Yahoo Compatability

[IDunnoMyName]

I'm not a fan of DRM and subscription based services, but the Yahoo service seems pretty well worth the money. For $7 a month, to not wade through the crappola on Limewire and other schtuff, it might be worth it.

But will the songs d/l on Yahoo Music Unlimited be playable on the X5? Of course, if they're not, then I won't get it

[bradavon]

$7 that's not bad. Crapola as you put it really does my head in and makes it not worth the bother IMO.

CDs online are cheap now a days so I tend to buy my music.

[zaphanathpaneah]

I love CD's but I hate clutter. When you guys buy CD's, what do you do with the 70 or 90 CD's you have? Do you through them away or store them inthe garage? I have like 50 and I had to through away the cases cause I could not store them anymore. That's why I like download.. But......where can you download in other formats other than mp3? What about ogg?

[bradavon]

Everyone now and again I have a clear out but prefer CDs as I can put them in my hi-fi nice and easily. Music on a PC still to this day is not as easy as playing a CD.

Even an Ipod is not as easy. Besides you can't collect music you download. I like to own all the albums by an artist I love. If I only half love them then I may copy the CD from a mate.

I'm bound to say this though I own nearly 400 DVDs!

[IDunnoMyName]

Well, I answered my own question. I gave the yahoo service a 1-day runaround and I must say, I was impressed. However, the service does not allow you to transfer the music to any player other than a select few. I could not get it on my Karma for the life of me, nor could I get it to play on my Av420. So, with its limited compatability list, the X5 will not be able to synch with this subsciption based music. It wouldn' allow me to burn the music to CD or rip it to OGG in order to strip it. If anyone knows another way of stripping the DRM, hook it up.

As for the service itself, very intuitive and crisp, though its in beta so there were some hangups now and again. It does a really tremendous job of organizing and I wish there was another software that would do this.

I can honestly say that I could pay the $7 or so a month to use this if I could use it the way I want. To pay for music and then not to be able to use it is just ridiculous.

[zaphanathpaneah]

400 CD's..."Holy Fricking Moses". that's alot, though I must have bought that much in my life but threw away alot. A DAP is not that hard to integrate into you Hi-Fi or car. I play my H10 in the car everyday. The question I need is where can you download music in other formats except mo3?

[bradavon]

DVDs not CDs. I must have about 100 CDs.

[lonechicken]

400 seems normal to me. I have about that much in both (each) CDs and DVDs... and I'm no rich boy.

I don't know that much about these "renting music" plans, but am I crazy or can't you just do a re-recording of these songs if all else fails? I know Napster banned some plug-in for Winamp that automatically wrote to a permanent non-DRM file when you're playing songs.

Can't people do this manually. Hit record using their favorite wav editor, then re-encode to mp3. Obviously, you're doing a second encoding and losing more quality, but the flip side is, you're getting something permanent in the end instead of "renting."

[zaphanathpaneah]

Yes you can but quality goes down. Remenber the analog signal is subject to interferance from your PC so while recording the song, you are also recording the noise.

[lonechicken]

Yes you can but quality goes down. Remenber the analog signal is subject to interferance from your PC so while recording the song, you are also recording the noise.

Obviously, but the value and economics (legalities aside) makes sense to me.

1) Say I do the traditional $1 per song thing and buy 50 songs (assume that's 5 CDs worth), I'd be spending $50 for a bunch of encoded once WMA or AAC songs.

2) Or, I do a $15 subscription for a month. Conservatively record to WAV and re-encode 500 songs I like but don't care that much about quality. Go out to the store and buy 2 real CDs of albums I really like that I don't want any quality loss.

This second scenario still saves me money and nets a ton more songs.

[Darkroom]

What bitrate is the music you are renting?

I've been happy with downloaded music playing in my computer, but as the mp-3 playing equipment is getting better, I find more and more that the random quality of downloaded files is bothering me.

Especially my Sennhiser PX200s that I mostly listen with are very unforgiving when it comes to bad encoding, and I am finding myself going back to CDs. Even if the quality may not always be that much better, at least I know the music sounds like it was recorded to sound, and I won't need to wonder about it as I listen.

But a $7/month renting sounds like a very good way to screen the music b4 you buy - Almost 50% of my <500 CDs I've only listened to a couple of times, and probably wouldn't have bought had I had the opportunity to listen to them throughly b4 buying them.

[soup440]

Even if you do rent, you can always re-download later right?

[jw0613]

don't those subscription based mp3 expire when ur subscription expires ? which makes them useless ?
anyway, if u think about it.. CDs are better deal.. in a way.. cause u can rip them into just any format at any quality..
no RDM no expiring music..

[soup440]

If you can get them as flac, that would totally own tho. I would go for that.

[Fido]

He's saying he'll just record the rental mp3s to another format. I'm pretty sure there are ways to record them through another program on the computer so you would be making a digital recording as opposed to an analog recording.

[lonechicken]

He's saying he'll just record the rental mp3s to another format. I'm pretty sure there are ways to record them through another program on the computer so you would be making a digital recording as opposed to an analog recording.

