True High Quality Music Stores

Hey all.
I Recently hooked up my mp3 player to my amplifier to have an easier way of accessing a large portion of my music collection.
The problem was that when i hooked up analog (that's your average stereo jack to 2 rca cables) i was stuck with the pre amp in the mp3 player, thus stuck with the audio quality the mp3 player could provide.

I Was reluctant to run an optical cable from my x-fi card to the audio system so i did some research towards music stores that offer music tracks online, legally, in higher bit rates than usual (ref: itunes, 128-250kbps) trying to maximize the output of the mp3 player (a ZEN 8gig model).

I Was surprised to find a couple of great sites that really aim at the audiophile audience.

The first one is http://www.musicgiants.com.
They offer 750-1 million songs encoded in WMA Lossless, @ 1.1mbps. (Windows Media DRM on ALL TRACKS)

And the second one: http://www.hdtracks.com/
Both AIFF and FLAC lossless files are supported. For portable players, they have 320kbps files.
They also offer FLAC 96/24, which i thing is pretty impressive. And if i am not mistaken, capable of multichannel tracks too. (All tracks DRM free)

After trying those services, i decided to go MP3 or WMA for some of my music. But for the serious stuff, i eventually hooked up the x-fi to the amplifier, and trust me, the quality is breath taking.

Coaster thank you for this post and the links. GREAT to know and I will try them in the future for sure.