Results tagged “music” from Rated Best

My criteria for a streaming music site are simple:

1. An account is NOT required in order to use
   
2. No limit on the number of times you can listen to a song
3. The ability to listen to full songs, not just clips
   
4. Comprehensive collection of songs
   
5. Ease of use in playing the song you want
6. High quality audio
   

GrooveShark is the best for all of these. It meets all of the criteria, and does so quite well. It also allows you to embed songs and playlists on other web pages/blog posts (although the process for doing this is quite obtuse). I also really like how GrooveShark does a pretty good job of de-duping search results. Other sites will list multiple versions of a song of varying length and quality.

Runners up include PlayList and YouTube. PlayList isn't as comprehensive, and doesn't de-dupe, and YouTube has low quality audio. Sites that don't meet my basic criteria include Rhapsody, MySpace, iTunes, and Amazon MP3.

Get MX75 headphones from Amazon

It was a toss-up between Microsoft's Zune HD and Apple's iPod Touch. And for a pure, stand-alone music/media player, I would probably go with the Zune. But why settle for that when you can get a really nice media player in the iPod Touch, that also doubles as a portable computer? You can check your email, browse the web, play games, and even stream music from services like Pandora and Last.FM. Granted, you have to be connected to wifi to do many of these things, but wifi is widely available.

Or, get a Novatel MiFi modem, and for a monthly service fee, you can have internet access anywhere cell phone service is available.

Get an iPod Touch from Amazon

Get Etymotic ER-20 from Amazon

Yes, even in this world of iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, NetFlix, and even BitTorrent, there is still occasionally a need to buy a CD or DVD. It could be a rare item or an import not available on the digital sites. Or it could just be a 45 DVD collection that would be unwieldy via digital delivery. In times like this, I turn to Deep Discount.

Deep Discount has a really great selection, extremely cheap prices, and free shipping on all purchases. So you can buy a single CD or DVD and not have to fill the order up with something else, like you would at Amazon. They even have a low price guarantee, so you can buy with confidence.

Here are a few things I recently bought through Deep Discount (and Amazon's price for comparison):

• The West Wing complete collection: $184.78 (Amazon: $209.99)
• Get Nack by Ben Folds Five: $16.36 (Amazon: $31.99)
• TV Eyes by Jason Falkner: $35.25 (Amazon: $51.99)

As Dan Crevier helpfully points out in the comments, you can get an additional 4% off Deep Discount's already-low price by going through the Live Search Cashback promotion. Just enter the site via this page.

Shop at DeepDiscount.com

After a decade of fighting the inevitable, music companies are finally allowing DRM-free purchase of music. Amazon, Rhapsody, and yes even Walmart are the big players. iTunes has a few select tracks, but the vast majority of their music still has copy protection, so I can't recommend it.

Amazon MP3 has the best selection, best prices, best customer service, and is the easiest to use. The songs sound great encoded at 256kps, and they all include full meta-data and album art. MP3s have many advantages over CDs: instant gratification, only buying the songs you want, and it's better for the environment. They do require a special Downloader application when buying multiple songs, but I found this makes the purchase experience extremely easy.

Rhapsody launched their service last week to great fanfare, but as I discovered first hand, it comes up short. I cannot recommend nor even use Walmart, as they support neither Firefox nor the Mac.

As is typical of all MP3 stores, you cannot download a purchased song more than once. Thus, I highly recommend that you back up your music immediately after purchasing it. There are online storage sites like Microsoft's SkyDrive which are perfect for this.

If you are looking for some music that isn't part of the MP3 store yet, you can always fall back on buying a CD. Amazon has an amazing selection, and you can often find really good deals in the used & new section. In some cases, you can buy a used CD for 1¢ plus $2.98 shipping.

Get Music from Amazon

I've been an amateur musician since I was a teenager, and I've owned my fair share of headphones. For a long time, it was the Sony MDR-V6, and they are a really nice pair of headphones. But I really think Sennheiser's sound better. The fine folks over at Headphone.com agree, saying:

These headphones sound terrific for sealed-earcup, full-size cans priced under $100... They are efficient enough to be well-driven by most portable audio players and laptop computers... The HD-280 Pro has also become the headphone choice of audio, film, and field recording/mixing professionals due to its clear tonal presentation, very effective ambient noise attenuation properties, and durable build quality. A true workhorse of a sealed-earcup headphone at a really hard-to-beat price.

Now I'm a bit of a headphone fanatic. I've own over 30 pairs of headphones in my life. Any while there are certainly different types of headphones I'd recommend for specialized scenarios (VOIP, exercise, airplane flights, etc.). But if I had to pick only one pair of headphones to use for the rest of my life, these would be it.

Get Sennheiser HD-280 Pro headphones from Amazon