Delixe: I personally prefer to buy CD's then rip them with DBPoweramp and listen to them on Creative's Zen X-Fi. It's the best music player on the market, it's just shite at everything else. This Christmas I will be giving myself a Zen X-Fi 2, then those music CD's are being ripped to FLAC and thats the best quality you can have.

TheCheese33: I've listened to both FLAC and MP3s and I honestly can't tell the difference. Maybe it's just me, but I'm fine listening to MP3s with a good pair of headphones.

TheCheese33: I've listened to both FLAC and MP3s and I honestly can't tell the difference. Maybe it's just me, but I'm fine listening to MP3s with a good pair of headphones.

JadeUzuki: However, I prefer Amazon to iTunes, because Amazon sells DRM-free mp3s.

andrhars: Anyone tried Grooveshark? I like that, and it's free...

TheCheese33: Oh my God, this is amazing! Thanks!

fuNGoo: People still pay for music?
Just kidding, but I did uses to do the iTunes thing until I had to switch computers and found out how much of a pain in the ass it is to sync and transfer everything in your account over to a different system. Now I just listen to streaming music or "tactically acquire" the few tracks that I listen to through tactical means.

TheCheese33: I've decided to try out both Rhapsody and Zune Pass, each around the same price, each offering a similar service; a music library you can listen to and get an allotment of free downloads per month. I tried Rhapsody first, and quickly realized why I haven't had a Real program on my machine for a long time; they suck. The one really good perk was that I could listen to Electric Six all I wanted. You can never listen to "Gay Bar" enough times. I tried their app on my iPhone, and nothing. I looked on iTunes and quickly saw that almost every review was one star, complaining that the app wouldn't start for them, either. I quickly bagged that piece of shit and tried Zune Pass.
I really like the PC Zune's interface. Much cleaner than Rhapsody or iTunes. But it's a little too abstract, and the simplified iTunes look is still where I'll be downloading and listening to my podcasts from. Also, no Electric Six to stream. But, they do have many other artists to stream, and it's not Real, which is always nice. Plus, if I ever became really crazy, I could buy a really cheap Zune model and constantly switch music in and out of their small flash drive model.
Does anyone know of a better alternative?

michaelleung: GAH MUSIC SUBSCRIPTIONS
I like the idea but I just don't like being tied to a monthly fee for a ton of music. I'd rather it be like eMusic where you pay a monthly fee to download a set number of MP3s that you own forever.

Delixe: Totally depends on the equipment you use to play them back. MP3's tend to dull the extremes of both bass and treble so while an MP3 will sound similar to a FLAC file you wont notice on a system that is rather poor at playback. However put the FLAC file on a system with really good speakers and an amp and you will notice a richness that was not there in the MP3. Creative make some stunningly good playback hardware the trouble is its always ruined by Creatives utterly diabolical software. I still wont make a PC without an X-Fi though.

soulgrindr: I heard recently that Sony have overtaken Apple in the music player market in japan. the primary reason given was that the sony players had better sound quality.
That said, I've no idea how they factored in/out iphone and all the sony phones.
Still, it does seem that apple focuses on everything except sound quality...

soulgrindr: I heard recently that Sony have overtaken Apple in the music player market in japan. the primary reason given was that the sony players had better sound quality.
That said, I've no idea how they factored in/out iphone and all the sony phones.
Still, it does seem that apple focuses on everything except sound quality...

anjohl: The best MP3 palyers soundwise are the Sansa players, in particular the Fuze and Clip models. That is objective fact.