Reputability of several flac/hd audio sites

I've found flac albums for sale at the following sites for very cheap.

flacit.com

flac2.com

Both look very similar which makes me suspicious. Anyone have any experience with either? Are they legit?

 

I have no idea unfortunately. Would love to see others post of sites they use. I just tried a new one, has an excellent selection.

https://us.7digital.com

Anyone tried or heard of them? Sorry, not trying to derail your thread. Was going to post my own, posing the same question about my site. Found your thread, figured this be better.

 

No worries. Yeah, I've used them.

I just buy from whomever has what I'm looking for at lowest price. No favorites.

 

Cool. Thanks for the info. They seemed legit, but I'm not sure I hear much off a difference between 320 and up (in general not limited to any website) Lower bit rate mp3 yes, but with my terrible ears I'm not sure if it pays... But I do it anyway. I make no sense. Lol.

 

Just my two cents, but those sites look really suspicious to me. They list several MFSL and DCC albums which are out-of-print and have never been available for download anywhere. If those labels finally decided to offer digital downloads, my guess is that these two websites would not be the first and only place that they're released.

 

I googled flacit.com and flac2.com am quite suspicious of both of these sites based on the results. You could try it and judge for yourself.


flacit.com
I got an "unknown" [?] Norton Anti-Virus icon in my search for flacit.com. I clicked on it and proceeded to the site.

I searched on David Bowie because I am pretty familiar with the different releases/masterings of his catalog. Unlike any of the other (legitimate) download sites I have visited, they have multiple releases/masterings of various titles. These include at least one of the SACD rips into 5.1 FLAC, several of the RCA releases from the 1980s and 'Bowie At The Beeb' Promo Only sampler amongst other releases that I find suspicious. (I saw a couple of bootleg titles, as well.)

Their prices are great, They give enough info to divine provenance. They have selections of masterings that would be desirable to have on a legitimate site. But I would not trust them with my credit card.

flac2.com
I got an "unknown" [?] Norton Anti-Virus icon in my search for flac2.com. I clicked on it and received "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - has blocked a potentially malicious website." I clicked on "Learn More" and it came back with:

"Your Malwarebytes malicious website blocking technology has blocked outgoing or incoming communication between your computer and a malicious Internet Protocol (IP) address. That's a good thing. This communication could be:

An attempt to download malware onto your computer
An attempt to redirect you to a malicious webpage
An attempt to deliver malicious advertising"

I didn't try to get on flac2.com after receiving this warning.

 

^ Thanks. Yeah they seemed suspect to me too. It's just that downloaders of high resolution files seems like such a small target population it doesn't seem worthwhile for scammers.

 

I don't know what the cost and effort of running a site like that would be.

I remember from my Googling that both run from servers hosted in Russia. At least one is registered to a female name in the UK. IIRC, both are registered to "her" but I may not be remembering that correctly. They have both been up a little over a year.

The content is likely acquired as downloads from "free" torrent sites, in my opinion.

flacit.com will get your credit card info. flac2.com may install malware and get your credit card info.

They may turn a profit in ways that legit sites do not.

Edit: It is a shame that flacit.com gives more info as to what mastering you will be downloading than any of the legit download sites I have used.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/cat/365/Digital_Download is the only one that I have seen that gives that info on a somewhat frequent basis.

Otherwise, I research on http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...s-pono-etc-software-mastering-part-12.434884/ and then one has to learn which poster's tastes align with one's own taste in mastering.

@Warrior (I haven't spent much time on 7digital but they are legit.)

 

@Dino thanks brother. They definitely seem like it. I've probably spent about $300 in the last few days, even purchased some music I already owned, and for once I want to say I hear a difference. I need to ab more, but on one song, I have listened to many times, know it well, and it definitely sounds different than the one from 7digital.

 

Double post

 

@Warrior

I haven't bought any from 7digital. No reason really, just have not looked there much. I have bought quite a few at HDTracks and Pono (which is down for a while). The legit Hi-Res/Lossless download sites pretty much have the same masterings.

My experience has been mixed. While I prefer Lossless to Lossy, I am not sure when it comes to Lossless to Hi-Res. The music that I have bought in Hi-Res that I really enjoy the sound of has been music that has been mastered quite well. I am pretty upset about the downloads I bought that are highly compressed dynamically. But that was my fault for buying blind for a while.

I use http://dr.loudness-war.info/ and search http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...s-pono-etc-software-mastering-part-12.434884/ before I buy now. As often as not, I have CD rips that I like the sound of more than the downloads. It is usually due to the handling of dynamics in the mastering. (And, dynamics is not that big of a deal with everyone. It is with me.)

Since you are happy with your downloads, I was reluctant to bring up my mixed feelings about my experience. But I thought I ought to in case you have just been lucky, so far.

 

Thanks @Dino. I've had mixed results for the most part as well, unfortunately. 7digital I haven't done enough abing, but I was referring to lossy vs lossless, not hi-res vs lossless. I did buy a few 24 bit flac songs, but the one that stood out was 16bit vs 320kbs. The others I really would have to ab.

 

Whenever I'm interested in purchasing a hi-res album, I always check first on this website:
http://www.findhdmusic.com/

You can search by artist, album, etc. and it shows you what's available on all the legit download sites. I'm wary of buying anything that's not listed on this website or isn't sold directly through the artist website or label website.