I was a long time AllOfMP3 user. Like me, there is a large population out there that also thinks that they were simply the best online music service around – no DRM, multiple download formats, selectable bitrates, a great download program, huge selection: you name it. Their success infuriated the US media cartel, so they used their lawyers, public relations monkeys, and political reach to put a stop to it.
So I asked myself, what alternatives exist? Can you still get music at a reasonable price, both easily and quickly from a reputable site? I did a little research and came up with what I think are the top alternatives; there are several good options out there!
I’ve reviewed the top six sites that I think are the cheapest, quickest, and with the largest catalogs. These are all free to sign up with; you can even download one track on some of the sites to try it out (after registering). Even if you’ve never used AllOfMP3 before, read on to get introduced to the much cheaper alternatives to the mainstream (iTunes, et al) online media providers.
LegalSounds.com
Several of these sites don’t offer a native download manager; LegalSounds.com, however, does. For some people, this makes it more attractive than some of the alternative sites. Having a download manager means that downloading and searching for music tracks is quicker and easier than if you use a typical web interface.
The catalog is searched online – not offline – which means that you always have the latest catalog search results, without storing the database on your PC. The LegalSounds.com downloader obviously has a somewhat different design than the AllOfMP3 or Alltunes programs (if you have ever used those), but it is easy to quickly get used to. It is free, of course – and doesn’t contain any spyware or other nasties.
All tracks cost $0.09 – every song, no matter the lenght – which makes LegalSounds.com the bargain of all of the inexpensive music providers out there. Tracks are encoded between 192kbps and 320kbps – which is better than several of the other music providers out there.
Payment options include VISA, MasterCard, Diners Club or JCB and several e-wallets: WebMoney, Yandex.Dengi, Rapida, e-port, and Kredit Pilot. The site interface has what I think is a very classy design, and is available in English and Russian.
LegalSounds.com also has a bonus program: for each payment of $25 or higher, you get free track downloads. For $25 you get 25 free tracks, $35 gets you 50 free tracks, on up to $100 with a total of 200 free tracks. If you use the $100 bonus option, this effectively bring your total price per track down to about $0.076 per track.
JustMusicStore.com
JustMusicStore.com claims to have a simply enormous catalog – over 159,000 albums online. This seemingly extensive catalog contains not just the latest and greatest, but also older tracks too – which lots of people (like me) are shopping for. I have had a tendency to lose CD’s over the years, so this is a good way for me to reclaim (cheaply) the music I’ve already bought in the past.
There are two categories of song prices: those between $0.11 and $0.15, and those between $0.28 and $0.39. I haven’t been able to figure out how to tell which songs fall into which category, but it seems that most popular and new tunes are in the cheaper category.
Your price per track depends on how much credit you purchase. For example, $50 worth of credit gets you the $0.11 price – with the smallest payment available giving you the $0.15 price per track. Obviously, you’ll make out the best if you make a larger initial payment.
At JustMusicStore you can pay with all major credit cards and PayPal, which means that this site will appeal users with only PayPal as an option. The recorded bitrates are good, usually 192kbps or better. If you’re looking for the largest selection available, then JustMusicStore is the site for you.
JustMusicStore downloads are fast – and I suggest getting an external download manager (FlashGet , for example). This site also offers free previews of individual tracks or entire albums at degraded quality.
iSOUND.be
iSOUND.be has a similar price structure as JustMusicStore, but with a much different catalog size. They make no claims clsoe to the number of albums that JustMusicStore does, but at almost 60,000 albums, this probably won’t matter in the least – this catalog is still bigger than many other sites out there. The MP3 encoding rates are good at 192kbps or greater and are often at 320kbps.
Similar to JustMusicStore, there are two categories of track prices: those between $0.11 and $0.15, and those between $0.28 and $0.39 – and again there doesn’t seem to be any clear cut reason for a particular track to belonging to a particular category. Again, most wanted albums are usually in the $0.11-$0.15 range. Your price per track depends on how much credit you purchase ($50 of credit gets you the $0.11 price, for example). You can pay with all major credit cards and PayPal, which will appeal to those of you that want to use PayPal to buy music.
iSOUND.be also provides pre-listening to entire albums (albeit at degraded quality), so you can be sure you really want an album or track before you purchase it. Downloads are fast, and with the aid of an external download manager (FlashGet or the like), you should have no problem managing your downloads.
MP3Sugar.com
Certainly one of the benefits of using MP3Sugar.com is the large bonus offered when charging up your account: if you buy $34 worth of credits, you get an extra $10 worth of credits on top of that – effectively giving you $44 worth of credits for $34. This site uses a fixed price of $0.18 per track, which means that you might end up downloading an album with long songs at a cheaper price than websites using variable track pricing.
Like most other sites, you are not given the option to pick the encoded bitrates of the tracks. There seems to be no default encoding rate, with some albums being encoded entirely at 192Kbps, and others using a mixture of encoding rates.
Downloading from MP3Sugar.com is easy and fast, and again using an external downloader like FlashGet will make your life a lot easier.
Major credit cards are accepted (VISA, Mastecard, JCB, DinersClub), but nothing else for topping up your account.
GoMusic.ru
Another site that uses a fixed-pricing scheme, GoMusic.ru has an ample catalog as well. Since each track has a fixed price of $0.19, you’ll make out better than at some other sites due when downloading larger tracks.
They accept major credit cards, but not Amex or Discover. As an alternative, you can pay with Webmoney, the PaySafeCard, UKash, or use an interesting feature that allows you to charge directly onto your home phone bill. If this kind of payment method interests you, then GoMusic.ru may be for you – it doesn’t look like anyone else offers this feature.
Just like most sites, you don’t get to choose what bitrate you’d like to have the MP3 encoded in, and there are no formats other than MP3 available (still, this is what most people want anyway!). The songs are encoded at various rates (including Variable Bit Rate, or VBR). The website interface is available in either English or Russian, and seems to flow well.
MP3Search.ru
MP3Search.ru , which has been in the MP3 business since 2004, isn’t going away anytime soon. With a predictable pricing scheme of $0.19 per song (just like GoMusic.ru), you’ll make out better getting some larger albums here than on other websites that charge by the file size or length of the track.
They accept major credit cards; alternatively, you can pay with Webmoney, the PaySafeCard, UKash, and some other less popular payment types.
Again like most sites, you don’t get to choose what bitrate you’d like to have the MP3 encoded in, and there are no formats other than MP3 available. The songs are encoded at various rates (including Variable Bit Rate, or VBR). The MP3Search.ru website interface is available in either English or Russian. Downloads seem fast and the website is pretty easy to use.
