Classical music aficionados can be a picky bunch, especially when it comes to music downloads. When they're not complaining about lack of selection, they're complaining about questionable sound quality. And you can't blame them: it's hard to stock a music store with several centuries worth of compositions, nearly all encoded in 256kbps or less, and each one recorded by multiple orchestras and every egotistical violinist to ever stumble upon a recording contract. (I say this as a violinist of almost 27 years, so draw your own conclusions.)

That's why Sony Music has decided to open Ariama, an online music store that aims to be the iTunes of classical music. The store has been rumored for several months now and has finally made its debut, with offerings from most major classical music labels. The pitch is two-fold: Ariama claims to have a wider selection than almost any other store online, and also offers downloads in a "lossless" FLAC format so that customers can encode the files in whatever manner they please. Them's fightin' words, so we decided to investigate.

Really, Ariama is more like a mishmash of iTunes and Amazon—the store has such a wide selection because it also offers CDs for sale, and in many cases, the albums are CD-only. In that case, it's kind of cheating; if I wanted to buy CDs, I would have gone to Amazon, not an online music service. Still, the overall selection is indeed expansive—if you don't care what format you might get, you likely won't have any problem finding any obscure piece or performer you're looking for on Ariama.

If you do care about finding your favorite recordings in downloadable form, then Ariama is a little more of a challenge to use. As pictured above, the site shows you which songs are available for download versus on CD when you run a search, and we wouldn't exactly say that Ariama has a better selection than iTunes or Amazon MP3, maybe just a slightly different selection. In fact, while numerous other sites casually dismiss iTunes as not having a wide enough classical selection, we found many cases where iTunes and Amazon offered an album for download while Ariama strangely did not (they were CD-only).

Even more annoyingly, when you find an album that's CD-only, the page still acts like you can listen to previews of the songs—that is, until you actually try to listen to the previews. Then it throws up errors. Amazon at least allows you to listen to previews of CD-only albums, and even if Ariama couldn't secure licensing rights to offer those previews, why not just remove the preview buttons on those albums?

If you find an album that offers downloads, you can download each piece separately—grouped in movements, but you can't cherry-pick each track like you could on Amazon MP3 or iTunes (classical music fans would scold you for doing so anyway). When grouped in threes—or however many tracks there are in the piece—the per-track prices are competitive with iTunes and Amazon MP3.

We think the real draw for Ariama is the choice between a standard MP3, encoded at 320kbps, and a "lossless" FLAC file. The FLACs are more expensive, averaging at about $1.50 per track, and are meant to offer an "exact translation of the original audio source." Once downloaded, you can do with the FLAC file as you please—if your music player supports it, you can listen to it without any conversion, or you can encode it into something else, like an even-higher-bitrate MP3.

The question is: if Ariama is marketed toward real audiophiles, will they really opt to buy the FLAC files versus a CD—or even more hardcore, a vinyl recording? (I don't know the answer to that question, so if you have an opinion on the matter, maybe you can tell me.) I have an affinity for classical music because that's what I've spent my whole life playing, but I don't identify as an audiophile—I download pieces for nostalgic reasons, not because I feel the need to hear the bow draw across every string in the orchestra. So, I'm almost always opting for the most affordable version of the specific recording I'm looking for (which, in this case, is the MP3).

That loops us back to the beginning: what's the appeal of Ariama versus online music stores that are much more securely established in the minds of consumers? The overall selection is wide, but the downloadable selection at least seems as limited as the other major online stores. Aside from the appeal of high-quality FLAC files, another thing Ariama has going for it is that it's infinitely more aesthetically pleasing and usable than other classical-only sites, such as eClassical. So, it certainly has potential to succeed in this niche, as long as Sony puts forth the marketing effort to get Ariama's name into the minds of classical music buyers.