Listening to music online


I'd love to get some feedback/advice from online dwellers regarding sound clips and online music.

Considering both convienience and sound quality, is there a strong benefit to either streaming or downloaded audio files? I'm used to listening to streaming Real Audio when shopping at CDNow or Amazon. The sound sucks, but it's functional.

Is there a better sounding alternative? I'm trying to educate myself so I can make a few better-informed decisions on upgrades for our site. Any suggestions will be greatly appriciated.
eldon_mapleshade

Showing 1 response by eldon_mapleshade

Sorry if I was a bit vague. I'm trying to be careful not to cross the line between conversation and advertising/self promotion. Hopefully, I'm not doing so now. This just seems like an excellent forum for advice.

We consistently get this feedback from people interested in Mapleshade: "I've heard great things about you recordings, but I don't know any of the musicians on your label." Putting audio clips on our website seems like a good way to address this issue. But, there's a draw back. For me, our music loses A LOT of it's emotional impact once it's compressed and mutated into streaming audio. So much so, I don't think I'd buy some of my favorite CDs in our catalog if I were basing my decision on the audio clips posted on our site. Previously, I wouldn't have guessed that the recording quality and musical appeal of our music was so tightly interweaved.

In short, my objective is to present the best possible sounding samples of our music in a manner that is most convienient for people browsing our site. Any suggestions?