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I'll stick with iTunes and music that is not Metallica. Thank you very much.

lol ur not first emandudeguyperson
Whens the Rock Band: Name group   coming out?

I can't stand the reduced dynamic range that modern recordings seem to favor. I would much rather they provide us with a slightly softer recording with better dynamic range that I can just boost on my amp.

I dont think that my ears even work well enough to tell any sort of dynamic range anymore.

Game consoles will always be the best place to actually interact with music, but for just listening to the music I would say the best place for that is just a standard PC with some great speakers.

"As I'm not in junior high anymore, I haven't heard the new album."

Tschji, burn!

I am in total favor of full range over compression, I was really disappointed when Radiohead's "In Rainbows" came out for download but it ended up only being 192kbps. But I also am a digital guy and understand the necessity of compression. The same issue is applied with digital photography, a raw photograph contains too much information for modern monitors to display, they are also very large files, so they need to be compressed. When compression is done correctly, you can't tell the difference because it's only getting rid of information you wouldn't be able to see/hear anyway. To compress correctly, you need to have a target audience in mind, 192kbps might sound fine for the person with the stock iPod head phones, but total ass to someone with $90 headphones. I think it would be great if digital music download services like iTunes would offer the highest quality product possible then offer compression options for you to choose yourself. I want the maximum sound quality I cant possibly get out of my zune (yeah I have one and I love it), but I wouldn't be able to handle the raw format of each song I listened to because they would all be 10x the file size of a normally compressed mp3.

Anyway, the point is that people are still excited about Metallica, which is crazy. But what's even more crazy is that it's the same demographic of people it's been for the last 20 years, is it a requirement that you like Metallica in middle and high school and then forget about them after that stage in life?

I check out both versions and its true, the cd version (which i purchsed) is alot louder but  worse quality. If you crank the guitar hero 3 version up to the same volume it sounds amazing in comparison. 

Right, I care about sound quality, in that I will invest in quality headphones and mess with equalizers, but am not a complete audiophile, and even I can hear that Death Magnetic sounds pretty smoshed, and I haven't even listened to it much (also not in Junior high anymore, when I was actually way into Metallica). Especially the drum stuff just sounds clipped, at least I think that's the clipping I'm hearing. Pretty dumb, especially because, as said, you can use volume knows to make stuff louder.

I think people take this sound quality thing TOO far. As long as it sounds good and doesn't hurt my ears or anything when I hear it, then thats good enough for me.

 i think its a consoles games or just the console it self is a viable means to listen to music but as far as im concerned with all the consoles drm it never feels like i own the music like i do witha a cd.

I downloaded through "alternate means" like three weeks ago and I think it sounds fine. I didn't really notice a difference in sound.

I'm not going to outright defend the band as if it were my child, so whatever. If there was sound issues on the disc then shame on them. I play the game version through a shitty TV anyway but I didn't notice a difference.

I think that 320kbps is about the max quality for someone who is not an audiophile, it really comes down to the cost vs. benefit situation (the cost being file size). Sure you could play your huge uncompressed files with terrible speakers, but does it really make sense? People need to figure out what makes the most sense for their setup, and go with that. Therefore, retailers such as iTunes do need to offer tracks in a variety of sound qualities, so that people can get what they really want/need.

As far as interaction with music, for pure listening purposes, game consoles probably don't make the most sense unless you have the console hooked up to a nice speaker system, or else you will still not be hearing the music at a great quality regardless. For music games, of course consoles will be the best since they were designed with games in mind.