So many services to choose from, where to begin? OK, here's where: it's the music, stupid.

You want to go with the service that has the songs you want. For this article, I looked at MusicMatch Downloads; Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store; and Roxio's Napster 2.0. As always, be mindful of the TNPC caveat: your mileage may vary -- the service that best fits my taste is by no means guaranteed to fit yours.

[To go to the main page for Digital Music Revolution coverage, please click here.]

And to quote Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: "You better shop around." Pricing and availability vary from service to service -- MusicMatch, for example, had a full album download of Jimi Hendrix hits for which competitors only had selected tracks while iTunes was selling a Rolling Stones live album for a couple of bucks less than the other services.

I had the best results in finding the most songs from the artists that interest me from the  iTunes Music Store.  Apple says that iTunes Music Store has the industry's largest catalog, with more than 700,000 songs.

Apple whimsically heralded the arrival of the Windows version of iTunes with ads on its web site announcing: "Hell froze over." Behind the whimsy is the excellent job Apple did in translating iTunes from Mac to Windows. The two versions are virtually identical in their operation and interface. In addition, the software lets you share files between computers on both operating systems on your home network. As a result, iTunes is one of the most truly cross-platform applications of any kind on the market.

But there is a "but" here. The downloads are in AAC ("Advanced Audio Codec" a/k/a MP4) format at a 128 kbps bitrate, and use Apple's "FairPlay" digital rights management (DRM) content protection. The only major Windows music app that fully supports the format is iTunes and the only portable player that will play the downloads is the iPod. So if you want to use other music software or another portable, you pretty much are out of luck. This drawback is mitigated, though, by the success of the iPod, which is leading to broader support for its formats in the Windows world.

Apple and HP surprised the industry in January by announcing a digital music alliance under which HP will put iTunes software (and thus the Music Store) on its PCs and also will sell HP-branded iPods. The latest incarnation of RealPlayer plays AAC (although Apple did not license FairPlay to RealNetworks). And the new 4.5 release of iTunes includes the capability to convert unprotected Windows Media audio files to AAC so they can be played on an iPod or with iTunes.

As you would expect from an Apple product, iTunes is an easy-to-use application, with flashy graphics, and clever touches. It has the ability to play and rip CDs, build a music library, tag music files, create playlists, burn CDs, and all the rest. It worked well on my system, without technical glitch. It puts out good sound quality, which is enhanced by nice graphic equalizer software.

My favorite feature was "smart playlists" which lets you set multiple criteria such as artists and genres for your lists. iTunes automatically adjusts the list as you add or subtract songs in your library. Also impressive was the speed at which it transfers tracks to an iPod. Its search function is simple and very effective. It is the only software player I know of that lets you randomly play your music by album as well as by song.

Apple released a major iTunes update, Version 4.5,  simultaneously for Mac and Windows, the first time it has done that, and did the same for 4.6. The later has some bug fixes and supports Apple's AirPort Express wireless music device. The major feature additions were in 4.5, among them a new "party shuffle" features creates another way to create random mixes. MusicMatch Jukebox, long has had that capability, although Apple's implementation is different -- MusicMatch has you set a specific time period for you mix while party shuffle is continuous.

Apple introduced a new "lossless" AAC encoder in iTunes 4.5 and 4.6. Microsoft also has written one for Windows Media. Both of them will rip a CD to a file that's half the size of an unencoded one, with loss of audio fidelity. But the file size still would be three or four times that of high quality AAC or MP3 encoding, with the corresponding reduction in the number of songs a player can hold. This is more a technology for home "media servers" than for portable players.

The iTunes Music Store is well organized, and the software's search function carries over into it. Navigating by artist or genre is easy. The Store allows you to play a downloaded track on up to five computers -- two more than anyone else allows. On the other hand, the new rules allow you to burn CDs of the same playlist up to seven times instead of the previous 10 (although still more than the industry norm of five), While changing playlists is not especially onerous, it does mean you might have to split up an album at some point.

The software is a free download and there are no setup charges for the Music Store. Just be sure you opt for the "shopping basket" approach rather than "one-click" ordering, lest you burn a hole in your pocket faster than you burn CDs. The store can be on the addictive side, helped along by Amazon-esque "people who bought what you did also purchased..." promos. Just to push temptation along a little more, iTunes 4.5 adds links to the files in your music library that direct you to Music Store offerings by your artists.

