[KRamsauer]

The subscription model is the way to go if you have a large music player. Nowhere else can you buy 5,000 songs for less than a hundred bucks a year (five thousand bucks on iTunes which would earn interest of, oh $125 a year and still not allow you to get additional songs).

[scotttreo]

I've never been forced to fill my ipod and I already have plenty of cd's to fill it up for free at this point so it depends on what you want to do. Likewise purchased songs are now yours to keep. Subscription songs are gone when you stop.

[KRamsauer]

I've never been forced to fill my ipod and I already have plenty of cd's to fill it up for free at this point so it depends on what you want to do. Likewise purchased songs are now yours to keep. Subscription songs are gone when you stop.

That is true, but a subscription buys you new songs as well, not just the ones you have your eye on when you sign up. Remember for each CD's worth of songs you purchase you get unlimited music for 3 months. Do you buy more than 4 CDs a year? If so, subscription models are better (presuming you can get adequate selection which is not true since iTunes has many more songs than, for instance, Yahoo).

[grndslm]

That is true, but a subscription buys you new songs as well, not just the ones you have your eye on when you sign up. Remember for each CD's worth of songs you purchase you get unlimited music for 3 months. Do you buy more than 4 CDs a year? If so, subscription models are better (presuming you can get adequate selection which is not true since iTunes has many more songs than, for instance, Yahoo).

Recurring fees suck. Then companies have you by the balls and can jack up the prices to 8 CDs a year if they choose. And if you don't decide that you want to pay the price of 8 CDs a year...all your music is lost in space.

But I gotta admit I'll prolly be signing up for a subscription service in the next year or so....and if they decide to jack up prices I'll find it only right to do the burn & rip process for most of the songs I "subscribed" to.

[grndslm]

There's no legal way to buy/download OGG files is there??

[KRamsauer]

Recurring fees suck. Then companies have you by the balls and can jack up the prices to 8 CDs a year if they choose. And if you don't decide that you want to pay the price of 8 CDs a year...all your music is lost in space.

The problem with that view, though, is that it ignores the fact that there are more than a dozen providers of WMA music. If anything, I'd be more worried about the iTunes folks jacking up their prices. They've already got you with the device that's tied to their services. WMA downloads are the best bet if you're honestly afraid of people jacking up the prices. I'll gamble that the market will enforce price discipline.
Can you cite any example of such things happening? I can only think of the reverse (prices keep going down). E-mail is one of them. Google, Yahoo, etc. all have tremendous numbers of hostages that, if they decide to start charging say, $500 a year, for e-mail access, people will have to either pay it or see their email address go away. Yet they don't. Maybe not a perfect example, but I think the fear that some digital music reckoning is fast approaching is alarmist.

[KRamsauer]

But I gotta admit I'll prolly be signing up for a subscription service in the next year or so....and if they decide to jack up prices I'll find it only right to do the burn & rip process for most of the songs I "subscribed" to.

You're going to love this: most subscriptions don't allow you to burn to CD (at least Yahoo doesn't). You can always record from the sound out jack, though.

[ninodelsol]

There's no legal way to buy/download OGG files is there??

.mp3, .wmv, and AAC are so widely used that .ogg is still largely ignored by the major download/subscription services. As much as I love the format and it's smaller file size for comparable sound quality feature, I must admit that on portable devices the additional processing power is a bit of a drawback since it can slow down your unit. It's still not so bad that I would change though.

[grndslm]

The problem with that view, though, is that it ignores the fact that there are more than a dozen providers of WMA music. If anything, I'd be more worried about the iTunes folks jacking up their prices. They've already got you with the device that's tied to their services. WMA downloads are the best bet if you're honestly afraid of people jacking up the prices. I'll gamble that the market will enforce price discipline.

Point taken. I forgot how many subscription services there were. I was thinking that Yahoo was the only subscription for some reason because their low prices just woke me up recently to subscription services. Napster, Real, & MSN just flew by my head.

[grndslm]

You're going to love this: most subscriptions don't allow you to burn to CD (at least Yahoo doesn't). You can always record from the sound out jack, though.

That's bunk! Thanks for the future reference, BTW.

[grndslm]

.mp3, .wmv, and AAC are so widely used that .ogg is still largely ignored by the major download/subscription services. As much as I love the format and it's smaller file size for comparable sound quality feature, I must admit that on portable devices the additional processing power is a bit of a drawback since it can slow down your unit. It's still not so bad that I would change though.

Hmm...why can't there be more players like the Rio Karma??

