What is that keeps the major labels from allowing FLAC stores to sell their stuff? One might assume it's lack of DRM support in FLAC, but these labels have already agreed to let their music be sold DRM-free on Amazon as 256 kbps MP3s. If the labels can do that, then why can't they sell their stuff DRM-free as FLAC files? FLAC files generated from the WAV data on a CD is 100% lossless, but 256K MP3s are also very nearly CD quality, so what gives?

Lossy audio is lossy. That probable eases some concerns about piracy.
Demand. I doubt there's all that much demand for lossless audio from the masses. There are lossless stores around, but for the most part the ones I've come across are for classical (which is more likely to overlap the audiophile market) or single bands (like The Barenaked Ladies).

Most likely bandwidth, or more specifically, transfer. The average bit rate of my current FLAC collection is 885kbps. If we assume that the average bit rate of VBR '256kbps' MP3 is about 245kbps, then the FLAC for a given track (relative to the averages of my collection only) will be around 3.5 times larger than the MP3. It will thusly take users 3.5 times longer to download the FLAC, corresponding to what is mostly likely more simultaneous users and a higher server load.

There are likely other reasons, of course.

Most people wouldn't know what to do with flac. They'd wonder why it took so long to download and it sounds no better than an mp3.

Depending on the bitrate, of course...

The stores listed here sell music at 128kbps at least. They wouldn't be making money if the general public found that insufficient.

The general public is not accustomed to high-quality sound.

<snip>

Define "high-quality." More correctly, the general public finds that 128kbps music to be transparent enough for their use, so to them, they are as "high quality" as whatever other source they used to use.

Most legal download service is moving above 128kbps anyway. iTunes plus uses 256kbps AAC. Amazon MP3 uses Lame VBR (presumably -V 2).

For me, "high quality" means a brilliant sound of even complicated tracks (you know... progressive stuff) on any audio equipment.

and to the general public, that could be a 128kbps compressed music, even with ABX test. Just saying. I don't think a can ABX a "brilliant" sound....

I have been asking myself the same question for a few years now and came to the conclusion that there just aren't any audiophile downloads. They are probably avoid it as a way to curb piracy as was mentioned earlier, but with the exception of the small audiophile community out there it appears that nobody really cares very much. Trust me I absolutely agree with you it would be a better world if they just offered lossless downloads so you were free to encode any which way you like for your portable, home collection, etc.

-V 0 actually. Also LAME 256kb/s CBR, both stereo and JS. And Fraunhofer 256kb/s CBR.

Forget lossy online music. Buy CDs. Take 'em to whatever format you want.

I don't understand about there not being much demand for it. If a person went to a record store and had the choice between buying a CD for an artist vs. a cassette tape (analog), most people would buy the CD.

It makes sense to prefer digital downloads (even in MP3 format) to CDs simply because people like to buy single tunes vs. whole albums, and also music files are portable, and you don't have to leave home to get it.

However, if you can get all that PLUS the quality of a lossless audio file, then I don't see why people wouldn't want it. There would be an increased download time vs. 256k MP3, but most of the top music stores these days have their servers hosted on the backbone, so even a 20 MB file would download in less than a minute w/most broadband connections, i. e. w/3 Mbps down, 20*2^20*8/3e6 = 56 sec.

The dload time WOULD be an issue if the server was hosted on maybe a T-class or low-tier connection, but stores shouldn't need to do that--they can host on the backbone (i. e. Level 3, Saavis), pay the huge hosting fees and still make a profit, and they can adjust the needed upload allocation w/how much music is being downloaded from their site.

Even if this strategy incurs a net $$ loss for maybe the first 1-2 years in business, should still be worth it.

The BIG issue cannot be the download time, then. Physical memory on the music players is also not an issue since iRiver, Cowon, etc. have lots of RAM (1-4 GB), i. e. can hold 50-200 FLACs.

And the other issue, the lack of support for FLAC in players, isn't an issue either since conversion can easily be done.

