it's okay, stuart, i won't give you any fl...

i guess it depends if there is a demand for that type of quality in a downloadable format. i suspect there will be, at some point, not because audiophiles will necessarily demand it but because i think cds will become ever more scarce in years to come. while i'll miss the packaging--the artwork and liner notes, that is, not those annoying brittle plastic cases that easily break--i certainly won't miss paying $15-$25 for a hard-to-find album. it would be interesting at a future cd/music club meeting to play an mp3 and flac files for the same song for comparison. i may be one of those people who may not be able to detect a difference but i suspect for some, the difference will be great enough to seek out the higher quality files, and go with a 'quality over quantity' approach when it comes to storing music on ipods.

it's understandable that, as the memory size of the newer ipods increases, the justification to shell out cash for a new one comes down to whether you can reasonably hope to ever fill the damn thing with music (or videos); why buy a 100-GB ipod if you only have 15MB full of music with which to fill it? however, if you increase the quality of the files and increase the file sizes, then you have a rationale for upgrading. think this bodes well for a company like zunior in the long-term.

gotta say as well, i like the fact that they're selling complete albums instead singles. i've read countless articles in the last year about the ascendacy of the single and the death of the album so it's nice to see a company stake it's revenue model on the idea that people still have the attention span/interest in 60+ minutes of music by one artist. i prefer to buy/download complete albums myself, and usually only buy a single if it's something catchy that i'm planning on mostly listening to at the gym or using to fill out a compilation cd. plus, they offer the artwork with each download, so if you wish to burn a copy and print it out, you can do so.

also gotta restate my support for any online music store which doesn't use drm-encoded files. for those with the time and or inclination, there is an interesting article in salon today about steve jobs' recent chastising of the music industry, which appears to be self-important rhetoric.