MusicGiants Fills Its Dance Card
By Mark Fleischmann October 23, 2007 — The CD is being phased out, the LP has seen better days, and downloads irk audiophiles with their lossy clumsiness. Where can you go to download music that sounds the way it should? MusicGiants has offered high-res downloads—the missing link in the evolution of online music retailing—since 2005. Now the company's reach is spreading to new devices and new record labels.

MusicGiants is bringing new hardware partners on board. They include, surprisingly, Integra, maker of fine surround receivers—including the DTR-8.8, which can stream Windows Media Audio files from its Ethernet jack. The MusicGiants HD Music Store is compatible with Logitech products like the Transporter and the Squeezebox. If you're in the mood for an advanced touchscreen interface, get your MusicGiants fix from a Qsonix product. And Vista-based media centers are also in the game via Niveus Media.

What's remarkable about the deals with Naxos and PentaTone is that these labels have already released large quantities of titles on SACD, the high-res disc formats. Though Naxos recently bowed out of SACD and DVD-Audio, PentaTone continues to issue a remarkable stream of SACDs from the Cincinnati and Atlanta symphony orchestras, among others. Julia Fischer's two-disc set of the Bach sonatas and partitas is worth its weight in gold. Now you can download it.

Also signing with MusicGiants is the Razor & Tie label whose acts include singer/songwriter Dar Williams, Twisted Sister, worldbeat acts like Yerba Buena and Grammy-nominated Angelique Kidjo, and Broadway musicals like Hair, Fame Becomes Me with Martin Short, and (natch) High Fidelity.

MusicGiants encodes in the Windows Media Audio Lossless format at up to 1100 kilobits per second, providing higher fidelity than MP3 and iTunes AAC files encoded at lower rates.