IMHO, the only issue left is the DRM, which is odd because all four labels are giving away their stuff DRM-free on Amazon at 256k VBR, which is SUPPOSEDLY just as good as CD-quality. But, of course, FLAC IS CD quality, so the labels have an excuse to throw a fit over that, because they don't want their FLACs floating all over the place on P2P networks.

So then, we're down to putting DRM in FLAC, which is impossible, except to add a watermark into FLAC, which, as far as I know, can't be done without altering its sound.

The reason being is that most people are perfectly happy with lossy music. I remember helping one guy at work rip his CDs. He was a normal iTunes user and rarely ever bought a CD but he would spend about $40 a month in the iTunes Store. Anyway, I told him that it would be best if he ripped his CDs to a lossless archive and then transcoded those files down to lossy for portable use. He started ripping to FLAC and then saw that a 4 minute song came out to about 32MB in size. Even though he had a 1TB hard drive in his desktop, he still didn't like the idea of having lossless files. He then explained to me that he doesn't want lossless as:
1. He will never listen to them.
2. He will only listen to the lossy files.
3. He can't think of anything that he would do with the lossless files.
4. He doesn't see himself transcoding to a new lossy/lossless format in the future.

I explained the flaws with his arguments but he just wouldn't hear it. So the general public are perfectly happy with lossy files. I don't know if they truly understand the benefits of having a lossless archive of their music. I have a lossless backup of my CDs that I never listen to but I have them just in case I need to transcode (they came in real handy on the 4th of July whenever Lame 3.98 was released). I still use my lossy files for everything but I love having a lossless backup.

Either way, I wouldn't expect a mainstream lossless store to open up anytime soon. There is that one that uses DRM'ed WMA lossless files but I think that is about it. If anything, I expect that Apple will lead the way when the time comes as they were one of the first major stores to start offering DRM-free lossy files. Then Microsoft and Amazon followed shortly after.

Which one?? Fairuse4WM could come in real handy...

I don't remember what it is called but they charge about $15 for an entire album, I think that is why I forgot their name so quickly. I believe that the discussion of the software you mentioned (there is also an iTunes Store equivalent) is not allowed on these boards. Doesn't it illegally use reverse engineered Microsoft code? I know that iLounge shuts down any discussion of the iTunes Store equivalent DRM removal tool. I do know that we can talk about TuneBite as it simply plays back the files and records the stream through the soundcard.

why they don't sell flac:
1. but how do i play it on my ipod?
reponse: you should have bought a good digital audio player
2. not a big enough market

why there is not a big enough market:
1. file size is too large (this reason is becoming irrelevant more and more)

...and now for the ULTRA SEKRET REASON
2. other people dont care as much about music as people from an audiophile board

Maybe, maybe not - But then I don't understand why things like TuneBite is allowed. The legalness of it's use depends on the country one resides in.

It's totally irrlevant now--I mean, w/a 32 GB player, you can fit more than 1000 FLACs, or 500 WAVs.

But the storage size issue brings up another important question: how many tunes does the average Joe want on his player at a time?



True, but people from MIT, Berkeley, Hydrogen Audio, etc., i. e. people IN THE KNOW care, and surely those in the know have some influence.

people seem to think its a *good idea* to put every single article of music they own on their failpods. these are the same people that see no need to keep it backed up on a computer.

32gb players are still expensive and HUEG, plus "ipods dont play that flac thing"

consumers dont care and they have little reason to, they are "casual listeners" at best. if more people actually "listened" to music, top40 would be a whole new thing.

lossless is a niche, but eventually someone big will wake up and realize they're leaving money on the table. the raw storage cost of a 5 minute FLAC track even at 1000kbps is half a cent and falling. hosting and bandwidth add to that but not much. now look at the premium FLAC carries for all the people selling FLAC next to lossy now; it's 20-35%. those people are not losing money just to prop up a format, they are selling FLAC because it's a high margin niche that makes money.

I don't think DRM is holding things back for the big guys either; DRM on audio is dying and will soon be dead. as for which format the first big guy will offer, apple may blunder and use apple lossless, but aside from that, whoever wants to make the most money on that niche will offer FLAC.

