Thursday, October 11, 2007
In Rainbows: Rose-tinted downloads
Lots of newsprint and pixels have been dedicated to the new Radiohead album over the last week, the brave new "choose how much you pay to download" model. Don't be skeptical, I reckon they'll still make a fair whack on online sales, possibly more, even, than the slice the band could have expected under a traditional record contract with a major label.
I downloaded and listened to it today, with noise-cancelling earphones blotting out background noise (to the point where I was surprised when the plane landed). First reaction is: more of the same. I really love Kid A and Amnesiac, they're my favorite Radiohead albums, while I think OK Computer is only that, OK.
But here's the nerd take on the brave new move by music pioneers Radiohead: wot, only 160kbps? This is exactly half the bitrate I'm looking for.
Paranoid thought arises: Is this because I was cheap and didn't offer to actually pay money for the album? Could it be that the bitrate is proportionate to the amount you pledge? Nope. A check on indexes for various swap sites confirms that the album weighs in at just under 49MB. Download a torrent offering anything more and you're being fooled, baby.
So what now? Wait for the CD, that's what. By January I'll be more familiar with In Rainbows so once Radiohead have sorted out their new record label and managed to actually release a CD version, I'll snap it up, probably for ?12 or less. I'll then be deleting the 160kbps version - so why pay, when I'm simply getting an advance, review version that's only half retail quality?
And this is the thing about downloads. I'm hardly an audiophile but when I first bought the late, unlamented Real Jukebox in 1999, the MP3 standard was 96kbps. Today, ringtones are higher quality. I progressed slowly through 128, 160 and a flirtation with ogg, got totally confused by the EAC format (although I have plenty of disk space for it) and settled on 320kbps mp3, for now at least. I *honestly* can't hear the difference even when playing back an 320-encoded file through my ageing but excellent quality hi-fi separates and speakers.
Time to toss or sell my CDs? NO WAY. They're my shiny licenses to the music and the offline backup. As for the artwork, if I was really interested in that, I'd still buy LPs. It's all about the music, stoopid.
I downloaded and listened to it today, with noise-cancelling earphones blotting out background noise (to the point where I was surprised when the plane landed). First reaction is: more of the same. I really love Kid A and Amnesiac, they're my favorite Radiohead albums, while I think OK Computer is only that, OK.
But here's the nerd take on the brave new move by music pioneers Radiohead: wot, only 160kbps? This is exactly half the bitrate I'm looking for.
Paranoid thought arises: Is this because I was cheap and didn't offer to actually pay money for the album? Could it be that the bitrate is proportionate to the amount you pledge? Nope. A check on indexes for various swap sites confirms that the album weighs in at just under 49MB. Download a torrent offering anything more and you're being fooled, baby.
So what now? Wait for the CD, that's what. By January I'll be more familiar with In Rainbows so once Radiohead have sorted out their new record label and managed to actually release a CD version, I'll snap it up, probably for ?12 or less. I'll then be deleting the 160kbps version - so why pay, when I'm simply getting an advance, review version that's only half retail quality?
And this is the thing about downloads. I'm hardly an audiophile but when I first bought the late, unlamented Real Jukebox in 1999, the MP3 standard was 96kbps. Today, ringtones are higher quality. I progressed slowly through 128, 160 and a flirtation with ogg, got totally confused by the EAC format (although I have plenty of disk space for it) and settled on 320kbps mp3, for now at least. I *honestly* can't hear the difference even when playing back an 320-encoded file through my ageing but excellent quality hi-fi separates and speakers.
Time to toss or sell my CDs? NO WAY. They're my shiny licenses to the music and the offline backup. As for the artwork, if I was really interested in that, I'd still buy LPs. It's all about the music, stoopid.
# posted by Nesjo : 21:49
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