# How do you get your music?



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Poll to see how you listen to Classical Music


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Spotify, YouTube and live.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

janxharris said:


> Spotify, YouTube and live.


Live... you actually immerse in a crowd. Seems scary.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Lately, it's been vinyl. There's something about the tangibility aspect, with the big ol' album cover and cueing up the turntable for each side... It has a _je ne sais quoi_.

Also, hi Couchie! Been a while since I've seen that lovely green face.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Couchie said:


> Live... you actually immerse in a crowd. Seems scary.


Eh?......................


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Kopachris said:


> Lately, it's been vinyl. There's something about the tangibility aspect, with the big ol' album cover and cueing up the turntable for each side... It has a _je ne sais quoi_.
> 
> Also, hi Couchie! Been a while since I've seen that lovely green face.


Hi Kopachris! I'm still around. Lurking mostly, in the shadows.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Spotify, YouTube and CDs though as a student it's rather difficult to build an actual CD collection. I've also tried Apple Music, Tidal, Primephonic and Idagio but I've now settled on Spotify.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

CDs and occasionally YouTube. Mostly CDs because I think there may be less likelihood of performers (or their estates) getting ripped off.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Buying CDs ........................


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

consuono said:


> CDs and occasionally YouTube. Mostly CDs because I think there may be less likelihood of performers (or their estates) getting ripped off.


I agree. Besides patronage and attending concerts, I think buying CDs (not used) is the best way to support musicians. 
It's sad to see many people moving to music streaming only. I doubt those playbacks would pay out substantial amount of money to the artists.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I listen to Youtube and occasionally get CDs.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Used CDs, and occasional mail order from on-line. You gotta be in a good city to do the used CD thing.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

ORigel said:


> I listen to Youtube and occasionally get CDs.


This, plus FM radio (classical stations) and existing CDs.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Buying CDs. I don't seem to listen to downloaded things as much. I guess I need the thrill of the hunt in searching in my CD stack and physically putting them in the player.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Entirely Idagio. Sometimes I feel like an imposter around here since I haven’t bought any physical music in my life and don’t even own a CD player, but it’s the music itself that matters for me, not whether I own it or not.


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

Spotify, CDs and lossless downloads.

Spotify is great and if I had any sense I would use it more instead of spending money on CDs and downloads, but I like building a collection and knowing that I'll have my music around in the future. And also there are certain things that are not available on Spotify, labels like Hyperion and Linn for example.

CDs and downloads; again, if I had any sense I would stick with downloads but I like having certain things on physical format. Deciding what to get on CD and what to download is tricky sometimes and it feels messy and inconsistent — all the while knowing that I could just listen on Spotify


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I still buy CDs. I'm of an age where the physical medium is still going to mean something to me, as irrational as that may be (I don't care). Right now I am sitting at a desk in a small room literally surrounded by thousands of CDs, and it gives me comfort.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

These days, I mostly download HiRes files, and use Qobuz as streaming service. I buy the occasional CD or vinyl if I'm looking for a specific version of anything that is not available online.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

..me too apricissimus. I'm doing youtube too as our TV has a nice sound system. It's quite something to follow a score on a big OLED screen.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

I voted for CD because I have a collection of about 1000 discs that I've carefully collected and curated over the past 30 years. I do my serious listening with CDs from my collection. However, I actually spend the most time listening to classical music radio. There are several shows that I tune into every day in order to listen to concerts (especially local ones), follow new releases, get updates on the CM scene in general, and enjoy analysis by critics. I also use Amazon Music HD and Youtube for works that I want to preview or which I want to listen to when I know I won't purchase the work on CD. My absolute number one preference is for live music, though. The only good thing about our current situation is that I'm saving a lot of money I'd be spending on concert tickets.


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## mahlernerd (Jan 19, 2020)

Spotify! I use premium, which means I don’t have to deal with ads in between movements, and it’s absolutely amazing. The only downside is is that Spotify seems to lack some recordings that I want. A BIG one is the Barshai Shostakovich Cycle. I listened to a bit of it on YouTube, and I LOVE it. I also use Spotify because you get the same quality sound, and only have to pay 10 bucks a month to have basically 75% of all recordings out there (maybe more). It’s just the best!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

CDs. Used to be more of a vinyl guy before I got into classical music, but classical is much better on CD IMO. Fewer length restrictions, less having to get up and switch sides/discs, and I personally prefer the dynamic range of CDs for these kinds of music. I stream occasionally like in the car, but usually I’m not listening to classical when I drive.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

With earz...


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

With over 4,000 classical CDs, my music collection is complete. I listen to my CDs, occasionally LPs, (I started my collection in the 1980s) and go to YouTube to hear supplemental/alternate recordings.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Coach G said:


> With over 4,000 classical CDs, my music collection is complete.


I thought that too at 2000. And at 3000. And at 4000. And.... it's close to 10000 now.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

This should have been a multiple poll where you could pick the many ways you get your music . I said 'other' as I buy a lot of digital stuff but also buy lots of secondhand CDs and I also have a Spotify account. If I cant find it in any of those places I'll get to hear it somehow.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Spotify, sometimes buying CDs or LPs. I prefer LPs these days, not for audiophile reasons but because they're pleasing objects.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Art Rock said:


> I thought that too at 2000. And at 3000. And at 4000. And.... it's close to 10000 now.


I getting a little claustrophobic with my cds at around 1500 or so. Funny thing is cds are now becoming available cheap second hand. What I am wondering about (maybe should be a new thread) is what happens to our cds when we finally leave this physical world. Lets face it: Do our families care about all these cds? Will it be donated? Garbage? (Yikes, all that work and now...), estate sale?, Willed to a caring individual? (Ah, yes, maybe, perhaps, or not). One way or another it ends up being dumped.....


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Bigbang said:


> I getting a little claustrophobic with my cds at around 1500 or so. Funny thing is cds are now becoming available cheap second hand. What I am wondering about (maybe should be a new thread) is what happens to our cds when we finally leave this physical world. Lets face it: Do our families care about all these cds? Will it be donated? Garbage? (Yikes, all that work and now...), estate sale?, Willed to a caring individual? (Ah, yes, maybe, perhaps, or not). One way or another it ends up being dumped.....


This is just anecdotal, but I'm finding that the price of used CDs is rising again (after steeply declining). I think we may be entering a period where supply is going to be relatively static since CDs aren't being produced and reissued, and the buyers of used CDs are all people like me (and others here) who are collectors and real outliers in terms of overall inerest in acquiring new CDs.

A lot of used CDs are still pretty cheap. But I used to be able to get good, interesting recordings online for literally pennies (plus shipping). I don't see that anymore. And it's not uncommon for me to see CDs that I've put off buying that used to go for a few dollars now selling for $8 or $10 or $15. I'm also seeing a lot of CDs that I'd be interested in getting that are prohibitively expensive (thing $40 or more). I'm not paying that. Those kinds of CDs will forever be OOP, but there will be people like me who still want them, at least for the foreseeable future.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

rice said:


> It's sad to see many people moving to music streaming only. I doubt those playbacks would pay out substantial amount of money to the artists.


I can confirm that what we musicians get from streaming is staggeringly poor. It takes many thousands of plays to come close to a single CD purchase.

I like owning physical media, so it's discs for me: CD, SACD, Blu-ray Audio. The B-rA format is _so good_ it hugely bums me out so few people have tried it. Aside from the potential for improved sound, you can have things like the entire Ring cycle on a single B-rA disc. Opera or long symphonies, or binge listening something like Beethoven sonatas, the B-rA format is really great.

Downloads bug me for many reasons. First of all because the metadata is inconsistent and sometimes totally FUBAR. I dislike having to power on a monitor, scroll through hundreds and hundreds of albums to find the one I want, and that's if the metadata has it in a predictable location. I'd rather just walk up to my CD racks, directly to what I want, and pull it off the shelf. So much easier. But I also like having the program notes, the artwork, texts to vocal music, etc., all right there. I don't want to have to go to the Internet every time I want to listen to music.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Art Rock said:


> I thought that too at 2000. And at 3000. And at 4000. And.... it's close to 10000 now.


I getting a little claustrophobic with my cds at around 1500 or so. Funny thing is cds are now becoming available cheap second hand. What I am wondering about (maybe should be a new thread) is what happens to our cds when we finally leave this physical world. Lets face it: Do our families care about all these cds? Will it be donated? Garbage? (Yikes, all that work and now...), estate sale?, Willed to a caring individual? (Ah, yes, maybe, perhaps, or not). One way or another it ends up being dumped.....


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Bigbang said:


> What I am wondering about (maybe should be a new thread) is what happens to our cds when we finally leave this physical world. Lets face it: Do our families care about all these cds? Will it be donated? Garbage? (Yikes, all that work and now...), estate sale?, Willed to a caring individual? (Ah, yes, maybe, perhaps, or not). One way or another it ends up being dumped.....


I know my family will dispose of my collection in the most hassle-free way, probably by a giant Goodwill donation. But I've received several great boxed sets from my local Goodwill from the estate of more than a few music aficianados, so I guess it's the circle of life.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

The used media market is quite healthy, and if anything is under supplied: witness the ludicrous used markup prices on the Amazon "marketplace."


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

Cd's radio, and listen on phone "I Heart Radio"


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Knorf said:


> The used media market is quite healthy, and if anything is under supplied: witness the ludicrous used markup prices on the Amazon "marketplace."


What I hate is when something is issued, then immediately withdrawn, and it appears at an inflated price from a third-party seller. I hestitated on the Szell complete set at around $150. It didn't last long on the retail sites. Now it's going from $800 to $1,200 on Amazon.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

90% CDs ripped to FLAC.
10% FLAC downloads (mostly from HDTracks).
Download percentage is increasing, especially as I stay at home.
No streaming.


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## Caesura (Apr 5, 2020)

YouTube and CDs for me, with sometimes some vinyl.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Manxfeeder said:


> What I hate is when something is issued, then immediately withdrawn, and it appears at an inflated price from a third-party seller. I hestitated on the Szell complete set at around $150. It didn't last long on the retail sites. Now it's going from $800 to $1,200 on Amazon.


Ugh, no kidding. I missed the Kertesz/Dvořák Blu-ray Audio special edition, stupid me, and it vanished from stock in barely over a year. Now, supposedly new copies are being listed on eBay for $350 and up. I've seen it as high as $900. Um, no. Just, no. I missed the Karajan/Wagner Ring in its B-r special edition as well, and same thing.

Now I preorder every B-r special edition I think I want! Luckily, they're still coming out, sporadically.

Such a pity. Blu-ray Audio is a fabulous format. And the players are not at all expensive!


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Prices of used CDs have only gone up recently on Ebay, etc because private sellers arent listing and undercutting the likes of Momox and MusicMagpie so those companies have upped their prices. Once people start getting out again and start listing the big secondhand merchants will have to drop their prices again to remain competitive and used CD prices will drop.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Merl said:


> Prices of used CDs have only gone up recently on Ebay, etc because private sellers arent listing and undercutting the likes of Momox and MusicMagpie so those companies have upped their prices. Once people start getting out again and start listing the big secondhand merchants will have to drop their prices again to remain competitive and used CD prices will drop.


The problem is, the Dvořák/Kertesz B-rA special edition has been priced like that for well over a year. I should know; I search for it at a reasonable price at least once a month.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Merl said:


> Prices of used CDs have only gone up recently on Ebay, etc because private sellers arent listing and undercutting the likes of Momox and MusicMagpie so those companies have upped their prices. Once people start getting out again and start listing the big secondhand merchants will have to drop their prices again to remain competitive and used CD prices will drop.


To be clear I buy cds donated to thrift stores and libraries, and sometimes estate sales. I buy it because it is dirt cheap. So I buy whatever I happen to come across and this actually has its rewards. I was thinking the lockdown here in America will cause people to do a lot of cleaning house and getting rid of unwanted items, including cds. Will see.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Bigbang said:


> To be clear I buy cds donated to thrift stores and libraries, and sometimes estate sales. I buy it because it is dirt cheap. So I buy whatever I happen to come across and this actually has its rewards. I was thinking the lockdown here in America will cause people to do a lot of cleaning house and getting rid of unwanted items, including cds. Will see.


I sure wouldn't mind if some titles I've been searching for made an appearance again!


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## sstucky (Apr 4, 2020)

CDs and vinyl. Most recent purchases until the shutdown have been used vinyl.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

Manxfeeder said:


> What I hate is when something is issued, then immediately withdrawn, and it appears at an inflated price from a third-party seller. I hestitated on the Szell complete set at around $150. It didn't last long on the retail sites. Now it's going from $800 to $1,200 on Amazon.


I found the complete Bach Cantatas from Suzuki on BIS over at eBay with the seller asking about $1500. Absurd.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I generally listen to youtube or the Naxos Music Library (I get this free because I work at a university) to determine whether I want to purchase the work. Once I decide I want a work I purchase a CD. I have downloaded some music as well, but I prefer having CDs. Occasionally I listen to the radio (Q2 music for new music), but I can go months without turning to the radio.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Spotify, YouTube, radio, CDs and downloads. Rather few CDs these days, and they are quickly ripped to hard drive - I still need to collect and 'own' music, but can do without the physical encumbrance. Downloads are wonderful for ransacking albums when (as often) I don't wan't the whole thing, maybe only a couple of tracks. And streaming is a godsend for exploration and auditioning purposes.

I do miss liner notes, CD booklets, etc. Some of this material can be hunted down online, but not a lot. If more record labels and online retailers would make this stuff separately available as downloadable PDFs, I'd often be happy to pay for it. Especially in the EM field, I don't understand why more effort isn't made to monetise the research that lies behind recordings.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> I found the complete Bach Cantatas from Suzuki on BIS over at eBay with the seller asking about $1500. Absurd.


You should see some prices for things ( in general ) on Amazon ( I mean the secondhand sellers) 
If the price seems right, they ask amazing amount shipping coast, atrocious.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

I steal music when nobody is watching.

You get what you pay for, I tell ya.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> I like owning physical media, so it's discs for me: CD, SACD, Blu-ray Audio. The B-rA format is _so good_ it hugely bums me out so few people have tried it. Aside from the potential for improved sound, you can have things like the entire Ring cycle on a single B-rA disc. Opera or long symphonies, or binge listening something like Beethoven sonatas, the B-rA format is really great.


I have bought a couple of those... and immediately ripped them to hard disc and then down-sampled them to be 16-bit, 44.1KHz sample rate standard audio CD. There's no point in having files which are 10+ times bigger than they would be from a standard CD, if your ears cannot hear the difference. And most ears can't. Certainly not older ears!



Knorf said:


> Downloads bug me for many reasons. First of all because the metadata is inconsistent and sometimes totally FUBAR. I dislike having to power on a monitor, scroll through hundreds and hundreds of albums to find the one I want, and that's if the metadata has it in a predictable location.


I mean this in a totally non-judgmental way, but you're doing it wrong! 

In my completely unbiased opinion, you need just 6 pieces of album-wide metadata (composer, composition name, performer, genre, recording year and album art). And even recording year is a bit superfluous in my view. For track-level data, you need just track number and track title.

If you've got more metadata than that (and they're not hard to get right with the correct tagging tool), you're just cluttering your stuff up with trivia you're rarely likely to use again.

As for 'scroll through hundreds of albums': if you use an appropriate media player, very little scrolling is required. Choose a composer. Pick a piece. Click play.

Anyway: just thoughts from someone whose physical media is all thrown into a large box in the loft the minute it's been ripped!


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

You literally told me nothing I didn't know already.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

caracalla said:


> I do miss liner notes, CD booklets, etc. Some of this material can be hunted down online, but not a lot. If more record labels and online retailers would make this stuff separately available as downloadable PDFs, I'd often be happy to pay for it. Especially in the EM field, I don't understand why more effort isn't made to monetise the research that lies behind recordings.


Absolutely agree with this. I always fancied putting together a sort of 'clearing house' for PDF scans of CD booklets, but of course, copyright would be a major drama on that front. So I religiously scan my own CD booklets and generate PDFs for them, but it's time-consuming and the technology for a dirt-cheap, single-hand-held PDF reader isn't really there. So, despite all my efforts, I don't think I've ever actually _read_ any of the PDFs I've created!

It's the major drawback of digital, rather than physical, music, I think.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> You literally told me nothing I didn't know already.


Fine. You said you were disappointed more people didn't like Bluray Audio. I explained why the extra expense and file sizes are useless for most people. But if you already knew that, I'm happy for you.

And you said you had major metadata and scrolling problems accessing your digital music. I explained why none of that need be a problem. But if you already knew that, I'm also happy for you.

I'm just not entirely sure why, knowing all that you do, you posted as you did.

But whatever floats your boat.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Mostly downloads and CDs when no download is available. Amazon unlimited when I can be bothered.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Whoops, I forgot. AbsolutelyBaching, not only did your presumptuous post not tell me anything I didn't know, also I heartily disagree with you on several points. I suspect you collect mostly pop music and little Classical. Otherwise you would know metadata for Classical is a huge mess, especially for older or indie recordings. 

Composer's names, the most critical detail, are commonly missing altogether, misspelled, filled alternately and inconsistently with the first name first or last name first, or missing diacriticals. Sometimes the composer is listed under "artist " and the performer information is missing, misspelled, or just plain inconsistent: orchestra first, conductor first, soloist first, any number of those details are commonly missing or misspelled or listed inconsistently. 

For movements, numbers for the tracks only are not sufficient. Composition and movement titles are often misspelled, missing critical information such as opus numbers or keys, translated into English or not inconsistently, missing important diacriticals, or just plain garbled. I require movement titles or tempos, especially in large multi-movement works with numerous tracks. That detail is often missing, misspelled, or totally erroneous. I've seen entire ripped CDs miss-tagged because one movement title was skipped and the rest are wrong. I've seen ripped CDs were all of the information was missing or erroneous. 

In short, I have found I have to edit every single disc at least a little, and most of them extensively. I have a couple thousand classical CDs. This becomes an enormous pain in the posterior. It is anything but convenient. And with large collections, getting these details consistently labelled and accurate is necessary for convenient file access. I'd rather walk to the racks, pick a disc, and play it.

Another problem with downloads, they don't always retain information about which tracks are continuous from one to the next, for example in long movements or opera acts where long periods of music are multitracked for convenience on the disc, but not supposed to have pauses between tracks. Incorrect breaks appear and ruin the flow of the music.

Lastly, B-rA discs have great potential to sound better than CDs, and commonly do, assuming you're listening on something decent and not Bose computer speakers or some other garbage. Data storage is so ridiculously cheap nowadays I'm bemused that people still worry about the size of audio files. Even high res. formats are tiny compared to HD video.


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

I am somewhat suprised that only one other than myself has so far chosen Idagio. Why isn't it more popular?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Ravn said:


> I am somewhat suprised that only one other than myself has so far chosen Idagio. Why isn't it more popular?


There were a few posters here in the past couple years who had nothing but negativity to report about it, with one going as far as saying the whole thing was a big scam.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> Whoops, I forgot. AbsolutelyBaching, not only did your presumptuous post not tell me anything I didn't know, also I heartily disagree with you on several points. I suspect you collect mostly pop music and little Classical. Otherwise you would know metadata for Classical is a huge mess, especially for older or indie recordings.


I quote from my own website:

_without exception, all online metadata sources are completely useless for tagging classical music digital files_

That quote is from a FAQ for a piece of software called the *classical CD* ripper. Which I wrote. So, forgive me, but I'll dispute your asserted suspicion that I collect mostly pop music and little classical, whilst simultaneously agreeing with you about the deplorable state of classical music metadata (though I'm not sure what the age of the recordings has to do with it).



Knorf said:


> Composer's names, the most critical detail, are commonly missing altogether, misspelled, filled alternately and inconsistently with the first name first or last name first, or missing diacriticals. Sometimes the composer is listed under "artist " and the performer information is missing, misspelled, or just plain inconsistent: orchestra first, conductor first, soloist first, any number of those details are commonly missing or misspelled or listed inconsistently.


This isn't disputed at all! It's why I have a page on my website entirely devoted to detailing what I consider to be the 'correct' name forms for the around-500 composers in my own collection. (And it's always 'first names first' in my neck of the woods, though I wouldn't insist on it for others' collections!).

Take a look at Axiom 12, too. I absolutely believe the use of diacritic marks is important.



Knorf said:


> For movements, numbers for the tracks only are not sufficient.


In my house, if you're using a proper music player, it will display track numbers. You therefore do not need to put "I. Allegro" in, since that will simply be duplicating already-displayed information. Of course, if you're not using a music player, but simply clicking on files on a hard disk and playing them in something like VLC, which I do very occasionally, that _won't_ be displaying a track number... but you presumably will know what track you double-clicked to play, and _it_ will have been named with the track number.



Knorf said:


> Composition and movement titles are often misspelled, missing critical information such as opus numbers or keys, translated into English or not inconsistently, missing important diacriticals, or just plain garbled.


I agree with you. As I said, Internet-sourced metadata is universally and without exception complete rubbish as far as classical music is concerned. I buy lots of downloadable stuff from Prestoclassical, who have always been a pleasure to deal with -but their metadata is nevertheless universally rubbish. It's why my Classical CD Tagger tool wipes it all and gives you a chance to specify precisely what you want, not what someone else decided you'd want.



Knorf said:


> I require movement titles or tempos, especially in large multi-movement works with numerous tracks. That detail is often missing, misspelled, or totally erroneous. I've seen entire ripped CDs miss-tagged because one movement title was skipped and the rest are wrong. I've seen ripped CDs were all of the information was missing or erroneous.


My 'track titles' are almost always precisely as you would want them: tempos, or titles, or the opening words of the relevant chorus or aria. We're on the same page, actually. When I've sourced this from the Internet, I get things like _Allegro Con Brio Molto Allegro_: Capital letters thrown in with gay abandon, a complete misunderstanding of when to capitalise bits of a tempo marking, a complete disregard for distinguishing between tempo changes. I'm no stranger to the horrors of classical music metadata, believe me!



Knorf said:


> In short, I have found I have to edit every single disc at least a little, and most of them extensively.


Oh, I've always found I have to edit every single disc without exception, starting from scratch.



Knorf said:


> I have a couple thousand classical CDs.


Well, I can't tell you how many CDs I have, since they're thrown in a box in the loft, but at last count, I have:









So that's 62,249 "tracks" (i.e., movements, arias, whatever) totalling 266,962.1 minutes of playback time, which at 74 minutes per "standard CD" would be 3,607 physical CDs. There are a further 43 CDs waiting 'in the wings' for me to get around to ripping and tagging them. That's only the classical stuff. My very small collection of such delights as Enya, Queen and R.E.M (I apologise for them!) are not included in any of my standard music libraries. I have to ferret them out via the file system if I ever want to play _them_.



Knorf said:


> This becomes an enormous pain in the posterior. It is anything but convenient.


Of course. It's a lot of metadata to get right, if you haven't kept on top of it for more than a decade. I do understand that. It's why I've written tools which were designed to make it easier for _me_ to stay on top of _my_ metadata requirements. (And which I happen to think could be useful to others for doing the same thing with _their_ metadata. But I can't force horses to drink!)



Knorf said:


> And with large collections, getting these details consistently labelled and accurate is necessary for convenient file access. I'd rather walk to the racks, pick a disc, and play it.


And that's your choice, a fine choice at that, and one I think may come about in large part because you aren't (or haven't been) master of your metadata. I was just trying to suggest that were you master of your metadata, you would find the digital stuff a lot more convenient and manageable.



Knorf said:


> Another problem with downloads, they don't always retain information about which tracks are continuous from one to the next, for example in long movements or opera acts where long periods of music are multitracked for convenience on the disc, but not supposed to have pauses between tracks. Incorrect breaks appear and ruin the flow of the music.


I'm genuinely interested in what you use to play your digital tracks, because gapless playback has been a thing for years and years. On Windows, Foobar2000 has no trouble doing it; neither does MusicBee. Personally, I run Linux and Clementine -and that has no problem with gapless either.

But yes, you will certainly hear inter-track glitches on some media players, I realise. It's why doing proper gapless playback was one of the judging criteria when I did my comparative review of Windows-based media players. It's mentioned as being of critical importance in the third paragraph of the article on the subject, for example.



Knorf said:


> Lastly, B-rA discs have great potential to sound better than CDs, and commonly do, assuming you're listening on something decent and not Bose computer speakers or some other garbage. Data storage is so ridiculously cheap nowadays I'm bemused that people still worry about the size of audio files. Even high res. formats are tiny compared to HD video.


Well, their potential to sound better _could_ be disputed (since the ordinary CD bit-depth and sampling rates were determined scientifically to be beyond the limit of human hearing in the first place. But whatever: that's a What HiFi discussion that has no bottom to it, so I really don't want to go there!

In regards to 'ridiculously cheap' disk storage. My entire CD collection is about 2TB. I back it up. So that's 4 TB. And then I take a third backup. So that's 6TB. Now, if you're sensible, you don't entrust 6TB of data to a single hard disk: you need an array that can tolerate the failure of one or more hard disks. Given current disk sizes, RAID-5 is not an option (because the re-silvering activity required when you replace one failed drive in such an array is very likely to break one of the other disks in the array, and at that point your data is lost). So I would argue that RAID-6 is essential (meaning that 2 disks can fail independently and your data is still safe).

So, to store 6TB of data on three arrays with 2-disk redundancy on each array and a bit of growth room requires 3 4-disk arrays, each populated with 4TB hard disks of the professional sort, which at current Amazon prices would cost me £1,200 to replace in its entirety. Storage, when it's done right and carefully, is anything but cheap, I'm afraid.

And I wouldn't therefore want to waste any of it on storing a musical signal which my ears can't hear anyway.

Anyway: I'm more than happy that people who think they can hear the difference between CD-standard audio and 'HiDef' audio make the investments that suit them. As a 56 year old, I have ears which biologically cannot hear much above 18KHz at the best of times, and I'm a firm believer in the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, so an audio format that is doing 24-bit depth and 88.2KHz sampling is simply something I'm never going to be able to appreciate. BluRay's 24-bit depth and 96 or 192Khz sampling rate is even more redundant, for me and my ears. If you have 'golden ears', I envy you.

In all seriousness, I wasn't trying to be presumptuous. I definitely wasn't having a go at you in particular. I had hoped the judicious use of a smiley at the appropriate point would show you that.

But I've been doing classical audio ripping since 1999 and I know more than I care to know about just how useless Internet-sourced metadata is and how vitally important it is to get it right, to your standards, from the moment you rip a CD. I would personally disagree with mentioning keys and other musicological matter in my metadata, and my 'axioms of classical tagging' strongly suggest not to do it -but it's ultimately _you_ that has to be the master of _your_ metadata, so that's a choice you're free to make too and I wouldn't presume to mandate otherwise.

Short version: I'm sorry if you thought me presumptuous, but I _do_ happen to think that your music player should do gapless, and you shouldn't have to worry about whether it will or not; and your metadata _should_ allow you to navigate a hundred-thousand-track music library in about three clicks; and that metadata sourced from anywhere other than your head is inevitably and always going to be utter rubbish. I was simply suggesting (from personal experience) that there _are_ ways to avoid the things you said made digital downloads "bug you".


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Always CDs from Amazon's marketplace. I know it's good to buy new ones in terms of supporting artists etc. but nearly all of the CDs I get tend to be used copies because the recordings are out of print anyway.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

Mostly Spotify, at this point (supplemented by a relatively small CD collection), as well as watching live performances (YouTube, medici.tv, Berlin Digital Concert Hall).

A lot of negativity surrounds streaming and yet it is the record labels that choose to make their music available on there. 

At the same time, for a small fee per month people can now discover a wide array of classical music without having to pay an enormous amount of money to compile even a small collection.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

@Baching, you spelled Lutosławski wrong. Re: Metadata, I edit them all from scratch too whenever I import a new CD. I don't mind, it's part of the "ritual" for me. But I can see others becoming frustrated with it.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> @Baching, you spelled Lutosławski wrong. Re: Metadata, I edit them all from scratch too whenever I import a new CD. I don't mind, it's part of the "ritual" for me. But I can see others becoming frustrated with it.


A good spot. Thank you. Now corrected. I'm sure there are others. It's definitely a work in progress!

Agree with the second part. Only when it's part of the ripping ritual does it become manageable. If you've already got 6000 CDs ripped with poor metadata, it's a hell of a job to fix up! (Says someone who did it wrong first time round and had to re-rip everything 4 years later )

PS Turns out correcting Witold's metadata this time wasn't very hard:









IE, I only have one piece by him anyway! Phew. Bullet dodged.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> A good spot. Thank you. Now corrected. I'm sure there are others. It's definitely a work in progress!
> 
> Agree with the second part. Only when it's part of the ripping ritual does it become manageable. If you've already got 6000 CDs ripped with poor metadata, it's a hell of a job to fix up! (Says someone who did it wrong first time round and had to re-rip everything 4 years later )
> 
> ...


You need more Lutosławski my friend. A great composer.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> You need more Lutosławski my friend. A great composer.


I'll take any suggestions! I am listening to the Espaces as I type (so I'm blaming you for that!), and I can't say I love it. It's more interesting this time than I recall it being any other time, but...

So, if you've got any recommended pieces or even specific recordings, I'd be most grateful to have them. Many thanks, even if not, for putting me wise on the typo front!

PS. I've just bought:









...and









I don't know if you'd have recommended them anyway, but I'll still take any others!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I'll take any suggestions! I am listening to the Espaces as I type (so I'm blaming you for that!), and I can't say I love it. It's more interesting this time than I recall it being any other time, but...
> 
> So, if you've got any recommended pieces or even specific recordings, I'd be most grateful to have them. Many thanks, even if not, for putting me wise on the typo front!
> 
> ...


I don't think you can go wrong with these, though I haven't heard them! The only other thing I'll say is that there is a great 2CD on Philips called "The Essential Lutosławski" which includes recordings conducted by the composer, etc., & that it would not be wise to write off Antoni Wit's recordings of the orchestral music just because it's on Naxos. Very very good performances, there. Maybe the disc with the 4th would be one to check out, to complete the symphony cycle as you're already most of the way there. As for individual works, the Concerto for Orchestra is very good and accessible (an earlier work) as is the Piano Concerto (a later work, definitely a little thornier, but with a kind of impressionistic beauty to it). The Cello Concerto is definitely more of a challenge but it's a masterpiece. I highly recommend the Rostropovich/Lutosławski/Orchestre de Paris recording on EMI, usually coupled with the equally great Dutilleux Cello Concerto "Tout un monde lointain..."

Happy listening!


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> In regards to 'ridiculously cheap' disk storage. My entire CD collection is about 2TB. I back it up. So that's 4 TB. And then I take a third backup. So that's 6TB. Now, if you're sensible, you don't entrust 6TB of data to a single hard disk: you need an array that can tolerate the failure of one or more hard disks. Given current disk sizes, RAID-5 is not an option (because the re-silvering activity required when you replace one failed drive in such an array is very likely to break one of the other disks in the array, and at that point your data is lost). So I would argue that RAID-6 is essential (meaning that 2 disks can fail independently and your data is still safe).
> 
> So, to store 6TB of data on three arrays with 2-disk redundancy on each array and a bit of growth room requires 3 4-disk arrays, each populated with 4TB hard disks of the professional sort, which at current Amazon prices would cost me £1,200 to replace in its entirety. Storage, when it's done right and carefully, is anything but cheap, I'm afraid.


To be honest, making multiple cold backups with cheap disks is way safer than any fancy RAID setup. 
You have 2TB of music right? Why would you have 3 copies of the same thing on a drive? 
A 2TB portable harddrive is 60 pounds. How about buy 10 of those and make 10 backups. 
You keep 3 at your home. The other 7 you spread them across your family, relatives and friends house.
If one fails just take out another one. No chance a RAID rebuild can be faster than that. 
And that's only 600 pounds. Perhaps throw a copy onto a cloud service. Can't get any safer.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

rice said:


> To be honest, making multiple cold backups with cheap disks is way safer than any fancy RAID setup.


Well, that's sort of true. Which is why I have 3 other backups on USB external drives. I didn't mention them before, because a cold copy can't protect you from bit-rot. What I called my RAID-6 arrays are also actually zraid-2, so ZFS using ECC and thus a constant check on the integrity of the files. I also don't allow 2 of the servers to connect outwards to other parts of the network, so they aren't able to be compromised by, say, cryptoware sourced from the Internet.

My main storage server is the only machine on the network that can connect to those other two servers, and it runs Linux and I'm sensible, so there's no (or little) risk from that direction, either.



rice said:


> You have 2TB of music right? Why would you have 3 copies of the same thing on a drive?


I wouldn't. I'd have 3 copies of the same thing on three different storage arrays. Each is a copy of my 'master PC', using rsync on a differential schedule. So my PC backs up to Vivaldi every night as a copy. Once a week it synchronises (so if I've deleted something off my PC, it should be present on Vivaldi for up to a week). Vivaldi copies weekly to JSB and synchronises monthly. And Vivaldi copies monthy to RVW and synchronises once a quarter. It means that all three copies are in different states for most of 3 months.

But my main PC, which is considered 'the source of truth' on all matters musical, also synchronises every half-hour to a mains-powered USB drive. And once a month, a complete re-sync is performed to a second, bus-powered USB drive (which a script mounts and unmounts automatically, so though it's plugged in all the time, it's technically 'cold' for most of it). Vivaldi also has an every-half-hour copy to a mains-powered USB drive.

It's defence in depth, basically. Without the hassle of having to unplug drives, ship them around the country, remember which reloes I've left what copy with and so on...



rice said:


> A 2TB portable harddrive is 60 pounds. How about buy 10 of those and make 10 backups.


Serious question: do you know what bit-rot is, and why it's not something I want happening to a lifetime's collection of music? A standalone USB drive such as you are talking about cannot protect against bit-rot, even if I formatted it with ZFS (because you need parity data to protect you from that, which you can't meaningfully do with a single hard disk.



rice said:


> You keep 3 at your home. The other 7 you spread them across your family, relatives and friends house.


Yeah, I could do that. Or I could buy a 2TB cloud storage plan from pCloud for about £90 a year and upload my FLACs to there (which I also do).



rice said:


> If one fails just take out another one. No chance a RAID rebuild can be faster than that.
> And that's only 600 pounds. Perhaps throw a copy onto a cloud service. Can't get any safer.


You can actually, and I hope mention of ECC RAM and ZFS might make you re-think your advice a little. I mean, don't get me wrong: I have multiple USB hard drive copies too. But they aren't my main music storage, nor my main defence line to rely on should accidents happen.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

Knorf said:


> Lastly, B-rA discs have great potential to sound better than CDs, and commonly do, assuming you're listening on something decent and not Bose computer speakers or some other garbage. Data storage is so ridiculously cheap nowadays I'm bemused that people still worry about the size of audio files. Even high res. formats are tiny compared to HD video.


They are better because of the remastering. I don't think the higher bit depth and sampling rate contribute to the superior sound.
In fact, I just did some ABX test with foobar.
I used the Karajan's Bruckner box for the test. I was able to distinguish the better BD version every time in 16 trials.
The remastered sound is significantly more vibrant and dynamic than the original CD.
But then I convert the BD wav file(24/192) to 16/44.1, although I hate to admit it, I wasn't able to tell the difference. 
Anyway, the remastering alone is worth getting the blu-ray.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

rice said:


> They are better because of the remastering. I don't think the higher bit depth and sampling rate contribute to the superior sound.
> In fact, I just did some ABX test with foobar.


Well, that's a whole other kettle of fish, then, right? I've had re-mastered copies of my Britten CDs, too. The ones they released in the early 80s were noticeably inferior to the ones they issued as part of his 100th anniversary complete boxed sets. I have no doubt that a good bit of re-mastering can make a world of difference.



rice said:


> I used the Karajan's Bruckner box for the test. I was able to distinguish the better BD version every time in 16 trials.
> The remastered sound is significantly more vibrant and dynamic than the original CD.
> But then I convert the BD wav file(24/192) to 16/44.1, although I hate to admit it, I wasn't able to tell the difference.
> Anyway, the remastering alone is worth getting the blu-ray.


Don't disagree. But, I think (but am not in the industry, so could well be wrong) that you'll find them re-issuing the work in its re-mastered format on ordinary CD too, if there's a new remaster available in a HiDef format.

Anyway, we pretty much agree. I cannot tell the difference between a 24-bit 96Khz SACD and its down-sampled 16-bit 44.1Khz cousin either. I'm not qualified to comment beyond that, really.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I've had multiple hard drives fail in the past. If you're someone who usually listens to music by pulling a CD (or LP) off the shelf, then it's probably not a big deal. But I rip everything onto my computer because it's more convenient for me (easier to find what I'm looking for, and I can transfer files to my phone easily), so when a hard drive fails, it's a disaster. A good back up system is absolutely essential. My collection is about the same size as AbsolutelyBaching (but with a greater proportion of non-classical), and I live in fear of hard drive failures after all the time and effort I've put into manually tagging my files. I do have backups (two), but not a proper RAID system, so I know it's not as robust as it could be. I've been meaning to get around to doing it the _right_ way, but I just haven't yet.

Of course the ultimate backups are all the shiny silver discs I still keep around (the original CDs of course). Though those are susceptible to bit rot too, and other types of damage. Oh well. Nothing lasts forever.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> I don't think you can go wrong with these, though I haven't heard them! The only other thing I'll say is that there is a great 2CD on Philips called "The Essential Lutosławski" which includes recordings conducted by the composer, etc., & that it would not be wise to write off Antoni Wit's recordings of the orchestral music just because it's on Naxos. Very very good performances, there. Maybe the disc with the 4th would be one to check out, to complete the symphony cycle as you're already most of the way there. As for individual works, the Concerto for Orchestra is very good and accessible (an earlier work) as is the Piano Concerto (a later work, definitely a little thornier, but with a kind of impressionistic beauty to it). The Cello Concerto is definitely more of a challenge but it's a masterpiece. I highly recommend the Rostropovich/Lutosławski/Orchestre de Paris recording on EMI, usually coupled with the equally great Dutilleux Cello Concerto "Tout un monde lointain..."
> 
> Happy listening!


Much appreciate the suggestions. I'll see how I go with my two, and progress through yours if I can cope!
Thanks again.


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## BlackAdderLXX (Apr 18, 2020)

Amazon Music streaming, and the stuff I can't live without I download.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Ravn said:


> I am somewhat suprised that only one other than myself has so far chosen Idagio. Why isn't it more popular?


I used the trial month, but I vastly prefer Qobuz, even if it's more expensive.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

apricissimus said:


> I've had multiple hard drives fail in the past. If you're someone who usually listens to music by pulling a CD (or LP) off the shelf, then it's probably not a big deal. But I rip everything onto my computer because it's more convenient for me (easier to find what I'm looking for, and I can transfer files to my phone easily), so when a hard drive fails, it's a disaster. A good back up system is absolutely essential. My collection is about the same size as AbsolutelyBaching (but with a greater proportion of non-classical), and I live in fear of hard drive failures after all the time and effort I've put into manually tagging my files. I do have backups (two), but not a proper RAID system, so I know it's not as robust as it could be. I've been meaning to get around to doing it the _right_ way, but I just haven't yet.
> 
> Of course the ultimate backups are all the shiny silver discs I still keep around (the original CDs of course). Though those are susceptible to bit rot too, and other types of damage. Oh well. Nothing lasts forever.


Hehe!

You're absolutely right: but my CD collection spent many torrid summers in an Australian loft, so I'm not convinced they are the ultimate backup they're supposed to be!

I started ripping (to MP3, because I was an idiot) in 1999. It took me until at least 2004 to be comfortable with the fact that I was putting all my trust in spinning rust (I may get a rhyme with 'dust' in a moment!). It took me until 2012 or so, when I made my investment in proper HP micro servers, to get to a state of general blazé-ness about it. I now know my digital music is *more* safe than my physical was (because I was not good at putting disks back in their cases immediately after playing them. Many got dropped on floors, scraped across tiles, played with by cats... you name it!).

So I'm with you: it takes a lot to get truly comfortable to go physical-less!


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Serious question: do you know what bit-rot is, and why it's not something I want happening to a lifetime's collection of music? A standalone USB drive such as you are talking about cannot protect against bit-rot


But multiple copies can. Unless I misunderstood the concept of bit rot, you'll only permanently lose your data if the same bits rot in all 10 drives. I think it's not a big odd for that to happen.
Anyway, I believe you know much more than me on this. Just that I thought it was absurd 1,200 pounds is needed to protect 2TB of data. My CDs are my backup and there's a good chance I rot before they do


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

rice said:


> But multiple copies can. Unless I misunderstood the concept of bit rot, you'll only permanently lose your data if the same bits rot in all 10 drives. I think it's not a big odd for that to happen.


Well, firstly, what you want at the point that it does happen is a file system that can self-repair the problem. Because if you don't have that, how do you _know_ the problem's happened in the first place? I mean, are you going to do an integrity check on all 2TB of data on each of your 10 backups on a routine basis? And if you can't readily detect it happening, how do you distinguish between the good and bad copies?

ZFS spots the bit-flip when it happens. It corrects it, automatically.

There's really no comparison.



rice said:


> Anyway, I believe you know much more than me on this. Just that I thought it was absurd 1,200 pounds is needed to protect 2TB of data. My CDs are my backup and there's a good chance I rot before they do


Well, it's an approach to things. Just out of interest, how much do you think this HiFi system costs?









OK. Not fair. $406,000. But that's not a fair comparison, is it. So what about this one?









Now that's just an FM Acoustics 2011 and can be yours for a mere $245,000.

I mean: people used to spend an arm and a leg on ye olde fashioned hifi setups (I will readily admit, the two I just picked at random were on the whacky end of the spectrum), but I know people that have spent tens of thousands on speakers and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. So, yes, I spend up on IT (partly because it used to be my job and I needed to for those reasons, regardless of personal preference on the audio front). It's my equivalent of buying an FM Acoustics 2011 (but about 100 times cheaper).

PS: Just to be clear about it, too, I have photos and home movies and documents and databases and virtual machine images and quite a lot else on those arrays. They're not _just_ storing 2TB of music. That would be a bit of a waste, I agree.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Many of the above posts are just too much to deal with and I feel makes life too complicated! I have a very simple method. I think of a particular cd, go in search of it. Might find it at first place or do some shuffling around but bingo! But, if I find myself wandering around, and around, wasting time, I say "not this time" and maybe find another one by surprise (I bought that!). So by my reckoning, I save time doing these high tech ripping/saving cds on drives vs going around in circles in my house (I know I bought that cd, where is it?) But such is my life, cannot be bother with too much hassle.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, firstly, what you want at the point that it does happen is a file system that can self-repair the problem. Because if you don't have that, how do you _know_ the problem's happened in the first place? I mean, are you going to do an integrity check on all 2TB of data on each of your 10 backups on a routine basis? And if you can't readily detect it happening, how do you distinguish between the good and bad copies?
> 
> ZFS spots the bit-flip when it happens. It corrects it, automatically.
> 
> There's really no comparison.


My approach would be, if I hear a corruption I go grab a backup and replace that file. If the corruption can't be spotted, I probably won't care about some bits might be rotting or not.
I understand your pursue of perfection in this regard. It's just not something I would do, not after I know some CDs are already defected in pressing.



> Well, it's an approach to things. Just out of interest, how much do you think this HiFi system costs?
> 
> I mean: people used to spend an arm and a leg on ye olde fashioned hifi setups (I will readily admit, the two I just picked at random were on the whacky end of the spectrum), but I know people that have spent tens of thousands on speakers and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. So, yes, I spend up on IT (partly because it used to be my job and I needed to for those reasons, regardless of personal preference on the audio front). It's my equivalent of buying an FM Acoustics 2011 (but about 100 times cheaper).


I was surprised by the price for such small amount of data, not saying spending that amount is any problem.


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> There were a few posters here in the past couple years who had nothing but negativity to report about it, with one going as far as saying the whole thing was a big scam.


Interesting. I will have to read those posts. I have been using it for the better part of a year now, and I'm quite happy with it, especially the search function. Maybe it was way worse earlier? But I cannot fathom how it is supposed to be a scam.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

How about more than one choice? CDs, Downloads (not even an option) and Tidal. For popular music internet radio.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Bigbang said:


> Many of the above posts are just too much to deal with and I feel makes life too complicated! I have a very simple method. I think of a particular cd, go in search of it. Might find it at first place or do some shuffling around but bingo! But, if I find myself wandering around, and around, wasting time, I say "not this time" and maybe find another one by surprise (I bought that!). So I my reckoning, I save time doing these high tech ripping/saving cds on drives vs going around in circles in my house (I know I bought that cd, where is it?) But such is my life, cannot be bother with too much hassle.


It's a legitimate choice. I was just wondering how much shelf space I'd need to store 3,600 CDs. Wiki tells me the standard jewel case is 10mm deep. We won't count the cardboard sleeves that box sets often come in, or the slim-line cases they sometimes use, or all the other variations. Let's just call it 10mm.

So, my maths may get a bit wonky here, but I make that 36,000mm of up-on-their-end storage required.

Which is only 36 metres. I was surprised at how small that was. 9m of 3-shelf bookcases could probably handle it. Not entirely certain I have a room in my house with 9m spare, but it's certainly do-able in theory. Maybe a 5m long room with 8 shelves, then. Not sure I'd get that past The Other Half, but all things are negotiable, I guess 

Or I could stick it on a server in the roof that measures 23cm wide. Call 69cm for all three.

You're right that ripping a CD properly can take a few minutes (but you only have to do it once!)


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

rice said:


> My approach would be, if I hear a corruption I go grab a backup and replace that file.


Which backup do you grab? Which of the 9 other copies are corruption free? You're going to have to listen to all of them to be sure.



rice said:


> If the corruption can't be spotted, I probably won't care about some bits might be rotting or not.
> I understand your pursue of perfection in this regard. It's just not something I would do, not after I know some CDs are already defected in pressing.


It's a legitimate point. It's not a matter of perfection, though. Not in and of itself. It's just that if I've taken the trouble to rip to lossless FLAC, why would I want to lose some of the audio signal in the future?



rice said:


> I was surprised by the price for such small amount of data, not saying spending that amount is any problem.


 Oh, it's a problem alright?! If I ever legitimately have to ask my better half if it's OK for me to spend £1200 on a set of hard disks, there would be fireworks. I once managed to get that much spent on a complete set of the Bach cantata full scores, but that was on a good day with a following wind and it was my birthday with a 0 in it!

Of course, what you really aim to do is to buy just one or two new hard disks a year over a cycle and hope that their mean time between failures don't catch you out before the entire cycle is complete!

PS: Have a read of this sometime. One bit flip can ruin your day!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

CDs are my main source. YouTube for concerts or unavailable recordings and sampling unfamiliar works.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> It's a legitimate choice. I was just wondering how much shelf space I'd need to store 3,600 CDs. Wiki tells me the standard jewel case is 10mm deep. We won't count the cardboard sleeves that box sets often come in, or the slim-line cases they sometimes use, or all the other variations. Let's just call it 10mm.
> 
> So, my maths may get a bit wonky here, but I make that 36,000mm of up-on-their-end storage required.
> 
> ...


36 meters is still more space than I can spare. Which is why I discarded all my jewel cases, and now all my CDs (aside from those in alternative packaging, like box sets and such) live in these plastic sleeves:

https://spacesavingsleeves.com/

It's a huge space saver. I would have had to stop collecting without them.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

apricissimus said:


> 36 meters is still more space than I can spare. Which is why I discarded all my jewel cases, and now all my CDs (aside from those in alternative packaging, like box sets and such) live in these plastic sleeves:
> 
> https://spacesavingsleeves.com/
> 
> It's a huge space saver. I would have had to stop collecting without them.


Entirely agree. Mine are in those sleeves too. My booklets are just shoved into another box, too. Thank heavens for lofts!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Ravn said:


> Interesting. I will have to read those posts. I have been using it for the better part of a year now, and I'm quite happy with it, especially the search function. Maybe it was way worse earlier? But I cannot fathom how it is supposed to be a scam.


IDAGIO and their disgustingly aggressive marketing

This is one of the threads I remember.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

CD.....SACD if available. Download if no physical media available. No streaming. I enjoy having a physical library.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Entirely agree. Mine are in those sleeves too. My booklets are just shoved into another box, too. Thank heavens for lofts!


I keep the booklets in the sleeves. Takes up a bit more room, but easier to find.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Bigbang said:


> Many of the above posts are just too much to deal with and I feel makes life too complicated! I have a very simple method. I think of a particular cd, go in search of it. Might find it at first place or do some shuffling around but bingo! But, if I find myself wandering around, and around, wasting time, I say "not this time" and maybe find another one by surprise (I bought that!). So by my reckoning, I save time doing these high tech ripping/saving cds on drives vs going around in circles in my house (I know I bought that cd, where is it?) But such is my life, cannot be bother with too much hassle.


I do exactly the same. About half of my obscenely large collection is shelved alphabetically, but the rest have migrated to various disorganized piles in my office, basement, or on top of my turntable. And if I can't find something quickly, I am occasionally forced to re-purchase, as I did last night with the Krebbers/Haitink Brahms concerto.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Joe B said:


> CD.....SACD if available. Download if no physical media available. No streaming. I enjoy having a physical library.


So do I, but I stream via Spotify pretty frequently, mostly to listen to items that I know that I'll only listen to once, or to sample things that I'm considering for purchase.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I just recently started streaming from Spotify. So far for classical music, I've been using it to listen to operas that I am almost certainly never going to want to purchase (I'm trying to get into opera . . . not sure if it will stick). But the real value in Spotify for me is hearing decades old pop songs that I used to hear on the radio and would almost certainly never hear again otherwise! Fun times.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

wkasimer said:


> I do exactly the same. About half of my obscenely large collection is shelved alphabetically, but the rest have migrated to various disorganized piles in my office, basement, or on top of my turntable. And if I can't find something quickly, I am occasionally forced to re-purchase, as I did last night with the Krebbers/Haitink Brahms concerto.