It is true that many people like to carry around every piece of music that they have whether they listen to it or not. I can also see why you don't like iPods (they are popular, easy to use, on every store shelf, and you tend to go with something less popular for the sake of it and want something with better output quality and more features) but I don't see what this thread has to do with slamming iPods. I could see posting negative stuff about them in a thread where someone asked about iPods but this is not the case.

As for 32GB players aren't really that expensive as Creative's goes for $299. One can also easily pick up a 160GB hard drive based player for $300. 32GB players also aren't big at all as the Zen is 3.26" x 2.16" x 0.44". Now, if you consider that to be big then slamming iPods is the least of your concerns.

I agree with your comments here and there though and think that you are right about the general consumer audio population not really caring and are filed more under casual listeners.




Last time I checked (about one year ago), TuneBite records the audio stream through your sound card and that is technically a legal method of recording DRMed music. TuneBite plays the music back at a really high speed, slows it down, and then spits out a AAC/mp3/WMA file that doesn't contain DRM. This method is lossy though. FairUse, on the other hand, uses reverse engineered Microsoft code (they didn't use it legally) to losslessly crack the DRM and remove it. The iTunes equivalent software would use iTunes to crack the DRM through some loophole up to iTunes version 7.5. It too is a lossless method. It is legal for one to record the song being played through the sound card or burn it to an audio CD and rip it, both methods being lossy. It is illegal to crack the code though and use lossless methods of removing the DRM in which you end up with lossy files (I hope that makes sense).

Edit: spelling.

I'd qualify this statement. For purchased DRM content (content you are allowed to burn, for example), no problem... but for rental content (subscription music, etc.), it'll be against the terms of service and can be considered illegal (& unethical) for obvious reasons. (It isn't content you are allowed to "keep.")

Products like "noteburner", which does automated conversion/encoding for you using "virtual CD" solutions, are a bit more legitimate, in my opinion.

MusicGiants was the 'mainstream' high-def online music store mentioned earlier: http://www.musicgiants.com The Lossless high-def files are burnable, and as such... can be converted without Loss to other formats. And, even easier, some of their content is unprotected now.

There is a problem with this argument, though. The same could be said about uncompressed PCM. If you (as a content provider) have the extra storage and bandwidth to go from lossy to FLAC, you probably have the extra storage to go from lossy to WAV. Everyone can play WAV. Not everyone can play FLAC. Heck, there isn't really a good FLAC directshow filter for Windows.

I am a fan of FLAC. But storage/bandwidth alone aren't slam-dunk arguments for FLAC when WAV is not that much more, considering you (as the content provider) used to do lossy at far less storage/bandwidth.

ipods are one of the major reasons flac isnt popular. on a music forum i go to flac often comes up and people wont touch it because it wont play on an ipod. this is apple's choice, which i respect (not for making this choice but their freedom to make it), it is one of many in a history riddled with lock-in. i would only blame consumers for continuing buying the products.

but seriously...

ipods are easy to use?

if you discount the fact that many music players can be loaded via copy+paste but ipods require software installation, importing of a music library then you would be correct

as far as hating ipods go, i'm glad they exist, when the general population dwells in mediocrity i'm at an advantage.

Wow dude, you sound like sour grapes.

Your diatribe is so reminiscent of Bourne I had to check your IP address.

I think a major reason is not the popularity of the ipod but the effectiveness of mp3. It works with everything. It's transparent to most people at 128kbps. It doesn't take that much space.

If amazon and apple would start selling only flacs, most people would transcode to mp3 and delete the flacs. Maintaining a lossy and lossless library is just too much of a hassle for most folks, what with other bigger hassles in life: work, gas prices, etc.

As much as I'd love to have an online lossless music store, I rather have one that sells cheap, non-drm'ed lossy, maybe $5 per album.

That was basically my point and why I still don't understand the iPod bashing especially since iPods really have nothing to do with this discussion other than their lack of playing FLAC files (big deal, transcode to ALAC if need be).



