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In my hunt for lossless music, I realized there was one album I would love to have in a lossless format, and that's the soundtrack to Avatar, by James Horner. The problem is, in my week long hunt, it has been absolutely impossible to find, both on lossless e-tailer websites as well as torrent websites, the latter actually being a more complicated process to determine it's unavailability, due to crappy websites, bad descriptions, broken links, etc.

It's just one album, and were it available for purchase as a lossless download I would gladly pay for it, but as it is, I can't. I can type in my search on Google without the term 'lossless' in my search, and come across all of the big name music retailers (Amazon, Google, iTunes, Ebay) but as soon as I put the word lossless back into the search bar everything that comes back is shady torrent sites, and the few I tried were broken anyway (even TPB had nothing)

Why don't any of the big online retailers offer music in a lossless form without having to purchase the physical CD, which involves extra for shipping as well as taking up excess space once I've ripped it and tossed it aside? And does anyone know where I might find this? I assumed it was a small request up until I started looking and now it seems far too difficult to be justifiable

Amazon will give you free shipping on most orders over $25. Add something else to this $9 purchase, and you're all set.

The reason you're having a hard time is because the thieves who steal music on-line are mostly a younger generation that has no appreciation for music free of compression artifacts. People old enough to care about the quality of what they listen to have jobs and they buy their music rather than stealing it.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Amazon will give you free shipping on most orders over $25. Add something else to this $9 purchase, and you're all set.

The reason you're having a hard time is because the thieves who steal music on-line are mostly a younger generation that has no appreciation for music free of compression artifacts. People old enough to care about the quality of what they listen to have jobs and they buy their music rather than stealing it.

I know I can buy a physical copy but I'm really hoping to avoid that. I actually found one place online that does sell what I'm looking for, but they're based in France, and the downloads aren't available here in Canada.

Like I said, I'd be willing to buy it as well, but it's not even being offered anywhere I go whether or not it's a legal route. That's the frustrating part. Sadly I know that the younger generations are what fuel the massive music industry, so we get crappy music with crappy encoding pushed into our faces, and anything of quality takes actual time and effort to locate. i guess this is how vinyl record hunters feel looking for one particular album

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The reason you're having a hard time is because the thieves who steal music on-line are mostly a younger generation that has no appreciation for music free of compression artifacts. People old enough to care about the quality of what they listen to have jobs and they buy their music rather than stealing it.

That still doesn't explain why there's such a poor selection of legit lossless downloads.

HDtracks is about the best I've found, but the selection is mediocre and they actually cost *more* than having a physical CD shipped. In their defense many of their downloads are actually *better* than CD resolution (e.g. 96kHz/24bit), but I don't really *need* that; why can't we just have a decent selection of lossless CD-quality downloads at reasonable prices?

If your looking for legal samples, here it a link.

http://www.2l.no/hires/

They also offer a limited selection of lossless albums you can buy. Nice if you have a $300 sound card like me. 192 KHz/24 Bit derived from studio master copies.

Use something like Foobar2000 with the ASIO plugin to hear it's full potential. Make sure to set your ASIO config to 24-bit. And make sure to download something in Stereo FLAC under 192Khz/24 Bit. And with these files, there is no dynamic compression, so things can go from soft to loud rather quickly, but your hearing things as the artists intended this way.

Once you click download, username is 2L and password is 2L.

confusedpenguin wrote:

If your looking for legal samples, here it a link.

http://www.2l.no/hires/

They also offer a limited selection of lossless albums you can buy. Nice if you have a $300 sound card like me. 192 KHz/24 Bit derived from studio master copies.

Use something like Foobar2000 with the ASIO plugin to hear it's full potential. Make sure to set your ASIO config to 24-bit.

Sadly I've explained that that's not what I'm looking for. I probably already have full 24/92 recordings of several of those compositions, but what I'm looking for is a particular movie soundtrack: Avatar

just brew it! wrote:

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The reason you're having a hard time is because the thieves who steal music on-line are mostly a younger generation that has no appreciation for music free of compression artifacts. People old enough to care about the quality of what they listen to have jobs and they buy their music rather than stealing it.

That still doesn't explain why there's such a poor selection of legit lossless downloads.

HDtracks is about the best I've found, but the selection is mediocre and they actually cost *more* than having a physical CD shipped. In their defense many of their downloads are actually *better* than CD resolution (e.g. 96kHz/24bit), but I don't really *need* that; why can't we just have a decent selection of lossless CD-quality downloads at reasonable prices?

