Philly Orchestra Online Music Store

The Philadelphia Orchestra recently opened an online music store to host their recordings.

For a limited time, you can download a 2005 performance of Beethoven's 5th Symphony for free. This one was recorded under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach.

Two things of note:

• It looks as if most recordings are $5 (Beethoven's 9th is $10, however). That's more reasonable than iTunes, though not quite as "reasonable" as AllOfMP3 -- and by reasonable I mean "probably illegal". I'm not complaining... no, no...
  
• They provide recordings in FLAC, or the Free Lossless Audio Codec. It's slightly more expensive, but it's neat because it compresses the audio data without removing sound information. If you can hear compression artifacts in 128kbps MP3s (which is what the new orchestra store sells), you'll probably want to check out the FLAC versions. Problem is, your iPod won't know what to do with FLAC files. The Wikipedia entry has sections for software and hardware support.
  

I'm a bit bummed that the free download offer doesn't extend to the FLAC files for this recording... otherwise, I'd be able to download both and compare. I'm feeling activist today, so I'll write an email.