I am a one-time customer of the Apple iTunes Store. Some time ago, I needed a recording of the Mahler 6th Symphony fast. I needed to play it on an audio CD-only car stereo, and I was up in the country — probably an hour's drive from any store that might sell classical CDs. So I subscribed to iTunes, paid some money, downloaded a Boulez recording of the Mahler 6th, and burned it to two audio CDs. It sounded like crap. And of course I knew why. I've experimented with ripping my own CDs, and I've concluded that the minimum acceptable compression bit rate for the type of music I listen to is 256 kilobits per second. (And believe me, there are much more discerning listeners who now believe me to be half deaf for finding 256 kbps to be acceptable.) The industry standard for sites such as iTunes.com is 128 kbps. And mostly everybody seems to be happy with 128 kbps. Apple needs to devote only half the server space as they would using 256 kbps, both Apple and end-users benefit from the reduced Read More...