on music

I'm over an hour into struggling with consolidating my music libraries, spread over two computers, multiple folders, and a mess of mp3, m4p, wma, protected wma, and recently (ahem) liberated wma. The wma's don't play on the Shuffle, the m4p's won't run on the Clix, and the protected files are completely useless when untethered from Rhapsody (but still clutter My Music). Argh. It really should not be this hard.

I want to get rid of my CDs but the prospect of digitizing the library is overwhelming. And what format to digitize to? A standard codec like mp3 is the best bet but at a max bitrate of 320 kbps (importing via iTunes) you lose clarity. I guess I could do flac or some other lossless format but we're talking huge file sizes...external drives...

Argh.

Stark contrast to Friday night, when for the first time in months I listened to some music the old fashioned way. On my stereo. In the dark. Insert and press play.

No shuffle, no cherry-picked tracks, no recommendation engine, no algorithms, no playlists, no editors picks, no free download of the week, no scrobbling, no nonsense. Just sit and listen. Loudly.

Will we ever find the happy medium between these two experiences?