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For those who purchase lossless music online, which store(s) do you use and why?


Tydirium

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Presto? Qobuz? 7digital? I have some experience with all three (and a few others), but I'd be curious to know which you prefer, and any pros/cons. In the past I've mainly used Presto for classical stuff, and Qobuz for most everything else. Debating whether or not to just switch over to Qobuz completely.

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I've used Qobuz and HDtracks. No real preference; it's just a matter of availability and cost. I can't say that I've used Presto, but I've been thinking of buying more classical music, so I very well may check it out.

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I use the one which offers the most favourable price. But I tend to go with Qobuz which, while not the cheapest, offers good selection of high-resolution options. I sort of can live with digital-only option if it offers superior quality to the physical format.

 

Karol

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2 minutes ago, MaxTheHouseelf said:

Qobuz or 7Digital, depending on price.

 

This.

 

Amazon digigtal as a fallback if neither of them has something I want. Some smaller scores/albums are on Bandcamp, which is my top preference.

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2 minutes ago, Holko said:

Presto, Hdtracks, Highresaudio, sometimes Bandcamp.

On HDtracks a lot of albums are geoblocked for me. I also know Highresaudio, but I think I never bought from them, they have a smaller catalogue than Qobuz/7Digital I think.

 

3 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

 

This.

 

Amazon digigtal as a fallback if neither of them has something I want. Some smaller scores/albums are on Bandcamp, which is my top preference.

Right, Bandcamp is really nice and should be the cheapest of them, but of course very few of the big releases are available there, unfortunately.

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1 minute ago, MaxTheHouseelf said:

. I also know Highresaudio, but I think I never bought from them, they have a smaller catalogue than Qobuz/7Digital I think.

I only found them because I couldn't find certain things anywhere else!

Oh and of course both Quobuz and 7digital are inaccessible here.

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I can really recommend eclassical.com for classical music. They charge very reasonable and per second, not per disc, and they offer a lot of high rez, even often in 5.1 Multichannel. Each day they have one recording on half price which allowed me to discover a lot of music I would never have considered buying full price.

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7 minutes ago, Holko said:

I only found them because I couldn't find certain things anywhere else!

Oh and of course both Quobuz and 7digital are inaccessible here.

Hmm that's interesting. Maybe I should check there more regularly as well.

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17 hours ago, Datameister said:

I've used Qobuz and HDtracks. No real preference; it's just a matter of availability and cost. I can't say that I've used Presto, but I've been thinking of buying more classical music, so I very well may check it out.

 

I must admit that Presto is great for classical. The site is very easy to navigate, and it is easy to search for recordings of specific works, or that are in a specific series.

 

17 hours ago, Counterparts said:

7Digital

 

My only gripe with 7Digital is that a fair number of the albums are only offered in MP3, not FLAC—even though those same albums are offered in FLAC on other sites. Doesn't make much sense to me.

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I prefer Qobuz because you can select between multiple formats (such as FLAC or WAV) without having to convert them later if you want them in a different format. 7Digital I use whenever Qobuz doesn't have what I'm looking for, but you're limited to FLAC-only on lossless downloads. Either one I would recommend though. HDTracks is basically the same as Qobuz, but doesn't have nearly as many releases, plus they make you install a client in order to download your music, whereas Qobuz you just download a ZIP file.

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A bit of a tangential question, but does anybody know why the track times can differ so much for a single release, from store to store? How does releasing an album work, anyways; does the label send the same files to all the different services/stores (and then those services add/remove time at the end of tracks?), or do some services get a different set of files than others? As an example, take the first 5 tracks from this album, German Opera Arias by Matthias Goerne from 2000:

 

CD

1. 2:40

2. 2:30

3. 3:50

4. 4:42

5. 2:30

 

Apple Music/iTunes

1. 2:47

2. 2:35

3. 3:55

4. 4:47

5. 2:35

 

Qobuz

1. 2:46

2. 2:34

3. 3:54

4. 4:46

5. 2:34

 

Amazon

1. 2:43

2. 2:31

3. 3:51

4. 4:43

5. 2:32

 

Presto

1. 2:43

2. 2:31

3. 3:50

4. 4:42

5. 2:31

 

Obviously, the CD listed timings may be approximate and are not necessarily the accurate lengths of the tracks, but you'll notice that the timings between Apple and Qobuz are more or less the same (probably the same files with some rounding-up or rounding-down involved in the numbers), whereas the timings between Amazon and Presto are also more or less the same—albeit each about 3 or 4 seconds shorter than the Apple/Qobuz offerings... It's almost like there were two separate sets of files sent out by the label. Just trying to figure out if anybody knows what the cause of this is, and which is preferable.

 

EDIT: Just checked another album and the track times were virtually the same across all those services. So it's not like what I described above applies to every album, but I'm still not sure what the explanation is.

 

13 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

I prefer Qobuz because you can select between multiple formats (such as FLAC or WAV) without having to convert them later if you want them in a different format. 7Digital I use whenever Qobuz doesn't have what I'm looking for, but you're limited to FLAC-only on lossless downloads. Either one I would recommend though. HDTracks is basically the same as Qobuz, but doesn't have nearly as many releases, plus they make you install a client in order to download your music, whereas Qobuz you just download a ZIP file.

 

Yep, wanted to like HDTracks but there just wasn't a large enough catalogue for me.

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11 hours ago, ManofDestiny said:

OTOTOY for Japan music.

I've been looking for a Japan-centric retailer for ages! Thank you for bringing this up.

 

I like both Presto and Qobuz, but there are pros and cons either way. In no particular order:

  • Qobuz can have a wider selection, but sometimes the gates are thrown wide open. If I search up "Joe Hisaishi," Presto pretty much turns up nothing, but Qobuz surfaces every cover artist ("music box," "relaxing piano ver.") under the sun. This is actually where external search engines seem to shine a bit. I actually had to email a Japanese distributor to cross-check if someone was illicitly selling music on their behalf, and it seems they talked to Qobuz, because the album in question disappeared after a bit.
  • I like Presto's overall site design a lot better. I've had the most bizarre authentication issues with Qobuz for ages, to the point where I never leave "Remember Me" checked and opt to re-enter my password every time I want to buy something.
  • Qobuz's "download as a tarball" seems to be permaborked for albums over a certain size. When I purchased Leonard Bernstein's Harvard talks off Qobuz, for example, I spent the better part of an evening on the "download individual tracks" page alternating "tab" and "enter" (luckily, this is just enough to focus each "download track" button in turn).
  • Both distributors are liable to be hit by distributor issues, and customer service is unlkely to fix them for you. Sir Colin Davis' "Berlioz Odyssey" has the same defect on both Qobuz and Presto in that No. 8 of "Benvenuto Cellini" ("Amis, Avant...") goes completely silent at the 20s mark. Seriously, see for yourself on Presto or on Qobuz. Though do note that apparently Qobuz starts their sample seeked at least 20s into the piece, so actually the sample is totally silent :)
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