Lossless Music Shops

**foxesden** · 2014-03-01, 14:32

I have now ripped all my CDs and going forward I am hoping to buy lossless downloads to save on clutter.

I couldn't see a thread on here on where to buy lossless music so I thought I would start one.

The usual suspect https://www.hdtracks.com/; music guaranteed to flatline any pulse
www.qobuz.com - Good selection; but whenever I try and download anything I want - not available in UK. I also don't like paying more for a download then a CD. Also have to faff about translating to a decent language.

boomkat.com - good selection of electonic and obsurata many with flac downloads cheaper then the cd; but you have to pay extra to use paypal. Useless for classical or mainstream (but not my bag)
bleep.com similar to boomkat although flac is more limited. No paypal surcharge.
http://www.junodownload.com/ more indie dance and electronica
http://zunior.com/ canadian indie music store. Prices seem quite cheap.
http://www.crammed.be/ crammed record label; eclectic mix of world music; art rock and electronica. Reasonable prices flac cheaper then cd.
http://shopusa.4ad.com/ 4ad records. Legendary indie label; I thought it had conked out in the eighties but glad to see I was wrong.

Also many artists have their own websites some of them offer flac or other lossless downloads. I assume the artist gets a bigger cut if you buy from here; so IMHO worth the effort.

**prabbit** · 2014-03-01, 15:09

bandcamp.com -- a place for unsigned artists, some of whom used to have contracts but no longer do.
beatport.com -- If you like electronic music, this is the place to go. Not cheap though.

**SlimChances** · 2014-03-01, 17:53

http://www.cdbaby.com "the best independent music store on the web"

**Daverz** · 2014-03-01, 20:27

http://www.eclassical.com

This site is owned by Bis, but they also sell downloads from many other labels. It's probably my favorite classical download site. They have daily deals, and you can often get full FLAC albums for under $6, and the full prices for new Bis recordings are very reasonable, as are the prices on their own high-rez content (mostly 24/44 or 24/96).

Download rate is slow, though.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/

Not primarily a download site, but they often have lossless downloads of stuff that's not available otherwise.

**Grumpy Bob** · 2014-03-02, 04:00

Originally Posted by foxesden

I have now ripped all my CDs and going forward I am hoping to buy lossless downloads to save on clutter.

I couldn't see a thread on here on where to buy lossless music so I thought I would start one.

The usual suspect https://www.hdtracks.com/; music guaranteed to flatline any pulse
www.qobuz.com - Good selection; but whenever I try and download anything I want - not available in UK. I also don't like paying more for a download then a CD. Also have to faff about translating to a decent language.

boomkat.com - good selection of electonic and obsurata many with flac downloads cheaper then the cd; but you have to pay extra to use paypal. Useless for classical or mainstream (but not my bag)
bleep.com similar to boomkat although flac is more limited. No paypal surcharge.
http://www.junodownload.com/ more indie dance and electronica
http://zunior.com/ canadian indie music store. Prices seem quite cheap.
http://www.crammed.be/ crammed record label; eclectic mix of world music; art rock and electronica. Reasonable prices flac cheaper then cd.
http://shopusa.4ad.com/ 4ad records. Legendary indie label; I thought it had conked out in the eighties but glad to see I was wrong.

Also many artists have their own websites some of them offer flac or other lossless downloads. I assume the artist gets a bigger cut if you buy from here; so IMHO worth the effort.

I emailed qobuz and they set me up with an account (I'm in the UK). You can also use a French VPN proxy.
boomkat.com is pretty good for the kind of music I like.

Robert

**Mnyb** · 2014-03-02, 08:03

http://boomkat.com/

http://itrax.com/Pages/PostSignUp.php

**foxesden** · 2014-03-02, 10:58

Originally Posted by Grumpy Bob

I emailed qobuz and they set me up with an account (I'm in the UK). You can also use a French VPN proxy.
boomkat.com is pretty good for the kind of music I like.

Robert

Sounds like we have similar tastes I have been using boomkat too. I tried emailing qobuz last month, and I got a reply along the lines of they are setting up a UK store in April; in the meantime did I want to sign up to their streaming service.

I can buy some stuff from their e.g. I bought an M83 flac, but couldn't get other stuff. Still it is saving me money and I would probably have done something stupid like bought hi res files.

**RonM** · 2014-03-03, 16:42

I can speak to zunior.com (Canadian and not just indies), flac and 320 at the same price, $8.88, better than iTunes. Also Bandcamp, which has much good music. CDBaby has a great selection, and in principle offers flacs, but in practice older content is not yet ripped to flac and a request for flac will result in a request to return later, the request presumably having triggered a ripping event.

R

**maggior** · 2014-03-05, 09:13

bleep.com has some good electronic music. Also musiczeit.com. Many artists seem to be moving from musiczeit.com to bandcamp.com. Still some good stuff there though if you are into retro electronic music.

**Mnyb** · 2014-03-23, 21:10

Another intresting fact about bandcamp.com is that they sometimes are a hirez store but they dont tell you

(and you cant search for it )

Some stuff in flac may be 24 bit my latest example is the new RUSCONI offering that is in 24/96 it just is , and not a part of the marketting at all really cool .

Bandcamps lossles flac offering is simply what the artist choose to upload can be 16-24 bit can be 44.1 or 48K or more .

The marketting is centered around the music itself and the artist as it should be . The music as the centrepiece not technical curiosities

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