I’ve been trying out the new MusicMatch (MM) service. I do like the fact that in the free version when you exit you don’t get that annoying nag screen (upgrade to plus, upgrade to plus, etc) that existed in prior versions. The quality of the MM radio stations are not as good as Radio @ AOL, even on high end speakers. I downloaded a free sample and that was 56k which is definitly subpar quality.

When I find a song to buy (they didn’t have the song I was looking for the other day) I’ll find out the quality of a pay download, I suppose and it will not encourage me to return if it’s not at least 160k.

I’ve done a little business with buymusic but if you click thru and read that review it’s not exactly favorable. They’ve improved a few things, though, like the ability to download multiple tracks. I still have them bookmarked and I still would buy from them if they had the music I was looking for.

My favorite online music service tried out so far is Rhapsody. I signed up for their 14 day free trial and have been enjoying the quality (broadband connection) of choosing from the nearly 400,000 songs. They have added 2838 albums in the last 7 days alone.

I’ve signed up for the new, legal Napster and will be checking that out thoroughly when it debuts on Oct 29. You can get 5 free tracks if you subscribe prior to Oct 29, so if you haven’t done so yet, get in there and register. Free is a great price!

Probably the service I was most encouraged by (before actually downloading and using it, that is) was iTunes for Windows by Apple. This was released Thursday Oct 16. This has been the most popular music download source to date and it had been previously available for Mac users only. I wrote a comparison between iTunes for Windows and Rhapsody.

Upon reading this blogcritics article about the effect that legal online music delivery will have on terrestrial stores, I reviewed how my music buying has changed. My new AAA music buying strategy is working something like this:

1) (A)wareness. - Through viewing the “just added” list at Rhapsody, checking the iTunes recently added list, reading a review at blogcritics or another review site, or seeing the CD in the store (as I did last night with the new Rush 3-CD set).

2) (A)vailability - Try to locate the service in the legal online music services to sample some of the music (most likely Rhapsody first, since I’m a subscriber and I can listen to full tracks instead of 30-second snippets), but also buymusic.com and iTunes for Windows. And when Napster is released, I’ll be checking through that as well.

3) (A)cquire / Purchase - after listening and determining if the music is something I’d really want to buy in CD format (and thus have the highest quality burn) then I’ll go buy it. If there are only a couple good songs or I don’t feel like adding the CD to our collection, then I’ll use one of the legal music download services to burn the tracks. Which one? The one that has the highest bit-rate first, and the best price second.

What effect will this have on impulse music purchases? Those where I would go into a store with the express goal of looking around, but when finding music I’d buy it based upon past enjoying music by the artist in the past or by intrigue by the album cover, artwork or hearing from another source the artist was good. Probably it will reduce that spending by 75%-90%, because now I’ll simply write down the song or snap a picture of the CD cover more likely with my camera phone (see pic) to thus bookmark it as something I might like to buy. Impulse music purchases will go way down for me. Now the thing that will go through my mind when I see the CD is: “Will this be available online at ___ service?”

• Best Buy Rhapsody music preview system in stores
• MusicGiants online service offers CD-quality tracks starting at $1.29 per song
• More legal online music services info including prerelease review of new Napster
• Review: Rhapsody online music service — the best model to distribute music legally?
• Legal online music sales PayPal fees reduced, any takers?
• Beyond American Idol: Are you buying their music?