Somehow, Amazon has scored a deal with all of the major record labels to sell DRM-free music on their online store. Apple, to date, only has a DRM-free arrangement through EMI. Hopefully this will change any day now. But I went online to download a new album last week, and for the first time since becoming a die hard iTunes user, I checked Amazon’s website to compare price and quality. I was surprised that the same restricted album from iTunes for $9.99 was available for less through Amazon. Plus Amazon’s files were variable 256kps DRM-free tracks! I was very impressed with the low price, and quality of the songs I purchased.

I know Apple is scrambling to provide DRM-free, high-quality tracks for all of the songs available through iTunes. The record lables are obviously dragging their feet. However, Amazon seems to have struck a good note with the industry, and are currently leading the pack in this arena. Until iTunes is able to match Amazon’s volume of unrestricted tracks, I’m going to continue buying tracks from Amazon.com.