Bought my first album from the Zune marketplace this morning.

Wasn’t my intention to shop there as I’ve been enjoying shopping for DRM-free music at AmazonMP3, but decided to do some comparison shopping on the Whitesnake Live In The Shadow Of The Blues album between AmazonMP3, Zune and iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The AmazonMP3 price being higher was what motivated me to look around a bit.

The most expensive (not pictured above) was iTMS at $19.98 for 256kbps bit rate AAC encoded. Next was AmazonMP3 at $17.98 and the best price by a mile was 800 Microsoft Points ($10.00 USD) in the Zune marketplace.

I was somewhat skeptical of the Zune marketplace pricing being so much lower. What would be the bit rate of the files? Unfortunately, the Zune store doesn’t tell you — or if they do, I couldn’t easily find the answer.

I did some searching around and tried to find out what bit rate the Zune MP3 files were encoded at, but didn’t find the answer anywhere. I decided $8 or $10 was too much of a savings not to at least pull the trigger. After juicing my account with some more Microsoft Points I purchased the Whitesnake album. Then I went to Windows Explorer and right clicked on the properties of the track to see the bit rate was 320 kbps!

Very cool! I didn’t know the Zune store sold MP3 tracks at 320kbps bit rate. This will make a new spot for me to comparison shop for new MP3 music. I didn’t check Napster to see what their price and bit rate was like, but that’s another possible place to buy MP3 albums from these days legally. Too bad with Zune, iTMS and Napster you need to run their software to surf the store. Score a point for AmazonMP3 in the convenience department.

In the above comparison shopping the Zune store had the best deal, but I’m sure there are/will be other cases where the Zune store isn’t the best. For example, Whitesnake’s newest album Good To Be Bad is selling for $8.99 at AmazonMP3 and $10.89 at iTMS (iTunes Plus) and in the Zune store for 900 Microsoft Points ($11.25). Even though I prefer the 320kbps I bought Good To Be Bad at AmazonMP3.

My ears can’t tell the difference between 256kbps and 320kbps, but a couple months back I re-ripped our entire CD collection to 320kbps. I’m fine with anything 256 and above.

For those stuck on the Microsoft Points to $USD conversion, just multiply the points by $0.0125. I wish Microsoft would show the $USD price in parenthesis or something, but it’s not that big of a deal to use a calculator or remember that 100 point multiples are $1.25.

Another example of a recent purchase: Def Leppard Songs From The Sparkle Lounge bought from AmazonMP3 for $8.99. That one isn’t even available in non-DRM version from iTMS or the Zune Marketplace.

Don’t think that the iTMS is the only place to get DRM-free music these days. Comparison shopping is required to find the best deal. Too bad these online stores don’t put out an API so somebody can mashup a best deals for DRM-free music to save music shoppers even more time. There’s an idea.

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