The rock band Radiohead surprised the recording industry status quo when it bypassed its label and told fans to pay what they want for the downloadable album In Rainbows. Now some fans say they are also surprised - and not in a good way.
Some who downloaded In Rainbows and volunteered to pay as much as $20 found out the hard way there were caveats. Many were initially disappointed to learn In Rainbows digital tracks were encoded at a low bit rate of 160K bps (bits per second).
That level of encoding is actually a tad bit better than what music services like Apple's iTunes delivers for its DRM protected 128K bps AAC tracks. But 160K bps is a lower sound quality than what is quickly becoming the standard for DRM-free tracks which is 256K bps. For many people tracks encoded at 256K bps have perceptively better sound quality than 160K bps. In fact Radiohead's earlier albums were released online at bit rates on par with 256K bps.
But discontent with the Radiohead release doesn't stop there. Radiohead's management also confirmed to the newspaper USA Today that the scheduled January release of a physical CD of In Rainbows may include extra songs.
Some fans now are miffed they by the fact they may have to buy the album twice to enjoy better sound quality and the complete In Rainbows album. USA Today quotes several irked fans who said there was not adequate disclosure about the low audio quality download and expressed buyer's remorse.
On Radiohead's message board I found no shortage of outraged downloaders. The sound quality, one poster said, "is almost unbearable." A user by the handle jchambers64 wrote "I paid $19 for this? Sounds like extremely low quality samples of songs from the LP. Why don't you offer a higher price for a better bitrate plus all the additional songs?"
Still, I'm sure, many Radiohead fans who paid as little as a few dollars for the album aren't losing any sleep over their investment.
