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Topic:
O/T - What do you use to buy/download music to your Android device
This thread has 18 replies. Displaying posts 1 through 15.
Post 1 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 00:25
goldenzrule
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My question is not about streaming but physically downloading music to be stored on your Android phone.  There are cloud based services that work well (Google Play Music, soon to be Youtube Music, Amazon Music, and of course services like Spotify...)  These services tend to lock you into the system you are playing music on.  You need to cast music to a system or have something with Spotify built in.  I have a few different systems in my own house as I have setup demo equipment from various companies.

The other thing is I don't listen to all that new music and do not benefit from paying monthly fees for a streaming service.  For my use, having music on my phone works best for me.  Currently, the easiest way for me to download music and get it on my phone, ironically, is to use iTunes to download, convert it to an .m4a file in iTunes, copy/paste it to a new folder for ease of finding it later, and then importing to my Android using Air Droid app.  It's not a terribly long process but requires me to get on the computer to download music.  All of the services I have tried that do allow you to download music, is more of a cached deal where it allows you to play music offline within their app, but not from outside of their app.  I was wondering if anyone has an easier method, or simply a method to do it all on the mobile device without having to run to the computer to download the songs.
Post 2 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 01:23
Mario
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Glad to see that you ruled out torrent, because that would probably be the easiest way.
Post 3 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 03:15
Brad Humphrey
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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.
Post 4 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 06:09
thecapnredfish
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I use iTunes, so I just transfer it from my pc to my android phone.
Post 5 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 08:03
Mac Burks (39)
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Pandora. I haven't purchased a song or had to make a playlist in years.
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OP | Post 6 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 08:04
goldenzrule
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On September 10, 2018 at 01:23, Mario said...
Glad to see that you ruled out torrent, because that would probably be the easiest way.

I don't mind paying for the music I want, just hoping for an easier or quicker way
OP | Post 7 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 08:05
goldenzrule
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On September 10, 2018 at 03:15, Brad Humphrey said...
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.

I'm not a snob. I don't have $10,000 speakers. I am perfectly content with the quality povided from iTunes, was just hoping for an easier method
OP | Post 8 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 08:07
goldenzrule
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On September 10, 2018 at 08:03, Mac Burks (39) said...
Pandora. I haven't purchased a song or had to make a playlist in years.

I use Pandora as well and it gets plenty of use. I like that it will introduce new music that I may like. However it can be challenging to get it to play specific songs I want. I prefer to purchase the songs I really like for that purpose.

Last edited by goldenzrule on September 10, 2018 09:07.
Post 9 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 08:15
Mario
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I had an account with some sort of mp3.com or one of those.
I vaguely remember that I had to deposit $10 or more and then I could purchase a song for something like $0.40 or less.
I haven't used it since my Russound SMS3 died about 8 years ago.
Post 10 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 14:34
rmalbers
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radio paradise app - live or you can download hours of their music for later offline playback, I like most of what they play but you can skip a song/s forward at any time. The RP app actually now support lossless playback if you're into that.
Post 11 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 14:46
Brad Humphrey
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On September 10, 2018 at 08:05, goldenzrule said...
I'm not a snob. I don't have $10,000 speakers. I am perfectly content with the quality povided from iTunes, was just hoping for an easier method

That isn't what I'm saying. You said you convert your iTunes purchases to .m4a before putting them on your phone. Which makes 100% no sense. This is like taking a 480p video and upscaling it to 4K on your display. It is STILL a 480p video. You are just creating a much larger file than needs to be [if the .m4a lossless file is much larger than the original iTunes .aac file, then you are wasting a lot of space].
I understand the need to convert, since there is nothing native on Android that will play .aac iTune files. But you might find a music player app for Android, that can - which would save a step in your process as well.

If not, you can just convert to a high bitrate .mp3 and it will take up less space than the .m4a files. [note: the .mp3 bitrate will need to be higher than the .aac bitrate to have the same quality - .mp3 isn't as efficient - 320kps should be more than enough, since I think iTunes is 192-256kps .aac]

Do a test. Take one of your .aac files from iTunes and convert a copy to .mp3 and a copy to .m4a Then look at the file size of the original .aac from itunes, the size of the .mp3, and the size of the .m4a. Then listen to each one and notice the sound quality between them 'should' be the same. Your sound quality can never be better than your lowest common denominator, in this case your original file.
OP | Post 12 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 19:46
goldenzrule
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Quality is fine. Space is not a factor. Convert to aac (m4a) and transfer to phone is quickest and easiest. Not looking for a "Better quality" suggestion but an easier, preferably buy/download music right on phone suggestion
Post 13 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 22:21
SOUND.SD
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Apple Music?
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OP | Post 14 made on Monday September 10, 2018 at 23:29
goldenzrule
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On September 10, 2018 at 22:21, SOUND.SD said...
Apple Music?

Monthly Subscription based, which is what I do not want.  Just want to buy a song here and there with ease.
Post 15 made on Tuesday September 11, 2018 at 02:35
Mario
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Personally, I think MP3s should be ¢10

If you figure that average CD is $10-15 and has 15-20 songs on it, that works out to be less than a dollar per song -- adjusted for the fact that some songs on CD are crap and few would actually buy.

If you also account for how much physical media cost to manufacture, store, distribute, stock, shelf and sell, you can easily see how much cheaper non-physical distribution model could be without affecting content creators.

Think about how many hundreds or thousands of songs you would download without a 2nd look if they were ¢10 each.
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