One of today's many news items is Cingular's launch of a new music service. With a few different types of offerings, the end result is the same: Subscribers can access a multitiude of songs by paying a monthly fee. Reading the details in the Cingular press release, it seems this service will only work on select handsets initially and will cost different amounts depending on which monthly service is chosen (i.e., Napster, Yahoo! Music, eMusic or XM Radio).

[Now, let me issue a disclaimer by stating that I am a certified audiophile. Listening to and collecting music is one of my biggest passions and hobbies. If there's one thing I am a stickler for, it's sound quality. Of course, sound is a subjective matter and what sounds good to one person can sound terrible to another.]

When MP3s first became available on the Internet, I listened to a few and was horrified by how terrible they sounded. Codecs improved a bit over time and several provide for near-CD quality and reasonable levels of compression--and space savings on your hard drive. I conducted extensive audio tests at home, listening to songs directly from CDs, and then at various compression rates with different codecs until I settled on a compression rate and codec that provided no discernable difference in sound quality.

So, because I am picky about quality, I find all of the mobile music services lacking. First, I can't understand how anyone can listen to music over those tiny, tinny speakers that come on mobile phones. And even if you have a decent pair of headphones, it doesn't make up for the lousy music playback circuitry inside the phones. Is the quality passable for most general users? I'll have to allow that it is. Either way, none of the services will win me over on quality of the content.

Even if you do choose the mobile phone as your music platform, the experience of finding, purchasing and managing songs is different depending on what type of handset you're using. Some allow transferring music from the PC to the phone, while others allow you to download songs over the air direclty to the handset, while still others allow you to store songs on memory cards that are inserted into the phone. The variety of players, features and functions varies handset to handset and are often infuriating to use in a reasonable way.

Will wireless carriers make money with music downloads? Probably. Will wireless music downloads make most general users happy? Perhaps.

Though the idea of a converged super device that serves as a phone, camera, Internet/email device, music player and video player is very appealing, I know that I'll spend my money on music elsewhere.

 

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