That is what I was thinking. That is fine as I am happy using my 16GB iPod touch with OS 2.0 and all its added features.

When using iTunes with an iPod, you have to keep a copy of your iPod music library on some other storage device.

Using floola or other third-party iPod management tools is a different thing, though ... but people using third-party tools are often the more experienced users anyway so your point of iPods not being fail-safe is kinda moot ... especially when almost every other HDD DAP uses the very same Toshiba HDD's Apple puts in their devices ...

I think it's in a way because most of the people are used to mp3. Since the bandwidth is very cheap in our era, there must be something else than bandwidth limitations.

However, there are a lot of music stores that are offering flac, including the really HQ FLAC(Even 24 bit / 176.4 KHz):

http://www.itrax.com/

http://www.beatport.com/

http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/

http://mgn.musicgiants.com/

http://www.hdtracks.com/

http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html

http://www.referencerecordings.com/

http://www.alphabasic.com/index2.htm

http://www.atorecords.com/

http://www.boomkat.com/

http://www.burningshed.com/

http://app1.dsbd.net/dsb/index.jsp

http://www.digital-tunes.net/

http://www.experimedia.net/

http://www.ektoplazm.com/section/free-music/

http://fastatmosphere.com/

http://flink.livedownloads.com/home.asp

http://www.frettunes.com/index.php

https://indietorrent.org/v1/

http://innersong.com/

http://magnatune.com/

http://www.mergerecords.com/store/

http://www.mindawn.com/

http://morganleahrecords.com/

https://www.munckmusic.com/wms/index.html

http://musicishere.com/

http://stores.musictoday.com/store/default.asp

http://www.paperecordings.com/

http://www.psymbolic.com/unlock.html?key=/shop/music/

http://www.thephiladelphiaorchestra.com/

http://www.globalsound.si.edu/

http://www.somarecords.com/shop/

http://www.opsound.org/

http://www.zunior.com/

Have fun

from lossy->FLAC there are the added benefits of lossless. from FLAC->WAV the only added benefit is that it can be played on an ipod and some other portables that support WAV but not FLAC.

but the downsides outweight it: larger size for no real benefit, poor tag support, no error detection or recovery. that's why the sites that sell lossy and lossless mostly have at least MP3 and FLAC. those people have already gone through all these tradeoffs. and AFAIK nobody is selling apple lossless despite the dominance of ipods.


oh, I wasn't saying "sell only FLAC", FLAC should be the lossless addition to a lossy offering as the high margin, money-making alternative.

Oh absolutely. I wasn't arguing against FLAC over WAV, just that I don't think storage + bandwidth alone would convince a content provider to use FLAC over WAV. The excellent tag support in FLAC would be a good place to start if someone was arguing for WAV.

In my opinion market domination is the biggest reason.

Why is Windows the biggest OS? Why is IE the biggest browser? Why did VHS beat Betamax? Why do Ipods command a 89% market share of the DAP market?

I don't think it has anything to do with quality or flash storage capacity or servers or download times. It is hitting the market first and hitting it hardest with the most corporate power. If you have to choose between first and hardest, pick hardest. Just ask Netscape.

BTW, I've always wondered how the large digital media download ecommerce sites handle their load. According to MusicBrainz stats, there are nearly 400,000 artists with 600,000 albums for sale. Say your average CD is 500MB (probably a bit more) that comes out to 300 TB of wav files, not counting the tags and the business.

I wonder what that size server farm would cost to build and maintain?

I do think the iPod's popularity--having 70% of the player market share (coupled with its lack of support for FLAC) is a major hindrance to opening up a major label FLAC store, i. e. if someone did, Apple would make the same deals w/the labels and start selling ALACs, then the FLAC store would be ousted from the market.

One could make the argument that hardware vendors (i. e. for hifi stereo systems) would always opt for FLAC support over ALAC since FLAC has no license requirements, but then, look at how many vendors have opted for OGG support over MP3?

I know it's strange isn't?. They will claim the lack of Vorbis support is, because it's not a "standard", but if you use that rational neither is FLAC. I am always very confused by this.

