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Music Sources

Official

Sources where artists and labels distribute releases officially.

Streaming services

Sources where music is distributed officially for streaming. Users usually pay a subscription for access to a vast music catalog. These sources usually do not provide an option for download.

Name Max Quality Affinity
Amazon Music Hi-Fi / Surround General
Apple Music Hi-Fi / Surround General
Bugs Hi-Fi Korean
Deezer CD Quality General
Gaana Lossy Indian
Genie Hi-Fi Korean
JioSaavn Lossy Indian
JOOX CD Quality Southeast Asian
KKBOX Hi-Fi Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Line Music Lossy Japanese, Korean, Chinese
Melon CD Quality Korean, General
NetEase Cloud Music Hi-Fi Chinese
Qobuz Hi-Fi Western
QQ Music Hi-Fi Chinese
SoundCloud Lossy / Original Western Indie
Spotify Lossy General
TIDAL Hi-Fi General
YouTube Music Lossy General

Stores

Sources where music is distributed officially for purchase. Users usually pay per track or release they want to own. Music on these sources usually cannot be streamed online and must be purchased to be download.

Name Medium Max Quality Affinity
Amazon Digital Lossy General
Animate Physical Japanese
Bandcamp Digital / Physical Hi-Fi Western, Indie
Beatport Digital CD Quality Electronic, Indie
Bleep Digital / Physical Hi-Fi Western, Indie
BOOTH Physical Japanese, Doujin, Indie, Idol
CDJapan Physical Japanese
HDtracks Digital Hi-Fi Western
HMV Physical Japanese
Juno Download Digital Hi-Fi Electronic
Melonbooks Physical Japanese
Mora Digital Hi-Fi Japanese, Korean
Ototoy Digital Hi-Fi Japanese, Korean
Qobuz Store Digital Hi-Fi Western
Rakuten Physical Japanese
Recochoku Digital Lossy Japanese
Tower Records Physical Japanese
Traxsource Digital Hi-Fi Electornic, Indie
iTunes Digital Lossy General

Secondhand

Sources where users share releases obtained from official sources unofficially.

Stores

Users resell physical releases obtained from official sources.

Name Affinity Notes
Discogs Western
  • Imported releases often more expensive.
Mercari Japanese
Suruga-ya Japanese
Yahoo Auctions Japanese

Download sites

File transfer occurs over the Internet from a central source. Negligible chance of users getting a copyright notice from their ISP.

Name Affinity Notes
ASTOST Soundtrack, Japanese
  • All self-rips are automatically exclusive.
  • Lots of 60% logs.
  • Site is in Chinese.
Internet Archive Random, Old
SquidBoard (Squid) Soundtrack, Japanese
  • Sometimes 100% logs.
TSDM Japanese, Chinese
  • All self-rips are automatically exclusive.
  • Lots of 60% logs.
  • Site is in Chinese.

Peer-to-peer networks

File transfer occurs directly from one user to another. Low chance of users getting a copyright notice from their ISP.

Name Affinity Notes
Soulseek (SLSK) General
  • Users can have their shares locked, may be willing to trade for valuables, sometimes just asking works too.
  • Must be sharing yourself to not get blocked by others.
DC++ Random, Scene
  • Hard to get into rooms that matter, need to be sharing a certain amount of specific content.
Perfect Dark Japanese, Old

Public trackers

File transfer occurs directly from many users to the user. High chance of users getting a copyright notice from their ISP in some countries.

Name Affinity Notes
Nyaa Japanese
  • Mostly WEB releases and logless CD releases.
RuTracker Russian, General
  • Mostly range rips with low log scores.

Private trackers

File transfer occurs directly from many users to the user. Private trackers are usually accessible by either going through a registration interview or receiving an invite from an existing user. Low chance of users getting a copyright notice from their ISP in some countries.

Name Join Ratio Affinity Notes
AnimeBytes (AB) Invite Easy Japanese
  • Quite a bit of 60% logs.
  • Scans are not allowed.
GazelleGames (GGn) Invite Hard Game Soundtrack
  • Decent amount of 100% logs.
JPopSuki (JPS) Invite Easy East Asian, Southeast Asian
  • Some torrents not seeded.
Orpheus (OPS) Interview, Invite Medium General
  • Lots of 100% logs.
Redacted (RED) Interview, Invite Hard General
  • Lots of 100% logs.
SugoiMusic (SM) Invite Easy East Asian, Southeast Asian
  • Made as a replacement for JPS.
U2 Invite Easy Anime
  • Quite a bit of exclusives and 60% logs.

Usenet providers

File transfer occurs from one of a set of distributed servers to the user. Access to these servers (also known as providers) is usually subscription based. Usenet providers do not usually focus on music, therefore the music catalog can be highly inconsistent.

Name
DrunkenSlug
NinjaCentral
nzb.su

Scene groups

Private network of decentralized groups who share files among themselves. Getting into a scene group is incredibly difficult, although releases shared by scene groups, scene releases, can end up on other music sources.

The following indexers can be used to search for scene releases: predb.club, predb.me and srrdb.org.

Most scene rips do not have logs, use an unpleasant naming scheme and follow outdated guidelines.


Created 2022-11-18 • Updated 2024-12-07