Quote:
Originally Posted by Manabi
Not only that, but Amazon's digital music store has always been DRM-free. By that point the record labels had finally realized locking everyone in with DRM had made sure no one could compete with Apple, and iTunes was the dominant music seller. (As I recall, they'd passed up Wal-mart a year or two previously at that point.) So they let Amazon open up their store DRM-free, and it wasn't long before Apple was able to go DRM-free as well, and DRM for purchased music largely went away. Lest I make it sound like Amazon was the savior here, Apple hadn't wanted to use DRM from the beginning, but the labels insisted, and they were quite happy to get rid of it too.
On bit rate, Amazon uses variable ("Where possible, we encode our MP3 files using variable bit rates for optimal audio quality and file sizes, aiming at an average of 256 kilobits per second (kbps).") while Google uses constant, set at 320kbps (this is the max bit rate).
Both are high quality, some people like to have 320kbps CBR over VBR, but realistically very, very few people can hear the difference. Filesize is probably a bit smaller for Amazon's on the same track.
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Thanks. More helpful information!