

I think even Windows Media Player 9 does that as well.

[zAndy1]

My Philips 963SA will play MP3s, sound pretty good as well! One thing I haven't figured out is how to burn one album to a CD and then burn another one later to the same CD, I tried it but the 963SA didn't seem to recognise there was another album on there. Don't know what I'm doing wrong or if it's possible..

Cheers
Andy

[Reiner]

@Games Guru

try *******.com for lots of mp3's to download.

Yellow card for repeating an earlier offense.

Reiner
Moderator

[Branxx]

With the price being charged by www.Magnatune.com (£2.90 per CD) and especially www.allofmp3.com (approx £0.60 per CD) there is really no need to quote:try *******.com for lots of mp3's to download.

[pwiles1968]

Roughly how long will it take me to download an album with a 33k line (1 hour of music @ 380kbps)? Us simple village folk don't have access to broadband.

[Branxx]

It will be approx. 120MB worth of data at 3KB/sec, give or take 12 hours.

”Us simple village folk don't have access to broadband.”

On-line economy is not coming fast to your village.