Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room Amazon UK goes MP3

For those who dont know, Amazon UK has now opened its MP3 section , which brings it in line with the US site.

It's only 256k though.

A better bet is 7Digital. The majority of their stuff is 320k

Yeah a pitty its only 256, it really needs 320 for reproducton of percussion sounds etc. Im pleased they have finally joined the US outlet, but not much Foxxy at the mo'.

I don't know why more people don't offer the option of FLAC or even WAV to be honest. It's not exactly a challenge for the speed/bandwith most of us are getting these days is it?

Anyone remember ten years ago trying to download a miserable 128kbit mp3 on a 56k modem?

20 minutes a shot if you were lucky!

I think the idea of selling mp3s rather than CDs, apart from being more immediate, is that people can just put them straight onto their ipods or whatever mp3 players, which by definition do not require higher quality wav file or similar,a nd which the majority of people are not bothered about, 'convenience' being the keyword.
Mind you a lossless option wouldn't be a bad thing but - correct me if I'm wrong - also means taking up more space on their servers?

Yep, higher space for them, but its worth it being in Flac or Wav for us, if you sometimes want to connect your player to an HiFi as 256mp3 sound shows flaws.

A very high bitrate MP3 shows flaws not only on HiFi equipment but MP3 players as well.

I have two mobile MP3 players (as well as computers and laptops that can play them) and I always notice dropouts and the like. I was thinking of starting a new thread to discuss this because I'm not too impressed by the quality.

Agreed, but in the profession, HiFi playback is used to clearly hear the degradation, and computers for the actual data analysis. As for portable players, its ironic that the best quality players show the flaws in the mp3 files themselves. Obviously though, the lower the bit rate, then even more players show the distortion.

I tried them recently, and although its stated as 256k, the actual file is variable between 231-266 for my particular file. Some tracks even had jumps, like it was uploaded from some teenagers skippy cd, on a free fileshare site. :rolleyes:

Also bought three talk talk albums that worked fine, still variable though.