Post #539320 by Hakalugi on Sun, Jun 27, 2010 2:33 PM

On 2010-06-27 13:55, OnyaBirri wrote:
What's DRM? I almost never buy downloads. I'm still buying LPs.

What's the sonic advantage to downloading via Amazon vs. iTunes???

DRM is Digital Rights Management. It may be moot though as iTunes is supposedly phasing it out. Amazon has never used it.

Here's a quick definition I found:
DRM is an acronym for Digital Rights Management, a broad term used to describe a number of techniques for restricting the free use and transfer of digital content. DRM is used in a number of media, but is most commonly found in video and music files. There are many who argue that DRM is a misnomer, since it deals with use issues rather than the rights of the consumer. They therefore reinterpret DRM to stand for Digital Restrictions Management.

Sonically, there is no audible difference between iTunes and Amazon. iTunes uses AAC and Amazon uses MP3, both formats are encoded at 256 kbps. Both claim theirs is better than the other. However, MP3's are more convenient in that they can be played on more devices than AAC. For instance, I can burn a data cd full of MP3's and my car's cd player can play them back. The same car cd player will not play AAC files. Again though, if you're plugging in an iPod into your car audio system, then this would be another moot issue.

Nevertheless, I would love to hear an AAC file from iTunes vs. an MP3 from Amazon of the same recording, properly compared in a double blind test.