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[uce]

Is there an Internet cite (e.g. Amazon or others) that enable me to DL albums to MC 22 Mac?

I am not looking for free - I'd be happy to pay- but the ability to do so would represent a saving over having to buy the CD.

Thanh you&.

[pschelbert]

Hi

yes there are a lot of digital download sites itunes, amazon, Qobuz, highresaudio, 2l.no etc. where you can buy from mp3 to studiomaster albums. All by download, no CD shipped.

You will find most popular albums and many exotic as well.

Peter

[mwillems]

pschelbert is correct, but I wanted to add an additional observation based on many years of digital buying:

In your original post you think of buying digital downloads as a money saving proposition, but in my experience it's often cheaper to buy the CDs than the digital downloads.  Amazon will often have promotions on new albums where the physical disc is cheaper than the download. If you're willing to deal with used CDs (which in my experience are fine 99% of the time if you buy from reputable vendors), the CD is much, much cheaper than the digital download.

By way of a concrete example, last week I went to buy an album that came out about a month ago.  The MP3 digital download was $10, the cd (new) was $9, and used copies had already started turning up for $6 (most likely radio promo versions, but if all you want is the music, who cares?). 

TL;DR, I still almost exclusively buy cds because it's still more cost effective than downloads in most cases, even if you were to immediately throw away the disc (to be clear, I keep mine).  Getting a lossless digital copy instead of an MP3 and the actual liner notes for that lower price is a nice bonus.

[DJLegba]

There are advantages to buying downloads, even if they're not always cheaper. The biggest is that you get the music right away. Usually you get quality cover art and a PDF booklet (although 7digital seldom includes the booklet). And most of the computers I own have trouble creating a secure rip from the last track or two when a CD contains more than about 60 minutes of music.

However, sometimes download prices are just too crazy to ignore. Recently I bought a two-disc set from amazon.ca for C$13.75 with free delivery. The download would have been C$24.95 at 7digital or 23.25 euros at pentatonemusic.com (C$32.28, but that includes the VAT and the amazon.ca and 7digital prices don't include our 13% tax - and there's a 25% discount promo at pentatone right now). Mind you, the first disc is 71 minutes and there is one track I haven't been able to rip 100% error-free despite having tried several times on different computers.

[mwillems]

There are advantages to buying downloads, even if they're not always cheaper. The biggest is that you get the music right away. Usually you get quality cover art and a PDF booklet (although 7digital seldom includes the booklet).

Most of the stuff I buy never has a pdf booklet on offer; where do you buy that commonly has PDF booklets? (not sarcastic, I want to buy from them!)

And most of the computers I own have trouble creating a secure rip from the last track or two when a CD contains more than about 60 minutes of music.

That's a new one by me, I've never seen that issue and I've ripped about 5,000 CDs.  Does it seem local to a specific sort of drive?  It sounds like a mechanical problem.  I have had two or three discs over the years where the last few tracks wouldn't rip securely, but it was because the outer rim of the disc was visibly damaged.  You may want to consider replacing your disc drives as just before my last one failed it started having trouble securely ripping discs.

[DJLegba]

Most of the stuff I buy never has a pdf booklet on offer; where do you buy that commonly has PDF booklets? (not sarcastic, I want to buy from them!)

Most "classical" music downloads come with booklets, but very few "pop" releases have them. I usually search prostudiomasters.com first, primarily because they're Canadian and I don't have to worry about currency conversions or license restrictions. highresaudio.com in Germany provides booklets when they're available, but lately more of their catalog has restricted licensing so I can't buy it. But it's a good source for European labels that don't have North American distribution. Everything at nativedsd.com includes a booklet, and the entire catalog is available to Canadian purchasers. In the past I bought "pop" type material at ponomusic.com, but their store disappeared in July. I now use 7digital.com (which has a Canadian store in Canadian currency). Their prices vary a lot, from really good to really poor. When I heard about Greg Lake's death yesterday I bought Welcome Back My Friends for C$11.49. A while ago I bought a Bruce Levingston album from 7digital and was surprised that it didn't include a booklet, as I had definitely seen it on another site. I emailed 7digital to ask why they didn't include booklets that were available on other sites. Their reply: "When a download includes a booklet it is clearly indicated on the download page." Oh. So I downloaded it from the competitor's site but that felt slimy and now I check first and I'm willing to pay a bit more when the PDF is included.

That's a new one by me, I've never seen that issue and I've ripped about 5,000 CDs.  Does it seem local to a specific sort of drive?  It sounds like a mechanical problem.  I have had two or three discs over the years where the last few tracks wouldn't rip securely, but it was because the outer rim of the disc was visibly damaged.  You may want to consider replacing your disc drives as just before my last one failed it started having trouble securely ripping discs.

If you're not buying classical or opera you won't see many discs with over 60 minutes. I inspect the outer edge of the disc whenever I run into the problem, and the CD tray as well. I have tried using an external drive (with poor results) and my ancient notebook computer. I haven't tried on my son's old Mac. The desktop's drive has been doing this since I started two years ago, and hasn't become worse, but I should probably consider replacing it anyway.

5,000 discs. You must be very patient. Can you access them easily, or are they stored in a box somewhere? Another very nice feature of downloads is that they don't add to the clutter. And I never did figure out a way to organize a classical collection in a way that let me find a disc if I didn't remember where I had filed it.

I have bought used discs from time to time, but the artist makes nothing on the sale, so I try to limit it to performers who have died.

