stratology

To take the iTunes store as an example: From Apple Help - Payment, Financing, Refunds and VAT - Apple Store (Republic of Ireland) "Why do I pay 23 percent VAT on Electronic Software Download orders and other products which are classified as services? The VAT rate for Apple customers who purchase Electronic Software Downloads or other Apple products which are classified as services under EU VAT law will be 23 percent Irish VAT. This is because the place of supply of these products under EU VAT law is Ireland as the country from where Apple Distribution International makes these supplies."

No. If you're outside the US, you have to pay for customs. I recently ordered items valued $150.- plus shipping from the US, when they arrived I had to pay another $30.- for customs and taxes on delivery. Same with more valuable items. When I purchased a guitar from the US, the additional customs payment was around $600. A computer purchase from abroad would be in the same range. Apple computers are so much more expensive in Europe mainly because VAT is so much higher. You can avoid taxes by going to the US, buying a computer, and claiming you brought it with you to the US on the way back. It's still tax fraud. As for music downloads: in the iTunes store, you can only buy in the US if your account is attached to a US credit card. So if I travel to the US, I can still purchase music, but only from the Irish iTunes store, because that's where my credit card is. If I had a US credit card, I would be able to legitimately purchase from the US iTunes store from anywhere in the world, because the credit card would identify me as a US citizen.

Different countries have different VAT percentages. VPNing into a different country to download is tax fraud.

No, it's not, but I come from the musician/sound engineering side, not from the audiophile side. Nothing obsessive about expecting a minimum of clear technical data. If you have seen a 'Mastered for iTunes' label, that means the source before conversion to AAC is a 24bit/96k file. If a conventional music retailer like Apple can state that, I would expect someone specialising in HD to match or exceed this type of information, and do it officially on their website, ideally with specifics for each album.

OK, I had a look at that page. They never state that the source files they receive are actually 24bit/96k. They talk about 'master tapes' (who masters to tape these days, and then converts back to digital? Or are they talking about ADAT tapes? Remember these?) and 'master quality' - which means, if it's a regular CD master, 16bit/44k. (Off topic: the best resource with good information about mastering I found is 'Mastering Audio' by Bob Katz.) The information is decidedly non-technical. They mention LP and SACD in the same sentence, stating that these formats can hold 'a lot of information'. The dynamic range of an LP is not even close to that of a CD or SACD, LPs are mastered to make sure that the needle does not jump out of the groove. So maybe they refer to lyrics when they talk about 'information'. Or notes, there sure are a lot of notes on each LP.

..and if HDtracks (or anyone else) don't want to sell in Ireland, why should I give them my money?

Sure, but for me the whole point of legally purchasing music is that it's legal. If I wanted to work around legislation, I wouldn't bother to buy music in the first place...

Interesting, because in their mail to me HDtracks stated that they do not sell internationally, period. Here's the quote from the email: "Please note, you are outside the U.S. We currently are not available internationally."

I think a possible cause is that their download manager cannot handle some types of Internet connections - but that's only a guess. The repeated spins are an indication that something is seriously wrong with the code of the app - given that there are no issues with any other apps that access the Internet, and that none of the usual suspects (firewall, antivirus SW, Mackeeper, Little Snitch, Netbarrier and similar) are in play. I mentioned Apple's interface guidelines a few times. The user interface has, obviously, nothing to do with the functionality issues, but the fact that the developers completely ignore basic Mac conventions is an indication that they are not terribly familiar with writing code for OS X.

Yeah, see the post from bmoura above yours :-) I think he's right, seeing issues in Europe that you don't see in the US, and issues with specific file types only, points to server side issues with the hosting. Anyways, I looked at the HDtracks FAQ site, they state explicitly that the downloads are CD quality, they nowhere state explicitly that they used 24bit/96k masters (like Mastered for iTunes does). I believe they would state that if they actually used hi res masters, so what they are implying is that they use CDs and upsample them. With all the delays with the downloads, I haven't even gotten around to listening yet (part of the album downloaded successfully before HDtracks cancelled the purchase). Also, with AUlab (free download from Apple), you can do double blind comparisons between hi res sources and the compressed files that are used for iTunes. If I get around to do that these days, I'll report back..

AHIG.

I haven't, thanks for the sites, I'll try. The format of the audio (AIFF, mp4, compressed or uncompressed) makes no difference whatsoever for downloads, apart from longer download times for larger files. I have downloaded 96k Impulse Responses (.wav files) for reverb plug-ins in DAWs from various sources without issue.

Just got a response from HDtracks: They state that they are currently not available internationally (I'm in Ireland). When I ordered, I was able to select Ireland as country, and pay with an Irish credit card... They will refund me.

Exactly. If the networks actually drops out, you get a window prompting for your password (I tested by disabling Wifi..). If a hung network connection can get your app to crash, you may want to consider giving up on developing apps altogether. I use some professionally developed apps that connect to the Internet and download content (Safari, Chrome, iCab, Omniweb, Mail, Transmission, App Store, iTunes, Skype, FaceTime, iBooks, Reminders, Evernote, among others). No issue whatsoever with any of them. If HDtracks requires an Ethernet connection, you should state that on the HDtracks homepage as a system requirement. If you want to, I can email you crash logs (13 in the last 24 hours) and spin logs (another 13 in the last 24 hours). But if you're not familiar with basic Mac usage and troubleshooting, I doubt that this will help.

OK, here we are 4 years after the initial post, and the issues still persist: - downloads fail (I have to try at least 4 times till a single track download completes successfully) - if the download completes, the processing of the audio files fails 50% of the time - the app (version19.0.60) stalls and fails silently, and starts consuming all CPU (over 10 hang logs in the last 24 hours, all for one album download) - the app reliably crashes on quit - resuming downloads fails 80% of the time, and to attempt a resume you have to quit and relaunch the app This is on the current release of OS X (10.9.3), firewall off, tried rebooting, re-installing the app, removing caches, removing settings for the downloader in ~/Library/Application support, removing downloader files in ~/L/Saved Application State, removing partial downloads, etc. No problems with iTunes downloads, or any other apps, of course. Apple has “Human Interface Guidelines” for developers, the downloader app breaks these guidelines in countless ways (menus, buttons, fonts, where prefs are stored, etc). This is yet another indication that the developers of the app have absolutely no clue what they are doing. I will never buy from HDtracks again.