So where is the place of choice these days? I've not bothered since the days of Napster so I'm a little out of the loop! I'm after;

*Legal
*Cheap
*No DRM
*High quality
*Excellent selection

Suggestions? I don't have an iPod if that makes a difference.

eMusic is good, Datz Music Lounge is good if you have the patience.

Amazon, these days, sells DRM-free MP3s.

CDBaby.com and Amiestreet.com for great indie stuff.

Hadn't checked Amazon, got a good selection for £3 an album. Thanks Tony

The only method I know to hit all of your marks is to buy CDs and rip them yourself. Preferably buying them used locally or from eBay to make sure the "cheap" requirement stays as low as possible (to offset the effort of ripping).

If you don't care so much about Cheap, then Amazon, as Tony mentioned, probably has the best selection of Non-DRM tracks. iTunes has many and rumors speculate they'll have the majority of studios signed on for DRMless sales very soon.

I agree with Bruno, if you have the time, I still think a physical CD is the best way to go. And you get an automatic free backup (the CD!) with every purchase!

The only time I would buy an mp3 album would be if it were say £3 and the CD was £10 then I can see the sense.

Cheers

Cris.

And if they offered them in a file format that didn't require re-encoding before I could copy them to my non-apple devices, that would be even more awesome.

Actually, the answer (IMO) to both avenues is Amazon. My wife buys music in digital form, and I got her away from iTunes because she found out she couldn't share her music with me (I don't listen on my computer, just in the car, and I have no iPod).

For myself, however, I buy from the Amazon Marketplace. Even with high shipping costs from each vendor I buy a CD from, I can still come out ahead of any local used record/CD store, and the selection can't be beat. I've found albums on there that I've searched for for years, and I'll find them for $3. As long as it's usually in "Good" condition, it's still a rip-able disc, and I get the artwork to boot.

They do. AAC, aka MPEG 4 Part 3.

Just a shame that the newer MPEG audio formats never were added to the Rio line of products. I've got MS products, Sony products, and others around the house that support it without any issues.

I don't see Apple backing down to an earlier MPEG standard in their store anytime in the future.

I said *MY* non-apple devices.

We tried, but it was something like $0.50 extra patent license fee to ship AAC (on top of any costs involved in licensing a decoder)... so that idea didn't fly. ISTR we even had it working in some internal builds at one point...

Hugo

I was curious to see the various cost differences between MP3, AAC, and WMA. It looks like this doc matches what you say for AAC, and also has the WMA and MP3 prices in it.

Centrafuse is doing the same thing currently, where they don't build in AAC support. What they did do (since they run on Windows and x86) is to point people to a free for non commercial use decoder DLL that can be added in.

For everything else that I deal with, it seems the need to add MPEG4 video probably helped the cause to add the audio part.

Just to update this. Thanks for all the suggestions. Datz looked the most promising but lacked several labels that I'd be interested in and I doubt I would have got my money's worth. Although the sound quality from reviews was awesome I couldn't justify sinking £99 into it.

eMusic I was less impressed with. I paid for a month's access without checking the availability of songs (d'oh). It cost me very little though but I doubt I'll get much of anything. It seems to be filled with bizarre versions of songs that almost sound like the original but not quite (I can't explain it) and acoustic versions of Beatles songs. Poor.

Best by a mile was Amazon. So far they've got everything I've searched for. If they upped the quality to 320kbps instead of the 256kbps it'd be even better.

I like eMusic because it's got a lot of Indie stuff on it.