[mwillems]

If you're not buying classical or opera you won't see many discs with over 60 minutes. I inspect the outer edge of the disc whenever I run into the problem, and the CD tray as well. I have tried using an external drive (with poor results) and my ancient notebook computer. I haven't tried on my son's old Mac. The desktop's drive has been doing this since I started two years ago, and hasn't become worse, but I should probably consider replacing it anyway.

I have several hundred discs with > 60 minute runtimes.  I have a good chunk of classical, but also in the early to mid 90's when CDs were becoming the dominant medium pop acts felt like they had to release 60-70 minute albums to "fill the medium" and I've got lots of them.  I haven't seen the issue you describe with them as a category, but I'd be curious to know what's causing it for you.

5,000 discs. You must be very patient. Can you access them easily, or are they stored in a box somewhere? Another very nice feature of downloads is that they don't add to the clutter. And I never did figure out a way to organize a classical collection in a way that let me find a disc if I didn't remember where I had filed it.

I did about 1200 at once, and then did the rest over a period of years as I acquired them.  I spend a fair amount of time in front of a computer, so I just popped one in whenever I sat down.  I built custom shelves for them so I have ready access.  They do take up a fair bit of space, and that's the biggest reason I even consider paying a premium for digital.

I have bought used discs from time to time, but the artist makes nothing on the sale, so I try to limit it to performers who have died.

That's a reasonable attitude.  A fair sized chunk (30% or so) of what I buy is either currently only available as an import or out of print entirely, so I often wind up buying used copies of old releases and just got into the habit. 

[DJLegba]

Apologies to uce for the thread hijack, but I think it's all germaine...

I haven't seen the issue you describe with them as a category, but I'd be curious to know what's causing it for you.

Are you ripping with MC or something else? I've used MC all along, but today I downloaded dbPoweramp as I have read good things about it here on the board. It ripped the 71-minute disc as "accurate" without any rerips. I wanted to replace the files in my library, but I had used a different naming convention, so I changed the settings, reinserted the disc, and ripped again. This time it spent close to 4 hours attempting to get an accurate rip of the last track, but failed. I repositioned the disc in the tray (there's a lot of play - perhaps that's the issue) and was able to get an accurate rip of the last track with just a few sectors having to be reripped. I could hear severe artefacts in the MC rip, and they are not present in the dbPa rip. I'll definitely buy this software.

Right now I'm using PerfectTunes to scan my library for bad rips - and it's finding a lot. Looks like I'll be able to put dbPoweramp to good use.

[pschelbert]

Hi

yes the comment of MWillems is the same as I experienced.

I bought recently from Bert Kaempfert: A Swingin' Safari.
The CD was about half the price as the download, including free shipping from Germany to Switzerland, crazy!
So you buy the CD and trash it and you have paid only half the price, what a nonsense!
I did not experience ripping problems in general.
The main issue is the databases which do not contain the details of the CD, nor do you get it if you buy digital! The music-industry has a mess in classification, worst is classical. Just the name of a composer is a mess. Mozart: W.A. Mozart, Wolfang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart A.W., etc. etc.

My experience is that the programs mainly are different in how they grab the tag-details. This depends on each CD.
I use: JRiver MC, dBpoweramp, iTunes (ALAC then convert in JRiver to flac)
In tag completeness and correctness best is dBpoweramp (especiually for classical music), then iTunes, but often incomplete, then JRiver MC.

My strategy for ripping is: put CD ind, then check which program gets you teh best tags, then rip with that program.

Technical ripping quality is actually not a problem for my setup (DVD-Drive for ripping)

Peter

[blgentry]

Sadly, even in today's world of pervasive digital media, optical media seems to be the only legal way to get high quality versions of Movies, TV Shows, and music.  Sure, you can find some stuff that's high quality, available for digital purchase.  But you can't find every title that's on CD; nor can you be sure of the provenance of the recording.  PonoMusic is probably the biggest catalog of "regular" music (not classical or Jazz).  I think PonoMusic is very ambitious and their catalog is pretty darned big.  But the digital downloads are pretty expensive by comparison to a physical CD of the same thing.

I've ripped more than 300 CDs on my Mac and have had only a few issues with a few damaged discs.  I've never had a clean looking disc, of any length, give me ANY trouble while ripping.

So I still buy a lot of CDs; mostly used, but some new as well.  I try to buy from music retailers like FYE, which has an online store as well.  I shop in their online store, as they don't have a physical store anywhere near me.  My reasoning is this:  FYE is a national music/movie retailer and purchases significant quantities of physical media from record and movie companies.  Therefor, every dollar I spend with FYE can be used by that company to buy more music and movies from the producers.  Thus musicians get paid, indirectly, every time I make a purchase there, even if I buy used product.  My money eventually flows to musicians and people in the movie industry.

I'm sensitive to this as I have family in the music industry; it's a tough business these days.

Brian.

[uce]

Thanks to all y'all .... esp. MWillems: I DLed a Mendelssohn MP3 and after much head scratching I was able to drag it to a music folder from where it found its way on to SONOS ... I'm not sure it ever got to my JR Media Center but the end result is what I was looking to achieve.

MW was, of course, correct: I've just ordered a 'Like New' CD set [Mahler] from a 100% rated source on Amazon Prime at a price lower than any MP3 download of the same music. ...

Great tip; thanks again.

uce.

[mwheelerk]

The advantage to me, if you care about such things as I do, in buying CDs and ripping them versus downloads is that you can select the specific version or mastering of the particular album you want (for instance the original CD release, a later remaster or audiophile editions). With a download you get what you get.  Some masterings are fine, some not so good. With CDs you have some control.