For what you describe, I always buy the CD (used) and then import it in a lossless format (.m4a). You can find most CDs for pretty cheap used online.
This assures me the best sound quality. And I use a program to groom the metadata, to make sure the cover art and data is correct for each album/track.

Question: Is iTunes selling lossless versions of the music now? I don't think they are, which means you converting a low quality download to .m4a is really silly. Do you not realize?


Also, I have purchased a few albums from HDtracks. Not really a good selection IMHO. And it is kind of difficult to justify the price of hires audio, when you need some serious gear to hear the difference + be sitting down and really paying attention. If you just having music playing to listen to while you are doing something else (99% of the time for most people), then it is kind of a waste. CD quality is usually good enough (for me). Most people are happy with crappy 128Kbps - I couldn't listen to that! It's almost like nails on chalk board to me.