anybody mess with any of the lossless compression stuff out there? i've started to see .ape files pop up on soulseek, which are only about 3 times the size of an mp3 (info here). i know a lot of bootleg traders are using FLAC.
whenever this stuff really catches on, the record industry is truly (more) fucked (than they already are). thoughts?

With high speed connections becoming more and more common, I'm not bothered at all by large file sizes. However, until MP3 player storage grows considerably larger, MP3s will probably stick around.

i don't think that audio quality is what's hastening the demise of the record industry. people still bought records when they were on record. i think that it's convenience that sells millions.

nah, its not worth the extra file size. mp3s encoded to 320 kpbs (or even 256 kpbs) sound just as good as lossless compression. the only way i switch to lossless is if its filesizes come down to comparable size with mp3s, and i dont see that happening for at least 5, or more likely, 10 years.

yeah, the legitimate mp3 market definitely has something to do with it. but the fact that damn near everything is available for free to anyone with a little bit of computer literacy and a good internet connection has to be having some kind of effect.

I'm not so much into downloading new music, but I do download FLAC for bootleg shows whenever I can. The way I figure it, someday we won't have to worry about compressing audio, so why not have the best possible sound? I'm not really convinced that anyone can actually hear a substantial difference between a high-bitrate mp3 and an uncompressed file, but why limit myself for the future?