MusicGiants isn’t the most well-known online music download service out there, but they’ve been pumping out WMA Lossless files since 2005. Until a couple weeks ago, all of the super hi-res files were locked down with Windows Media DRM, but no more! Right now you can only get Paul McCartney’s Memory Almost Full DRM-free in truly bit-for-bit identical quality to a CD, but by this fall, MusicGiants will release lots more titles that you can pirate share at will. (The company hasn’t done an official press release yet, but MusicGiants CEO Scott Bahneman recently spilled the beans to Stereophile.)
It sure makes the iTunes Music Store’s 256Kbps AAC files look pretty wimpy, and it even trumps 7 Digital’s DRM-less 320Kbps MP3s. Will you hear the difference? If you have a super hi-fi audio rig at home then it’s a good bet you will. If you have an iPod, then no, because the iPod can’t hang with any WMA format.
That officially makes MusicGiants’ files the highest-resolution DRM-less downloads around. Which begs the question: When will Steve Jobs let us download Apple Lossless files on the iTMS? Another question: When will more portable players support WMA Lossless?
MusicGiants Floats High-Rez Files without DRM [via Stereophile]
Another question: is there free/open source software to turn WMA lossless into something I can use, like AIFF or FLAC or WAV?
Yes, there is a tool named Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless to PCM Converter from Microsoft.
You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/utilities.aspx