Getting FLAC from the Philly Orchestra

As I had mentioned I would, I emailed the Philly Orchestra's music store's support folks. The response below (from Fred) made me feel a) wrong, and b) cheap. Apparently the store's MP3s are all 256kbps VBR... and, no, they won't give me a free FLAC download to evaluate the difference ("it's only $5, you cheap bastard").

So what's up with mplayer?

Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400)

(maybe that 9% means it's 9% sure it's 128kbps :)

Anyway, here's Fred's email. On the bright side, it made me realize that I don't know enough people named Fred.

Dear Haig Didizian,
>> When I realized your MP3 downloads are fairly low quality (128kbps),
Actually they are encoded at 256 kbps. Please see the FAQ: "The standard MP3 files, encoded at 256 kbps VB "
Sorry I can not give you a free flac download.
If you want to try out flac downloads thay are not very expensive, only about $5.

Please let us know if you require further assistance.

Thanks for supporting livedownloads.com!

--Fred