Music plays a huge part in most of our lives, whether it’s to keep you sane, get you in a certain mood, relax or even used as a study aid.  CD’s are now a thing of the past and we have long since moved on to MP3 downloads, mainly due to the huge popularity of MP3 players such as the iPod and smart phones.

A recent study found that around 80% of 17-24 year olds own some sort of MP3 player, and with the integration of music downloads into the weekly official music chart, it has created a huge digital download market.  The very same study also found that the average legally downloaded music collection stands at around 800 tracks.  In fact the digital downloads market grew 35% just from 2008 to 2009. and in 2009 over 140 million units of single tracks were downloaded.

Because of this popularity, it has created competition, with different sites varying in price, so would you stick with one site if you found out that the same track was available at a much cheaper price from another provider?  Didn’t think so.

The Main Players

Here’s a list of the main providers of digital downloads in the UK:

• Itunes
• Amazon
• cdWOW
• Play.com
• zaavi
• 7digital
• hmv.com
• we7
• Tesco
• Tune Tribe

Example

Let’s use the current no. 1 album this week as an example, 21 by Adele.  It is available for the price of £7.99 from iTunes, but the very same album is selling for a much cheaper £5.99 over at Tune Tribe, that’s a full £2 cheaper.  Let’s say you make that saving of £2 on every album you purchase using the comparison site, and you purchase around 2o albums, that’s a saving of £40.

Using the official no. 2 as another example, we found the most expensive weighing in at £8.47 and the cheapest at £4.99, that’s a difference of £3.48.

How to find the Cheapest Price

To find the cheapest music downloads, you could just manually search each site for the album you want, but that would be very time consuming, so your best bet is to use an MP3 music price comparison site.  The best I have found so far would have to be TuneChecker.  It is extremely easy to use and is the brain child of Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis.  Try it out and let us know what you think.

Remember to leave a comment below, let us know if you know of any other services regarding saving money on music downloads.  Alternatively, visit us on Twitter or Facebook!