Comment by jdc0589

There is no harm in releasing higher quality uncompressed or loss-less tracks. At the worst they will bring in some new customers, such as myself, that currently will not buy music online. Why would I pay $10 for an album as a highly compressed download when I can pay the same price for the CD and rip it to FLAC myself? I realize I am in the minority here, but as CDs phase out even more, there has to be some other way for consumers to obtain high quality versions of tracks.

Footnote, you don't have to have a >$10,000 setup to benefit from higher quality tracks (compared to the downloads that sometimes have 'questionable' quality). I have two systems, a full range stereo (front left and right) setup for nearfield listening at my desk thats +/- 1DB from 50hz-20khz. The other is a stereo setup in my media room; 2 way quarter wave transmission line, +/-3DB 40hz-20khz. The point is, there are a lot of people with less than $1200 in audio gear that still want lossless tracks made available. Who cares if the human ear can't discern much of the extra information, we still want it.