My gripes about iTunes and the Music Store mainly have to do with the encoding bitrate -- the measure of how much the audio information is compressed. The lower the bitrate the greater the data loss. AAC does produce noticeably better sounding music than MP3, but for a buck a song, Apple could do better than 128 kbps. Moreover, iTunes still does not have variable bitrate encoding for AAC. VBR changes the rate according to the complexity of the music being recorded, resulting in higher quality at a lower file size. One workaround is to rip CDs with Ahead Nero's music encoding software, which has variable rate AAC encoding, then import them into iTunes.

You can't knock Apple's sense of style, though. At Super Bowl time, an ad for a Pepsi-iTunes Music featured 16 teenagers who were sued by the recording industry for illegal downloads endorsing iTunes' totally legal service. Background music: "I Fought the Law," which as you know, continues "...and the law won." The real punch line, though, is that the version of the song used in the commercial, a cover of the Bobby Fuller Four original by "power pop" band (I don't know what "power pop" means either, but that's how they're billed) Green Day was an exclusive download on the iTunes Music Store, where it was a best-seller for weeks. Now that's synergy.

MusicMatch Jukebox, long my favorite Windows music player, puts Windows Media Player to shame in the convenient way it stores and catalogs your songs and its superior sound quality. Now, music downloads are part of the package.

MMJB's interface has evolved over the years, and to support the download service it has morphed into more of a web page-like informational display instead of old look, which mimicked stereo components. The latest release, 9.0, integrates the downloads with the jukebox into a streamlined design that is a huge improvement over earlier versions and puts MusicMatch Downloads' interface on par with its rivals.

A long-standing feature of MusicMatch is that when you install the software, you get the option of letting the software pass along information about your music preferences so it can make suggestions to you. This was originally intended for the company's streaming audio service, but now is used for downloads as well. This can be helpful if you have consistent tastes, but can be downright comical if you tend to be eclectic. I go from Classic Rock to Jazz to Classical to Light Classical to Folk to a little Country as the mood hits me, and thus the opening screen sometimes offers up weird combinations. A recent list may have been one of the few times Jimmy Hendrix and Pat Boone ever appeared on the same music listing.

In the original implementation of the download service, those guessed preferences constituted your download home page, and navigation to other choices could be confusing. Fortunately, this was corrected in 8.2. The home page now is a much more orderly and understandable layout of album covers and is tabbed to let you switch quickly to new releases, best sellers, genres, and the like.

MusicMatch uses secure Windows Media Audio for downloads, with a 160 kbps bitrate, the highest of any of the services I tested. As noted in a previous article, that's good but it could be better. A nice factor in secure WMA is that if the track is legal on your PC in one software player, then it can be played on any. In other words, a MMJB download will play on Windows Media Player (or on Napster 2.0, for that matter).

MMJB also supports multiple portables and also Pocket PC PDAs. It was the original software shipped with Windows iPods (now supplanted by iTunes) and still will sync with them -- but for MP3 and WAV format files only. MMJB also works with most Nomad and Rio players. MusicMatch just linked up with Dell and is the supplied software for Dell's new "DJ" portable, and there is a co-branded version of MusicMatch Downloads for Dell customers.

The old subscription streaming audio service, MusicMatch MX is still around, but you can ignore it. There is no fee to sign up for MusicMatch Downloads. MMJB basic is free, but I recommend going the $19.99 for the Plus version that offers faster burning and ripping, improved tagging, a label maker, and above all, priority tech support. It's a one-time fee and entitles you to upgrades

The only area where MusicMatch let me down is that I found fewer songs from my favorite artists there. I also thought the organization of the download service is weak -- there is no simple way to browse by genre or other broad category. That's probably good at keeping me from impulse purchases, but not so good for offering the widest range of choices.

Roxio (best known for its CD burning software) acquired the rights to the name of the original renegade music-sharing network, Napster, which the music industry had crushed via lawsuit. "Napster 2.0" has little in common with the original except the name.

It has a well-organized Web-page style interface, which offers most of the requisite music management features. There are some "community" features, such as message boards and a magazine intended to capture some of the feel of the old Napster.

However, Napster is old school in its operating approach. You frequently encounter ads urging you to subscribe to "Napster Premium," which is a $9.95 a month subscription service that lets you download and listen to unlimited tracks -- but only as long as you maintain your subscription. This is a style of business whose time has passed.

Other negatives: Napster does not play or rip CDs and it only supports the Napster-Samsung portable player. While it is supposed to have the largest catalog, that was not born out in my testing. Napster consistently had the fewest choices for my favorite artists.

(c) 2004 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com

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You can reach Al Gordon at:

al@tnpcnewsletter.com