iTunes store downloads sound like poo

[sluggish]

I bought a few downloads for my wife's ipod, and they just sound bad. They say the AAC format is supposed to sound better than MP3, but it's still compressed digital media, and I think all they've done is turn a sow's ear into another sow's ear. Have I just lucked into bad files, or do they all suck? Or is there a source to purchase lossless files from?

[Alex_UK]

Can't say about downloads, but ripped CDs to AAC are definitely better than ripped MP3s in my opinion, bit rate for bit rate. Still not as good as lossless, of course, but for ipod/back ground music I don't mind.

[roob]

Its still a compressed format and if its some crappy overcompressed pop tune then it could be a double wammy.

[dave2010]

I've had some pretty good downloads which have been quite hard to tell from the CDs. If the CDs aren't good then you can't expect the downloads to be better. I feel sure that sometimes we are blaming the digital compression when in fact the original CD wasn't great to start with. However things can go wrong. It's perhaps quite possible, as roob has prompted me to think, that if the original isn't good, then it's more likely that the compressed form will have problems. For example, if there's distortion in the original this may contain a lot of unwanted high frequencies. If these aren't filtered out in the compression, it may be that they can be mapped back into the audible range and cause additional earache.

A slightly related problem is when transcoding a recording which is already digitally compressed. It's quite possible that different compressioin techniques will use different methods, and transcoding can make a real mess of things. The Ogg-Vorbis instructions are very explicit about that for recoding MP3s as Vorbis files.

You might find that downloads from these places do better - but not sure what kind of music you are after - https://www.hdtracks.com/
http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html

It'd be interesting to know of more decent download sites. I've used iTunes, Amazon, HMV, emusic, napster and classical.com, as well as some sites for older recordings such as this one - http://themusicparlour.blogspot.com/ and there are also a few other archive sites - but again for older recordings. I'll try to find the links.

I don't have any major complaints with most of the downloads I've had. Some have been fairly ropey, but I think the originals weren't great either, but the music was worth hearing. Some have also had the merit of being free.

Some people use download sites which offer tracks at ridiculously low prices. Often these are from Russia or other Eastern European countries, and the copyright and other issues are suspect. I know people who've been satisfied by these, but the recommendation is never to use a credit card you value. If you go near any of those sites, use a prepaid card, such as Virgin. I have friends who have obtained prepaid credit cards specifically to download from these sites, and they haven't complained yet.

[dave2010]

Here is one archive of older recordings - http://europarchive.org/