Classical comfort at the iTunes Store

April 10, 8:23 AMSF Classical Music ExaminerScott Foglesong

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Recently the iTunes Store dropped the last vestiges of digital rights management, or DRM, from its music downloads and with it the last we'll see of the older AAC128 file format. From now on, all downloads from iTunes are in AAC256 (noticeably better sound) and without DRM, meaning they can be played on any device capable of playing AAC-encoded files.

Variable pricing was introduced at the same time. Instead of 99¢ across the board per single file, the iTunes Store now charges as much as $1.29 for exceptionally popular singles, or as little as 69¢ for those which are being priced for quick sale, as it were.

The announcement was hardly made before howls of protest began to ricochet from one end of the Internet to another. You would think we were witnessing the greatest robbery since Brink's as greedy corporate America prepares to sink its talons into every pocketbook in sight.

Whether or not Apple has accepted an invitation for a sweaty roll in the sheets with the major record labels (a state of affairs I find doubtful), we classical folks are spared most of the pain of the higher prices, as well as the pleasure of the lower-priced tracks. Both are conspicuous in their absence, at least as far as I can tell, from the standpoint of a classical buyer.

Most classical buyers don't buy many singles, anyway; we're much more album-oriented. The standard album price of $9.99 remains in force, with the budget labels like Naxos priced accordingly, and multi-CD sets going for more. I haven't seen any dramatic changes for album prices; presumably the price change applies to single tracks only.

Just to be sure, I took a look at all the classical "New Releases" at the iTunes Store. I couldn't find a one which did not price the individual tracks at the usual 99¢, at least when you could buy by the individual track. (Sometimes you're limited to "By Work" or "By Album Only".)

Nothing seems to have changed, classically speaking

Personally I'm delighted by the all-iTunes Plus improvement; I really don't like the sound of those AAC128 files. I was never particularly bugged by the DRM, being an all-Apple guy, although once in a while I found it difficult to open a DRM'ed file for editing -- say, for a lecture or whatnot. But I was turned off by the lack of dimensionality and the metallic edge characteristic of AAC128. AAC256 sounds much, much better, even if not perhaps quite up to the fidelity of Apple Lossless or FLAC.

For about five minutes after Apple announced the pricing changes at iTunes, bloggers and commentators recommended that shoppers run over to Amazon to download anything for which Apple intended to charge $1.29. But that bubble burst quickly as soon as Amazon announced a similar tiered pricing scheme. Comparison shopping remains a good idea, to be sure, but it won't be quite as easy as folks might have thought.

The moral: we classical buyers are effected positively by the iTunes Store changes, at least for the time being. We don't have any "hit" albums that justify higher by-the-slice prices, so the shift from AAC128 to AAC256 across the board is really our only concern, and that's a good thing.

On a related subject, ArkivMusic is continuing to offer some of their recent releases as MP3 downloads. Look for the "MP3 Downloads" in the sidebar on the left of the main screen. The bulk of the offerings are from Naxos and Chandos, with more labels sure to come. I've tried their download service and found it to be every bit as elegantly designed as one would expect from this fine vendor.

ArkivMusic is now another good source for downloaded music