Whether there is an audible difference between mp3 bit rates, flac, and CD has been debated by people with more knowledge, and better ears than mine, and the results are mixed, so I wont go into that.

My understanding of using flac instead of mp3, is to give the customer the possibility of burning said music to CD, with a minimal lost, if any at all.

So when you pay $5 bucks for downloading the flac version, is effectively analogous to paying $5 bucks for the CD. This can be done, because they save by not having to pay for the medium. In the case of Saul William, you get the booklet in a pdf file, as well as lyrics and other relevant information.

In my opinion this far superior. It is however true that given that most people uses Ipod’s and itunes the use of flac is not ideal for those people, however decoding the files, and re-encoding them to Apple lossless is a painless ritual, but I understand most will not want to bother. Hence the offer for 320kbps mp3.

People are more concern with size, and good enough, when they should be more interested in the sound and the music. Given the same goes the other way, people can be to involve with lossless that they forget the music.

For me the ability to have a clear and as pure a reproduction of what was done in the studio is important. Having a good sound system. Will make the differences more audible, and palpable.

That’s been my experience.

The point I’m making is, I don’t think bitrate is a big enough a feature to tempt the majority of the people to pay for music.