Electronic records and download

[michaelw]

Hallo,

I would be interested how you handle downloading music. I own about 1000 CD's (and many (>100) Mahler CD's among them), but in these times it becomes more and more
interesting to study download catalogues. For example, yesterday I saw that on iTunes you can get a new M5 conducted by Marin Alsop (she was just focused and discussed in a Brahms topic here). Even at the LSO website, there is no announcement, no hint of this recording (and they have links and information on February and April releases)! I found some (good) reviews of London newspapers, but nothing else. But it is there, one could hear it now. But not in CD quality (maybe never?).
Then, when here at the forum you discuss certain recordings, searching on line one can get the CD almost IMMEDIATELY.
Thirdly, in the "old" board I asked for opinions about the MTT recordings (not forced to immediate purchase, by the way), but meanwhile I could get all of them at eMusic for about 0.3€ per track. That's particularly interesting for us Mahlerians (except Antoni Wit's M8 with many, many tracks).
So what do you do? Always hearing CD's or even SACD's or also listen to MP3, AAC etc.? Personally, very often I had no other chance than to use my MP3-player.
And the on line search gives me a chance to dig in many different kinds of music often led by associations. However, a well-recorded CD played on a good equipment IS different.
By the way, I don't like the price policy of iTunes for classical music too much and have no interest to push eMusic. It's just interest.

Michael