Music question: Rhapsody, emusic, itunes, amazon.com?

[Pryderi]

which one would you recommend, and why?

[fishwax]

1. I liked emusic a lot when I subscribed

I had subscriptions several years ago, and I liked emusic because I preferred the subscription format over the pay-per-song format, since it wound up being much, much cheaper for me. I also like the fact that what I could get from emusic was DRM free.

Another advantage of the subscription format, aside from being cheaper per song, was that, since the number of downloads expired at the end of each month, it gave me incentive to check out new stuff (so as not to lose any downloads after getting my priority tracks). I discovered a lot of good music through emusic over the years.

The drawback, for me, was that it was time consuming, since I had to make sure to remember each month and get all my downloads each month. But overall I loved it.

[Touchdown]

2. Amazon & iTunes are basically the same.

Usually 99¢ a song you get to keep forever. iTunes uses AAC format, which used to be only iPod compatible, but more media players play it as well now days. Amazon is a higher bitrate MP3 that sounds just as good as AAC, and reportedly better than most other DLs out there. Both used to have DRM copy protection, but not any more. I've bought from both and Amazon is good for iPods too.

I think Rhapsody is a monthly fee for unlimited downloads, but you never own them. I heard they take some away after a time. Don't know about eMusic. Never used them.

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. Soundike.com

Nearly every song you've ever heard for $.15 each.

[Pryderi]

4. Cool! Thanks!

[hobbit709]

5. Avoid iTunes

[Bunny]

6. I guess it would depend on what you want to use it for.

I have a Rhapsody To Go subscription and I use it to upload songs for my MP3 player. When it comes to doing that, it's really easy and works fine. I have that same library on my computers both at home and at work, so I can listen to my songs anywhere.

However, I recently tried to use the Rhapsody music store to purchase songs to download and burn to a CD, and it was a time-consuming pain in the ass that ultimately was unsuccessful. So that sucked. Also, Rhapsody's subscription service is incompatible with iPods, so if you have one of those it won't work.

[carlyhippy]

7. I had rhapsody for years, just cancelled a week ago.

I had the package that one can download any song to their mp3 player and keep it as long as one has that package. I cancelled it because I can listen to pandora for free. I cannot listen to the infinite playlist I had on Rhapsody anymore, but it was 14.00 a month, it was getting too expensive. I realized I could buy 14 new songs each month and keep them forever for the same price. The others, itunes, amazon etc, I can't comment on, I have not tried them.