I'm considering spending $126 to purchase everything off the NPGMC site... are all of the singles and albums in horrible qaulity?

Because I would be really pissed if I bought all of those songs and albums and they were in shitty quality...

Is it worth it?

it's good enough quality that if you're downloading something that you can't get in any other format, you should go ahead and do it, but if there's something you can get on CD, you should probably go that route instead. the sound quality isn't horrible, but i find it's mixed a little low or something...it's not terribly full sounding to me. even iTunes files sound better to my ears.

These files are in fact better quality than iTunes.

iTunes is 128kbps.

NPGMC is 192kbps

The only two songs I once took issue with over sound quality were Black Sweat and Beautiful, Loved and Blessed, which on my studio headphones, to my ears are clearly lower quality files.

I believe since I first heard them though, they may have added higher quality files of those songs.

So to answer your question... Most, if not all of the files are crystal clear and high quality mp3... not as perfect as CD quality, but better than your iPod or iTunes.

If they are lower volume that is not an issue of overall quality - I haven't noticed them being particularly lower than they should, except for the ones I mentioned which were also just bad files.

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[Edited 2/20/06 4:34am]

the chocolate invasion and slaughterhouse are of noticably lower volume than just about any of my other mp3s, iTunes or otherwise. maybe i just have bad hearing.

Anx said:

Well i bet you're right then, anx.... some things just get mastered at different volumes....of course something mastered a bit louder is usually preferable and sounds "fuller", but it's not really an issue of the overall quality of the file as you probably know, just the volume/normalization level in mastering.

A basic sound editor can increase the volume with the "normalize" function or in iTunes, etc you can burn at a higher volume with the graphic equalizer on and levels raised slightly, but flat.



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[Edited 2/20/06 5:35am]

I definitely agree w/ Anx - the WMA files at the club are indeed worth it for stuff that is otherwise not available anywhere. However, i-tunes does indeed have better-sounding files...I say "better-sounding" rather than "better quality" b/c I'm not talking about the bit rate or anything, I'm talking about how the music sounds to my ears.

I've bought a couple songs from both NPGMC and i-tunes (who knows why), like "SST" and "Te Amo," and in both instances I have overwhelmingly preferred the sound of the i-tunes mp4 file. The WMAs from NPGMC both sound "muddy" in comparison, and definitely way, way lower in the mix. And it's not just a point of turning up the volume, it just sounds much less full (to me).

Bit rate isn't the only thing to bear in mind. 128 AAC and 192 MP3 are about the same quality, the MP3 perhaps _should_ be slightly better.