Originally posted by gurnemanz
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Some CDs still come with useful booklets and notes - though many don't - and some downloads do include the notes and artwork. The much more compact form of downloads can be a great advantage for some. Personally I only tend to buy downloads if they are very much cheaper than the equivalent CDs. A lot would depend on the nature of one's collection, how it gets used etc. This is of particular interest to very mobile users--100s of CDs can be stored on an iPad or similar, and if streaming works (it doesn't always) then good access to large collections is possible. Amazon's Auto Rip can be useful, though I tend only to use that if the prices for the discs arent too inflated compared with other sources or market place sellers.
Where downloads could have an advantage is for better than CD quality "master" recordings, though the downloads may take a relatively long time, take up a lot of computer storage space, and cost more. Many people are not prepared to pay very significantly more for what may, for them, turn out to be fairly minimal quality differences, since audio quality also depends on the replay equipment, and their replay kit may limit the possible perceived quality,
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