Has anyone tried iTunes Match? Is it useful?

[Dave2002]

I know someone who is enthusiastic about iTunes Match, and now listens to his music library via various mobile devices.
I'm not sure for myself whether it's really worth the £21.99 - as I don't have the same needs/requirements, but I do wonder if anyone else here has tried it, and whether it's useful for them - or not!

http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/itunes-match/

[Stunsworth]

I've not tried it as I have too many 'songs' (50,000+) in my iTunes library. If I was within the limit I'd probably find it useful for being able to download anything from my library while away from home, and for updating low bit rate recordings. In fact it's probably worth it in order to download the higher bit rate tracks - there's only a need to subscribe for a year, and recordings downloaded will be preserved even if the subscription isn't renewed.

[Dave2002]

I've not tried it as I have too many 'songs' (50,000+) in my iTunes library. If I was within the limit I'd probably find it useful for being able to download anything from my library while away from home, and for updating low bit rate recordings. In fact it's probably worth it in order to download the higher bit rate tracks - there's only a need to subscribe for a year, and recordings downloaded will be preserved even if the subscription isn't renewed.

I guess I've got a way to go then. Currently: 8501 "songs", 32.8 days, 179.41 Gbytes, though I'm still plodding on ripping the CDs to one of my hard drives.

I'm not sure if there is a declared limit on iTunes Match. It'd be useful also if some things could be kept separate from the match process - or perhaps they can, but I don't know it.
Having personal and other material uploaded to store might not be such a good idea. On the other hand, if it can identify good matches for most of the available material, then it could be very useful to have effectively copies of one's library accessible almost anywhere. In my case some of the material will be in higher quality than iTunes provides, but on the other hand where there are tracks at lower quality that could be a nifty way of getting better copies. It'd be dreadful if it overwrote high quality with lower quality though!

[Stunsworth]

Dave, there's a limit of 25,000 'songs'. If you're over that iTunes Match will reject your library. One way round that would be to create a new library just containing the low resolution tracks and then overwrite them with the higher resolution downloads. I don't think Match just overwrites anything manually, you have to select the tracks and tell Match to download them.

According to iTunes I have 152 days worth of music, I suppose I'd better start listening. Most of that is lossless audio that I've ripped from my CDs. Having the music in iTunes makes accessing anything very easy where ever I am in the house. Prior to iTunes my filing system was so poor that I often couldn't find something very quickly.