iTunes versus MusicMatch 29 october, 2003 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

It would be difficult to miss the announcement that Apple’s legendary music software, iTunes, was just released for Windows. Steve Jobs proclaimed that “Hell just froze over,” eluding to the fact that Apple just released a Windows version. He also made a more interesting proclamation saying that this could be the greatest Windows software ever written. Grand-standing aside, iTunes is indeed a great piece of software. Although, perhaps not quite as good as the current music favorite in Windows land: MusicMatch.

Player Ease of Use
Winner: iTunes

Apple’s ability to transform complicated tasks into something anyone can do is legendary. That is certainly true with iTunes, where most of the tasks you will want to do are intelligently placed before you. The only exception to the ease of use was how difficult it was to put together a random playlist based on different categories and artists (called “Smart Playlist”), which is a task MusicMatch makes easier with their AutoDJ option. However, in most areas MusicMatch is more difficult to grasp. The use of multiple Windows by MusicMatch is something we would highly encourage them to dump because it only makes using their product more difficult.

Player Database
Winner: iTunes

We tested these products with about eight hundred discs ripped in MP3 format onto a 160 gigabyte hard drive at 160k. That is a lot of music. It took both products quite a while (hours) to go through the entire hard drive to put the music in their respective databases. While MusicMatch might have organized the music faster than iTunes, it was iTunes that allows the end-user to get to that music faster from then on. Granted, a faster computer would have cured the speed issues with MusicMatch (we used a three year old P3 800 system for this comparison), we still give the nod to iTunes for having created a product that ultimately works faster.

Player Customization
Winner: MusicMatch

Do you like the brushed-metal look of iTunes? That’s good, because you are stuck with it. The same can not be said about MusicMatch. You can customize the look of MusicMatch with ‘skins’ available online to give your music player a fresh look. However, the look of the player is not the only customization where MusicMatch trumps iTunes. MusicMatch also carries numerous other setting options unavailable in iTunes.

Player Online Radio
Winner: MusicMatch

MusicMatch Radio is one of the most popular radio streaming systems on the Internet, and for good reason. They have numerous stations available, and you can even create your own station. The sound quality is outstanding, and most importantly, you can see the track names and even cover art as the music is playing. Most people, like me, determine what music they are going to purchase by listening to the radio, and being able to immediately see the track names is a necessary feature of online music. MusicMatch even has an ‘Artist On Demand’ ability to listen to just about anything from their collection. The downside? You have to pay for this high quality, commercial-free streaming ability. (Lower quality versions with commercials are available for free.)

iTunes, on the other hand, does not charge for their online radio, and for good reason. I found most of the stations to work sporadically, at best, and the quality was, in most cases, not as good as actual on-the-air radio. The free version of MusicMatch Radio is far superior to iTunes radio, and paying the relatively inexpensive annual fee makes the product second to none.

Player Recording
Winner: MusicMatch

In our comparisons of burning CD’s in both players we found MusicMatch to do an overall better job of creating CD’s. MusicMatch handles volume issues better from song to song, and does a better job of burning the CD on fast CD burners. While iTunes was certainly acceptable, if you are concerned about quality, MusicMatch is the better choice.

Music Store Functionality
Winner: MusicMatch

Looking to purchase some music? Type what you want into the search box. With iTunes, you will get a result set listing the matches in the iTunes download library. With MusicMatch you will get a list of just about every song on the market that matches your request, with a ‘download now’ button for those that are available to download.

The implementation by MusicMatch is, obviously, better. MusicMatch will assist you in finding the song you are looking for, whether they have it in their music library for download or not. iTunes is absolutely useless for finding music unless they have it available for download. Considering that neither platform has what I consider to be an impressive list of tunes, this functional difference is huge.

Music Store Sound Quality
Winner: MusicMatch

iTunes uses a 128K AAC file. MusicMatch uses Windows Media format at 160K. Both have very small limitations in the use of their songs.

Listening to the songs I downloaded from both platforms, both sounded excellent. However, on our digital receiver (connected to the Windows system digitally), you could discern a slightly better quality from the Windows Media version. However, the difference in quality was not enough that anyone would care.

The superior quality of the MusicMatch file became far more important when we created a CD of the music and then ripped is back to the respective player in MP3 160K format. If your intent is to change the format of your downloads to MP3 to keep your music formats consistent, MusicMatch is the better choice.

Music Store Selection
Winner: Neither

Both players have a couple hundred thousand songs available. It sounds like a lot, until you use it. Easily over half of the music selections we were looking for were unavailable on either system. Not surprisingly, the music selections on both iTunes and MusicMatch were very similar. Check back with Sanitypages at a later date as we compare the upcoming Napster download service to the MusicMatch and iTunes online stores.

Overall Best Windows Music Player
Winner: MusicMatch

While I think the folks at MusicMatch need to make two very major changes to their product (a faster database system, and an easier to use interface with one window), overall they appear to have a large lead on iTunes.

It is important to note that iTunes does not support playing Windows Media files, which is a very popular format used in the Windows world. Many Windows users have, sometimes unknowingly, ripped their music in 96K Windows Media files through their use of Windows Media Player. Apple would be wise to support Windows Media on their Windows version of iTunes.

MusicMatch does not support the AAC format being used by the iTunes music store. In fact, no one does except Apple, which is something Steve Jobs hopes to continue since it makes their iPod (the only player to be able to play AAC format) the only choice for those downloading from the Apple Music Store. If you are a Windows user with an MP3 player other than an iPod, using iTunes could ultimately be a frustrating experience.

Ignoring Apple’s thinly veiled use of iTunes as a sales vehicle for iPod music players, they have made an excellent product. iTunes is a beautiful product with a fabulous interface that I would not think twice about recommending to computer novices. However, for audiophiles and computer geeks that care about sound quality, functionality, MP3 players other than iPod, or Windows Media Format files, MusicMatch is the best choice.

Hey, Steve. Ain’t competition a bitch?