This is exactly what I've found so frustrating about the entire ordeal. None of the big name e-tailers offer lossless downloads, and any of the other e-tailers that do have such a limited selection that unless your tastes are already mildly obscure, you won't find what you're looking for

All the big name record labels say you shouldn't pirate when there's reasonably priced music already available online. The flaw in this argument is that you're not offering the level of quality in that music that some people desire, so their only choice in the matter, if they aren't even able to get a physical copy, is to pirate. Sadly, as is the case with my current music hunt, even that option is useless when it's not being offered as a torrent

Also keep in mind that most people buying/torrenting digital music are playing it either on their PC with crap speakers or an mp3 player with even worse earbuds so they wouldn't be able to tell the difference even if they wanted to. Aside from a couple of online music store gift cards I only buy used CDs but that's more because I have issues with the music industry than a desire for really high quality.

NovusBogus wrote:

Also keep in mind that most people buying/torrenting digital music are playing it either on their PC with crap speakers or an mp3 player with even worse earbuds so they wouldn't be able to tell the difference even if they wanted to. Aside from a couple of online music store gift cards I only buy used CDs but that's more because I have issues with the music industry than a desire for really high quality.

I think part of the issue is most people aren't even aware of a higher quality standard, when it comes to both listening hardware as well as music quality in the software. Ask someone what a high end pair of headphones should cost and they'll likely say between $100 and $200, ask them what a high quality format is and they'll say 320kbps mp3, they don't even know that there's more, let alone having a desire to experience it

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The reason you're having a hard time is because the thieves who steal music on-line are mostly a younger generation that has no appreciation for music free of compression artifacts. People old enough to care about the quality of what they listen to have jobs and they buy their music rather than stealing it.

Requires citations. "Kids today" diatribes are tiresome especially when they're all about the supposition of the person making them. Copyright infringement isn't theft. Even now it's hard to find legitimate vendors for a great deal of music while it is more easily available in other means. Artists don't cry about infringement until *after* they begin making their first million since it was that free distribution that helped get them there. Torrents abound for FLAC especially if you know where to look.

No OP sorry I don't know where you can legally purchase the Avatar OST in a lossless format. I did do a quick search for Avatar soundtrack FLAC and the usual suspects came up.

Many acts post FLAC copies up on Bandcamp but major labels are less likely to be interested in putting up lossless content.

internetsandman wrote:

I think part of the issue is most people aren't even aware of a higher quality standard, when it comes to both listening hardware as well as music quality in the software. Ask someone what a high end pair of headphones should cost and they'll likely say between $100 and $200, ask them what a high quality format is and they'll say 320kbps mp3, they don't even know that there's more, let alone having a desire to experience it

Or people just don't give a toss past a certain point. I can hear the difference between 128 kbps and 320 kbps with my ($50) headset and ($85) sound card, but not really between 320 and FLAC, and I'm not motivated to pay for more expensive hardware. Consider that most listen to their music on a smartphone or iPod-alike with earbuds and never edit; there's zero benefit to lossless for those people.

I'm going to be blunt here - stop being so stubborn and just buy a CD and rip it.

I have to agree. How much is your time worth?

Count me as part of Team Rip Your Own. If you hate physical media then sell it after you rip it.

internetsandman wrote:

I think part of the issue is most people aren't even aware of a higher quality standard, when it comes to both listening hardware as well as music quality in the software. Ask someone what a high end pair of headphones should cost and they'll likely say between $100 and $200, ask them what a high quality format is and they'll say 320kbps mp3, they don't even know that there's more, let alone having a desire to experience it

There's more musicality lost with modern brickwalled mastering and no-breathing-room-allowed mixing than there is moving from FLAC to 320kbps MP3.

Yeats wrote:

There's more musicality lost with modern brickwalled mastering and no-breathing-room-allowed mixing than there is moving from FLAC to 320kbps MP3.

Yeah, tell me about it. Pisses me off almost every time I buy anything even remotely mainstream that was mastered in the past couple of decades, and lately it has gotten a lot worse. If they would sell copies of the pre-mastering mix-downs I'd willingly pay more than the going rate for CDs just to get rid of some of the dynamic range compression.

just brew it! wrote:

Yeats wrote:

There's more musicality lost with modern brickwalled mastering and no-breathing-room-allowed mixing than there is moving from FLAC to 320kbps MP3.

Yeah, tell me about it. Pisses me off almost every time I buy anything even remotely mainstream that was mastered in the past couple of decades, and lately it has gotten a lot worse. If they would sell copies of the pre-mastering mix-downs I'd willingly pay more than the going rate for CDs just to get rid of some of the dynamic range compression.

And what's ever worse is that many of the super quality releases have been squashed in the process of 're-mastering.' Often, the first 44.1 / 16 CD released will sound far better than the latest 96/24, SACD, or other BS format the marketing jerks are pimping. This is pretty typical --> http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.p ... &order=asc

Geonerd wrote:

And what's ever worse is that many of the super quality releases have been squashed in the process of 're-mastering.'

Yup. When I noticed that some re-masters were being compressed I stopped buying CD "re-masters" of my old vinyl unless the vinyl is in bad shape. Instead, I rip from vinyl myself and clean it up in Audacity. It's a crapshoot.