[TallMomof2]

Re the Apple DRM circumvention:

For the heck of it I purchased my first and only song from iTunes. It is a duplicate of a song I already own from DRM-free Amazon (ironic that they sell DRM-free MP3s). Amazon's MP3's are encoded at 256 kbps so they're starting at a higher quality. The Amazon MP3 was imported into my iTunes library. I then sent the original iTunes version and the converted the Amazon MP3 to my Touch and listened to both. There was a slight difference in quality when I listened through my high-end earphones but almost undetectable through low-end earphones (the ones that come with the Touch).

Next I converted the iTunes song to MP3 and played it and the Amazon version first through my PC with high-end speakers and the differences were very obvious to me. Next I moved both MP3s to a Creative Zen MP3 player and I could still tell a difference with my both high-end and low-end earphones. Then I moved the MP3s to my Kindle and I really couldn't tell much difference between the two.

IMO, don't buy from iTunes unless you're are 100% wedded to Apple. If there is any possibility of moving to a different system you're better off either buying CDs and ripping or buying DRM-free higher bitrate MP3s.