As for "additional processing power" that you mention OGGs require....do you (or anybody else for that matter) notice a significant decrease in battery life with your Treo? Or have you no MP3s to do a serious comparison?

[KRamsauer]

Subscription services appeal to a narrow set of people (though it is a large number in absolute): those that like to try new music, listen to most of their music via a large capacity mp3 player.

[ninodelsol]

Hmm...why can't there be more players like the Rio Karma??

As for "additional processing power" that you mention OGGs require....do you (or anybody else for that matter) notice a significant decrease in battery life with your Treo? Or have you no MP3s to do a serious comparison?

I haven't done an "intentional" comparision for battery life, but I do have some MP3 collections that I have played and the OGG collections don't make a noticeable difference in battery life. The most noticeable thing regarding the processing power is that playing OGG files results in a slower Treo when playing PTunes or Aeroplayer in the background and playing a chess game, switching between screens, etc.. But it's not so much slower than MP3 that it's annoying.

[grndslm]

I haven't done an "intentional" comparision for battery life, but I do have some MP3 collections that I have played and the OGG collections don't make a noticeable difference in battery life. The most noticeable thing regarding the processing power is that playing OGG files results in a slower Treo when playing PTunes or Aeroplayer in the background and playing a chess game, switching between screens, etc.. But it's not so much slower than MP3 that it's annoying.

I'll be on the look out for slower rendering apps.

[heberman]

I'm surfing TreoCentral right now on my Treo while listening (via Ptunes) to a bunch of songs I transferred to my Treo from Yahoo Music Unlimited. It's nice to sample a lot of different music without worrying about cost-per-song. If it looks interesting, I download it without any worries.

The Treo's ability to play subscription music is quite unique among mp3 players. While many mp3 players can play protected wma files, there are only a handful can play subscription music which has DRM 10 protection. I have found ZERO regular mp3 players with flash memory which can play these files. Only the more expensive hard drive players can play them, or players like the Treo which have their own built-in clocks.

I looked all over for an mp3 player for my wife to use while she runs which is compatible with Yahoo's subscription music. Hard drive players don't work, because they can skip. Flash memory players don't work well, because they won't accept subscription music, but only wma files which are burnable downloads.

[robangel]

The day I rent music is the day I'll start wearing a bowl of fruit on my head and take rumba lessons. Itunes and the ipod suit me fine, if you could do some AAC's on the Treo easily I would most likely fill up a card with some favorites and give it a try. But can't see dumping the ipod anytime soon. My own taste in music also does not fit the subscription model.

[grndslm]

The day I rent music is the day I'll start wearing a bowl of fruit on my head and take rumba lessons. Itunes and the ipod suit me fine, if you could do some AAC's on the Treo easily I would most likely fill up a card with some favorites and give it a try. But can't see dumping the ipod anytime soon. My own taste in music also does not fit the subscription model.

You can use AAC's on the 650!! Get Aeroplayer and then download JHymn to "de-cripple" your AAC files and have fun. I bet you can't hear a difference between Aeroplayer and your iPod.

Ipods are just one less thing to carry around.

[KRamsauer]

I looked all over for an mp3 player for my wife to use while she runs which is compatible with Yahoo's subscription music. Hard drive players don't work, because they can skip. Flash memory players don't work well, because they won't accept subscription music, but only wma files which are burnable downloads.

I see people running with mini HD players all the time, so it can't be that bad. I've done it a few times, but I still prefer flash for the reasons you outlined above.

[diomedes]

I guess I'm a criminal.... I made copies of a song played on the radio, without paying anyone at RIAA.

Amazingly, I came to believe the crazy notion that there's nothing wrong with evaluating music before you decide to spend money on it, instead of spending money on it only to find out you don't like it. Guess I was somehow able to resist the plethora of Hollywood and RIAA propaganda disseminated with haste to preserve their incremental revenue.

So I went to Usenet....

But now I feel terrible. I have virtually taken food off of the table of the starving artists with major recording studio contracts.

[TheLiveSoundGuy]

But now I feel terrible. I have virtually taken food off of the table of the starving artists with major recording studio contracts.

Well, my kids weren't hungry anyway.

FWIW: I truely don't care one way or the other. I'm just bustin' chops.
I have well over 8,000 CDs. Most are legal, some probable aren't.

However, one must remember the artist and up labels aren't the only people involved in the process here.

And, just because we were, (and still are) ripped off for years, stealing is still stealing. That doesn't make it right. IMO, Two wrongs....