Buying my first music online. What is the best format to buy it in

[mellondust]

Wanted to buy Transformers: The Score cd but the cheapest place I could find it was for $50 on e-bay. (Amazon was $130. Can you believe that!) It is not made anymore it seems. So I guess I would rather buy the download version for $15 than spend that kind of money.

I have not bought music online before and don't know what format is the best to get or the best place to get it. I want a good quality track. Is there a difference? I will be listening to it on my computer or burning it onto a cd to put in my stereo.

Thanks for any response or links.

 

[George P Burdell]

MP3

 

[Aluvus]

MP3. OGG and the lossless formats (FLAC, etc.) have their partisans, but very few services sell those.

WMA (or AAC) may include DRM and is not supported by nearly as many things as MP3.

 

[theGlove]

mp3 but $50 is really steep for any music cd

 

[Legendary]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...d=1203127762&sr=102-12

That?

 

[mwmorph]

IF there's no DRM and you have a choice,
OGG & WMA PRO are about comparable in sound quality but arent widely supported
Then there's original WMA or AAC which are supported pretty well.(A lot of mp3 players will play these 2 formats, ipods wont do WMA though)
Then there's MP3, good quality, guranteed no drm and once you have high enough bitrate(i'd say 224kbps or up) it sounds almost identical to the other formats.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

DRM-less if possible (Amazon's MP3s come to mind). Best possible option would be to buy lossless formats like flac so you can retain CD quality.

 

[mellondust]

Originally posted by: Legendary
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...d=1203127762&sr=102-12

That?

Thats the one I am thinking of getting. But look at this. Crazy!

 

[randomlinh]

get it from amazonmp3. unless you're an audiophile. I got nothin for ya.

best bet is to download a single song and see if it works for you.. if so, grab the rest.

 

[will889]

Napster format.

Oh wait ... that was 1998?

J/K /laff