FLAC downloads

dogfonos

Prominent Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
3,943
Reaction score
1,919
Points
912
Can anyone recommend some good sites (i.e. not expensive, intuative to use, wide choice of music) for downloading high quality FLAC files? I'd really like 'higher than CD quality' although I appreciate such files are limited in number. Mainly into pop/alt. rock/jazz.

I've tried a few sites I read about but didn't get on with them:

Melodishop - Messy website that didn't function correctly and wanted pre-payment.
Qobuz - French site where the English translation didn't work well and didn't allow UK download.
HDtracks - Didn't allow UK download.
Bleep - Couldn't see what bit size & sampling rate I was buying (I assume CD quality?)
Juno - FLAC generally unavailable (WAV favoured - guess I could convert to FLAC but again, no info on file quality)
 
Last edited:
I think with Juno you select WAV but there's actually an option to download as FLAC right at the end.
 
Some HDTracks albums can be downloaded in the UK - unusually for a lot less money than the european sites - so it's still worth having a look there. I think it depends if they have the global rights or not. Very frustrating.
 
I now realise that the very high quality FLAC file download market is undeveloped. Numerous posts about FLAC downloads on various websites made me think otherwise - how wrong I was. Seems it needs a big name to run with FLAC but is the demand sufficient? Will FLAC downloads ever be commercially viable?

Either I struggle on (unlikley) or wait a while to see how things pan out (probably).
 
Can anyone recommend some good sites (i.e. not expensive, intuative to use, wide choice of music) for downloading high quality FLAC files? I'd really like 'higher than CD quality' although I appreciate such files are limited in number. Mainly into pop/alt. rock/jazz.

I've tried a few sites I read about but didn't get on with them:

Melodishop - Messy website that didn't function correctly and wanted pre-payment.
Qobuz - French site where the English translation didn't work well and didn't allow UK download.
HDtracks - Didn't allow UK download.
Bleep - Couldn't see what bit size & sampling rate I was buying (I assume CD quality?)
Juno - FLAC generally unavailable (WAV favoured - guess I could convert to FLAC but again, no info on file quality)

Juno offer loads of FLAC downloads. Use their download manager and change preferred format from WAV to FLAC. The tagging is pretty good too.
 
Is Qobuz is now allowing UK downloads (problem mentioned by OP)?

As an aside, is it legal under EU rules not to allow music downloads to another EU member country?
 
Qubuz seem to be located in france but I am not aware of any limitations. They offer streaming similar to spotify and one can buy tracks as well.

Just bought this in WMA lossless

 
I've downloaded 24bit flac from Qobuz but had to use a proxy server in France to get round the location issues. Cost was overall cheaper than UK. HD tracks is yet cheaper still but it is a bit of a FAFF as you will need to use proxy server, and register a us address then pay via PayPal. A colleague has also found a thread questioning the fact that some stuff on hd tracks might be up sampled and not really from master recordings.
 
Is Qobuz is now allowing UK downloads (problem mentioned by OP)?

As an aside, is it legal under EU rules not to allow music downloads to another EU member country?
No, that was proven over sports on satellite TV.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom