Is Allofmp3.com as good as the iTunes Music Store?

Allofmp3.com has been making a lot of noise in the news lately. I heard about it several years ago when they were just starting out, but discounted the service because of the lack of good (subjective) music. I took a look again after hearing how Russia's entry into the WTO was being blocked because of Allofmp3.com. Im an iPod and iTunes Music Store user so that will be my baseline comparison.

Interface

Allofmp3.com is your standard website interface. It's not overly fancy with Ajax etc... it just works. You can preview songs without having an account and they have their bestseller lists organized by region. Though the site is based in Russia, they have spent the time to make it seem like it could be an American owned site. It's not as nice as the iTunes Music Store interface, but it does its job.

Selection

Allofmp3.com has a fantastic selection of music. I would venture to guess they have a lot more than iTunes. Approximately 30 albums per day are added to the hundreds of thousands already available for download. Basically, if you want it, chances are they have it. I have a little bit of a quirky taste. I can tell you that they have available: NoFX' new album, old stuff from Death Cab for Cutie, and Regina Spektor whom a friend of mine likes.

Quality of Downloads

Im not sure if this is something related to the few albums I tried, but I was very disappointed with the quality of the tagging. There were no track numbers in the tag, just in the file name and the only consistency were in artist, album and track. The rest were either missing or inconsistent - especially the genre! Sound quality was decent. You have the option to change the format or the encoding rate. This is great choice, but does not matter to most people. The other complaint I have is the download process. I seem to remember in the old days of Allofmp3.com, you could do a batch download in a zip file. Now, you have to select each file individually. It is a pain in the ass so iTunes wins here since you click "Buy Album" and it downloads for you.

Payment

Payment as gotten a little more difficult. Visa recently stopped processing Allofmp3.com's credit card transactions. The way to add funds to your account now is to use a third party service. I used Xrost to process my visa card and add in $10. I then had to go to Alltunes to put in my Xrost info and add the funds to my Allofmp3.com account. I only had to sign up for Xrost and Allofmp3.com. Alltunes seems to be tied in to your Allofmp3.com account.

Price

You are charged based on the size of your download. So, what this means is that an album can end up costing around $2.00. That's a pretty unbeatable price. For me, thats the difference between buying and pirating. I will sooner buy 5 albums costing $2 each, than 1 album costing $10. Assuming that royalties are being paid by Allofmp3.com, I think this is win-win. I am a good consumer and the record companies get their end.

Conclusions

Allofmp3.com has a large catalog of DRM-free music that can be tailored to your desires for bitrate and format. The price point is killer and it is a great example of what an online music service should be.

Good

Inexpensive, High customizability, huge selection, DRM-free

Bad

Shaky legal ground, now it is hard to add money, downloading full albums is cumbersome