Well it's a digital "noiseless" recording to WAV if you set things up correctly in a program like Sound Forge. It'd be a recording from what's probably 128 - 160 bitrate WMA, which is usually slightly better than mp3 at the same rate. Say you then re-encode the resulting WAV into a 192 or 320 MP3. It's not that much of a drop off in quality from the WMA.

Besides, if you really wanted to hear music the way it was meant to sound, you'd get an SACD or DVD-Audio disc, not CD. So we're really just splitting hairs on what's already compromised quality from the get-go. I'll just sit back and enjoy whatever I can afford, until the high fidelity music format war is over.

[Marauder]

I tried the Yahoo music service last week and found it to be pretty decent. The only problem though, was that I could not get the songs to play with my U2. If I could, I think $5/month is definetly worth it for what they offer. Has anyone gotten Napster or Yahoo WMAs to play on their iAudio product?!?

[basicdim]

I don't think it's possible for any subscription services to work with the X5. Nowhere does it state that the X5 have DRM capabilities. The only way to play yahoo, napster, etc... files would be to strip the DRM by using a realtime recording program. Muvaudio (free) and tunebite (around $15) will record the DRM'ed files and save as a mp3 file. However, this is not a digital conversion. So to convert a 4 minute DRM song to a non DRM 4 minute song will take 4 minutes. Essentially you are just tape recording the song. As you can see there will be quality loss. To some people it will be perfectly acceptable and can be a viable option. I understand that Yahoo encodes wma at 192kbps. I'm guessing that coversion via muvaudio or tunebite would sound okay.

On another topic, not sure how many of you are aware of russian music services. Some controversy as being illegal or legal, but I download songs in mp3 format using the alt-preset standard setting for about 10-15 cents per song and a whole album for about $1.50. You have complete option of downloading at any bitrate and different formats like ogg, mp3, wma, and even completely lossless wav. You pay per Mb of download so, if choose to encode at a lower bitrate then it'll cost you less and at lossless wav obviously it will cost you a lot more. Not sure if I'm allowed to post the website address to the one I use. (I'm new here at don't want to get into trouble by violating any policy.)

[metsfan421]

There haven't been any posts on here that state "for sure" if the iAudio X5L is compatible with Yahoo Music Service. I too need to know this before i buy it. And for those of you who don't understand why someone would go with a subscription based service?? Think about it, I can pay $60.00 a year and download all the music I want, I just can't burn it to CD, but who cares because who needs to burn music to CD when there's a pc pretty much everywhere you turn (in NY at least), and there's plenty of MP3 players to use to take your music with you on the go. I spent about $500.00 on iTunes music in the last year, if Yahoo had their service out, I would have been able to pay for music for about the next 8 years.... So it's DEFINATELY WORTH IT.. But back to my point.. Does this player work with Yahoo Music Unlimited? Please someone say YES!

[Linoleum]

I love CD's but I hate clutter. When you guys buy CD's, what do you do with the 70 or 90 CD's you have? Do you through them away or store them inthe garage? I have like 50 and I had to through away the cases cause I could not store them anymore. That's why I like download.. But......where can you download in other formats other than mp3? What about ogg?

Buy a huge cd book and throw away the cases. Repeat if neccessary.


And I reccomend eMusic. 9.99/month and you can burn it to a cd as well as copy it.

[idiotekniQues]

There haven't been any posts on here that state "for sure" if the iAudio X5L is compatible with Yahoo Music Service. I too need to know this before i buy it. And for those of you who don't understand why someone would go with a subscription based service?? Think about it, I can pay $60.00 a year and download all the music I want, I just can't burn it to CD, but who cares because who needs to burn music to CD when there's a pc pretty much everywhere you turn (in NY at least), and there's plenty of MP3 players to use to take your music with you on the go. I spent about $500.00 on iTunes music in the last year, if Yahoo had their service out, I would have been able to pay for music for about the next 8 years.... So it's DEFINATELY WORTH IT.. But back to my point.. Does this player work with Yahoo Music Unlimited? Please someone say YES!


i totally agree with your post on subscription services. ive pretty much said the same thing to lots of people who say its stupid. for some users its perfect. like u i live in the ny metro area and i always have access to rhapsody and soon rhapsody to go.

the x5 will be compatible with yahoo and other subscription services in september.

[idiotekniQues]

don't those subscription based mp3 expire when ur subscription expires ? which makes them useless ?
anyway, if u think about it.. CDs are better deal.. in a way.. cause u can rip them into just any format at any quality..
no RDM no expiring music..

for the price of like 11 cds u have access to a 1 million track library for a year. for some (including myself) its much better.

[idiotekniQues]

400 seems normal to me. I have about that much in both (each) CDs and DVDs... and I'm no rich boy.

I don't know that much about these "renting music" plans, but am I crazy or can't you just do a re-recording of these songs if all else fails? I know Napster banned some plug-in for Winamp that automatically wrote to a permanent non-DRM file when you're playing songs.

Can't people do this manually. Hit record using their favorite wav editor, then re-encode to mp3. Obviously, you're doing a second encoding and losing more quality, but the flip side is, you're getting something permanent in the end instead of "renting."

yes ive done this with sound forge while playing songs thru rhapsody subscription services.