As you described, there were always be unique situations where a CD makes less sense than a slow download.
However, things in the world of recorded music are in a state of flux right now and will continue that way for some time. First, download speeds will continue to increase. When I was first online in the late 1970's a 300 baud modem was pretty hot stuff and when the 1200 baud Hayes appeared on the scene in the early 80's, we were just flabbergasted at the blazing speed! Now, 1Mbps to 3Mbps broadband speeds are pretty common, but those will increase in coming years. DRM (digital rights management) is probably the biggest kink in downloads right now, especially of the lossless variety. The copyright holders don't like the thought of songs being endlessly shared over the internet. (Hence the iTunes limitation in their M4A format and the industry lawsuits against other online MP3 providers.) Those issues need to be settled before the music industry is going to allow widespread lossless downloading. FLAC, as an open source format, is an issue for that industry. It is going to be interesting to see how things develop. -- mlsstl ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33813 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
