[silence] John Cage on iTunes

[Zac Bond]

There are some Cage items available on eMusic as well.  I am more 
comfortable with eMusic because I am more familiar with MP3 and the 
encoders and bitrates that produce quality tracks and transparent 
compression, whereas I am very skeptical of proprietary formats.

I wonder if the niche market CD labels out there could survive simply by 
burning CD-R's for customers containing lossless compressed files of 
their music.  Nothing gets me riled up more than contacting a record 
label and hearing something is "out of stock."   Stock is meaningless 
when nearly costless distribution is available.

-Zac Bond

Andrew Farrell wrote:
> Itunes sound quality is not the best, definitely.  I haave committed myself to the digital revolution completely when it comes to music and I use Itunes as a last resort.  A site that I patronize much more is mp3stor.com.  I haven't actually searched for Cage on there and I can't search it now because of my office' firewall but I bet they have a lot.  I actually recall seeing one of Steffan Schleiermacher's recordings on there.  mp3stor is great because they charge  by kbps.  An example; Last night I purchased Optometry by DJ Spooky (highly suggested if you like a little musique concrete in your jazz).  They offer 2 versions of the album for download.  One is at 190 kbps (CD quality) that cost $2.50, another version 250 kbps for $3.50.  When I play stuff I get from mp3stor next to an Itunes purchase the difference is quite obvious.  And by the way, the price I quoted was not wrong.  Albums cost an average of $1.70-$2.00, not the 10 bucks at ITunes.  They also don't do lame
 st
>  uff like make one track on an album available only if you purchase the whole album.  AND no DRM encryption!  I think I have spent a total of about $50 at mp3stor and probably purchased the equivalent of about 30 albums...no joke.  Avoid ITunes, it's a scam.  It is, for some stuff however, the only game in town.
>>
>> i wish that itunes and others would offer options for quality.
>>
>> i really dont like 128 kbps mp4 / m4a files on itunes.
>> i think they sound pretty lousy.
>> id much rather have a cd. (in fact, i just ordered the arpaviva cage  
>> cd and the 2 newer megadisc cage cds)
>>
>> i think the proliferation of mp3s and digitally compressed music has  
>> compromised sound quality of music a lot.
>> id love to see lossless media or uncompressed audio available for  
>> downloading in more places.
>>
>> i imagine cage wouldve been pretty excited about the internet. (maybe  
>> it was already in its public infancy around the time he died?)
>> but maybe not as excited about so much recorded music floating around  
>> on it.
>>
>> -greg