I think until WMP or itunes comes with FLAC support, there's no point in a FLAC store since a good majority of the world uses these for music and not something like foobar or winamp. Codec packs aren't viable either. Tried one and it couldn't read a FLAC tag properly even though it could play the file.

What could happen is wma lossless or ALAC without drm, and since lossless is lossless, what's the loss if you can just convert the files?

There is no point to offering songs in FLAC, because nobody cares. I am 99% sure that FLAC will never be the default offering of any major online music store and I am 75% sure that FLAC will not be an additional option in any of major online music store anytime soon.

I've been ripping all my physical CDs to FLAC because I like the idea of having a perfect copy of them, but then I transcode the FLACs into 160 kbit AAC's for my computers and 64 kbit HE-AAC for my Sony Walkman phone.

And the FLACs? They just live a lonely existence on an external harddrive, just like my physical CDs do on the shelf in the corner.

But Sinny, why aren't you listening to your FLACs on your computer at least?

Oh, because to me, the 160 kbit M4A/AACs encoded with Nero Digital are perfectly utterly completely unquestionably transparent, which means that I have nothing to gain. On the con side, it will make backups more time and space consuming, because right now I do not backup my FLACs, as I already have an additional copy of those - my CD's!

Integrating the FLACs into daily playback will clutter my media library, because adding both my normal and my lossless folder to the watchlist will mean a plethora of duplicates. Of course I could just delete all the lossy duplicates, but then I would have to convert to a different format everytime I want to send a song to someone (because 'someone', as another poster correctly pointed out, doesn't know what to do with FLACs). Removing my lossy copies also means I will have to make transcodings every time I want to open songs in software or hardware that doesn't support FLAC, but instance I have media sharing on my network, but my PS3 does not give a shit about FLACs.

So what does all this have to do with online music stores?

Well, look at the issues I have with FLAC. These are not issues when dealing with MP3 files and only minor issues when dealing AAC files. If only a select few of your customers can distinguish between a high quality lossy file and a lossless file, why bother to roll out a format that is relatively poorly supported, quadruples the load on your server and the download time for the customer, reduces his/hers portable music player capacity to a fraction of the previous (measured in minutes) and quadruples the transfer in any subsequent actions the customer may choose to apply to the files?

I think both Amazon and Apple are making a commendable compromise in regards to quality, by offering MP3 and AAC encoded at 256 kbit, because let's face it - even most of us people here have severe problems distinguishing normal music (not test samples) at these bitrates. Except for transcoding and editing, I do not regard Amazons or Apples offerings as "inferior" to CD's, but as perceptually identical and how many of us really needs to transcode the files, when they are universally or very widely supported?

I'm guilty of skimming, but it seems that few people (if any) have mentioned the royalties associated with MP3s.

John Q. Public doesn't realize that Fraunhofer snookers 2% of each MP3 file sale (in a Fraun-perfect world, anyway). It seems that 2% of each SALE (assuming all files are MP3s) is more than enough to pay for a FLAC (or better) equivalent, with respect to storage and bandwidth costs.

Thoughts?

the big labels control the music. they want the money the itunes store is making. all they have to do is drop the drm fantasy, start competing head-on with apple, and offering FLAC in addition to lossy (like practically every other store is doing as I mentioned above), but not allowing itunes to sell lossless. FLAC support in itunes with happen pretty quickly after a move like that.

apple still has the ipod and the easy vertical integration. they can fend off the above move by adopting FLAC sooner, get the ball rolling with their small-label tracks, tap into the trend that already exists with FLAC (again see my prev post), and improve their negotiating position. the longer they wait the harder it's going to be.


then how do you explain all the stores selling FLAC now?

Yes, in a Fraunhofer perfect world. In reality the license expenses are probably neglible. The patent situation remains unclear and there are different companies claiming to hold different mp3-related patents in different countries. In reality, I think mp3 patents are ignored. It's quite a heavy task for Fraunhofer to monitor every mp3 file published on the net and track down its sale figures.