I definitely don't intend this to be insulting, but I'm wondering if there's an age or experience gap that makes this attitude fairly common?

I simply mean that I'd be completely lost if I couldn't do this:









Namely, search for all pieces by Antonín Dvořák that have an Allegro molto tempo indication. Bingo: multiple 'hits', no sweat raised. And I didn't even need to type in all the diacriticals to get a match!

That's just an example. I couldn't live without being able to search by all sorts of things and get instant answers. The world of alphabetical sorting of physical CDs would drive me nuts, I think!

Is it unfamiliarity with computers, search engines and what have you?

Absolutely not saying what works for you is wrong or anything. Just that it seems to lack a few key features I would deem essential


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

I believe wkasimer when he describes his collection as obscenely large, and with the work that goes into cataloguing my own modest collection — and the limited time I have available for it — I imagine it could be a multi-year project to set up a system like that for some of the collectors on here.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I definitely don't intend this to be insulting, but I'm wondering if there's an age or experience gap that makes this attitude fairly common?
> 
> I simply mean that I'd be completely lost if I couldn't do this:
> 
> ...


If I need to run a search like the one you propose, I can always do it via Amazon or Spotify. Given the size of my collection, I probably have it. And I can't imagine why I'd want to search for "Dvorak allegro molto" anyway.

And I certainly no longer want to spend (read: waste) time typing information into a database or reorganizing disorganized metadata generated by incompetents. I'd rather spend the time listening to music.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Prior to this year I got new music on CD's largely. But since the lockdown it's been streaming of necessity which has definitely saved money.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

wkasimer said:


> If I need to run a search like the one you propose, I can always do it via Amazon or Spotify.


OK, that indicates a familiarity with Internet, digital technolgies and so on, so that's one question in my mind answered.



wkasimer said:


> Given the size of my collection, I probably have it. And I can't imagine why I'd want to search for "Dvorak allegro molto" anyway.


It was honestly the first example that came to mind. Wondering whether Janet Baker ever recorded Arne's _Alfred_ might be another. Does it really matter as to the specifics? The point I'm trying to get at is that "given the size of [your] collection, [you] probably have it"... but if you can't find it, what use is it to you?

I wouldn't cope knowing it was 'in here somewhere' but not being able to put my finger on it. It's just a personal observation. No slight intended or implied.



wkasimer said:


> And I certainly no longer want to spend (read: waste) time typing information into a database or reorganizing disorganized metadata generated by incompetents. I'd rather spend the time listening to music.


Ah, well, see I don't regard data management as a chore. It's just intrinsic to the thing, like getting your ingredients together _before_ you start cooking. I couldn't do the listening I do without having the music to hand, readily searchable.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I wouldn't cope knowing it was 'in here somewhere' but not being able to put my finger on it. It's just a personal observation. No slight intended or implied.


I used to be similarly compulsive about my music collection. Now, if I can't find what I sought to hear, I just play something else.



> Ah, well, see I don't regard data management as a chore. It's just intrinsic to the thing, like getting your ingredients together _before_ you start cooking. I couldn't do the listening I do without having the music to hand, readily searchable.


If you had a physical collection as large as mine, you might feel otherwise. At one point, about 25 years ago, I realized that a) I was spending more time cataloging than listening and b) avoided buying certain things due to dread about having to enter the data into my database.

And if there's a particular recording that I absolutely have to hear NOW, I just go to Spotify or Youtube and find it there, hopefully.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I buy CDs and rip songs off of them. Vinyl is more a hobby than an efficient way for me to listen to music, but I do enjoy playing classical LPs. 

I also sometimes download recordings off of Qobuz if the CD can't be found or if it's cheaper to download. I won't listen to anything less than lossless. 

I also like to watch live performances on YouTube.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Would be great if we had multiple options. I use YouTube, Amazon Music, and buy CDs. I especially think CDs are underrated these days; there's something about having a nice little library of them you can display and plop into a stereo like a record. Digital music is great but just doesn't hit the same way.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Short version: I'm sorry if you thought me presumptuous, but I _do_ happen to think that your music player should do gapless, and you shouldn't have to worry about whether it will or not; and your metadata _should_ allow you to navigate a hundred-thousand-track music library in about three clicks; and that metadata sourced from anywhere other than your head is inevitably and always going to be utter rubbish. I was simply suggesting (from personal experience) that there _are_ ways to avoid the things you said made digital downloads "bug you".


I appreciate your reply. But you did lead with "you're doing it wrong." Remember that tone doesn't come across easily, and the smiley doesn't help mitigate that but rather can come across as mocking.

You're right, I haven't kept up with my metadata, because I find just about everything you described to be a huge forking pain in the you know what. I digitized about 600 or so CDs, and got thoroughly sick of it already. It would take years to digitize my collection, and I just would rather spend my time on something else and spin discs, which is easy and sounds really good every time.

The main problem with gapless playback is in my car. It's electric, and listening to Classical Music is totally possible. So I have a USB drive with 600 or so of my CDs ripped losslessly and plug it in. The car doesn't do gapless playback. I can usually make it work playing from Windows or something else through my DAC at home, that's true.

It's the metadata and everything that goes wrong with it, messing up cataloging, that drives me bonkers the most. I'd really rather spend my time on something other than editing error-ridden or missing metadata for Every. Single. CD.

I'm not going to bother trying to argue whether higher res. music files can make a difference. I think they can, and have A - B tested and to me it's apparent. Whether this is because the B-rA has been produced with superior mastering, whether I can really hear some difference made by the higher res., or am hallucinating, is unclear. But to me the difference has usually been quite apparent. (I am also a formally trained professional musician, tiny differences in sound to people, who are aren't formally trained, are often really obvious to me.) My guess is that something about the higher res. encourages superior mastering. But that's a long topic. Obviously there's no benefit if the source was recorded at 44.1khz to begin with. I also don't think everything about how the brain processes sound, especially in terms of something like localization, is yet completely understood. It's entirely possible that sounds above what we can consciously hear still affect something like that*. After all, we know sounds outside human hearing can upset equilibrium and make people sick, for instance.

*Clear and realistic stereo imaging after all is something highly desirable in hifi listening.


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## Oakey (Nov 19, 2017)

annaw said:


> Spotify, YouTube and CDs though as a student it's rather difficult to build an actual CD collection. I've also tried Apple Music, Tidal, Primephonic and Idagio but I've now settled on Spotify.


How come? For the monthly subscription rate of Spotify you can buy 5-10 used high-quality used CDs.

My CD collection started as a student in the late 80s when CDs were 40 guilders a piece, which is about €20 uncorrected for inflation (and €35 according to my invlation calculator)


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

Knorf said:


> It's the metadata and everything that goes wrong with it, messing up cataloging, that drives me bonkers the most. I'd really rather spend my time on something other than editing error-ridden or missing metadata for Every. Single. CD.


This is why I don't understand why people buy CDs just to rip them and then put them away in storage, as the metadata on purchased downloads is usually fine (as opposed to the lottery of CD tagging databases). The only thing I do with a purchased download is change the composer name to "Last, First".

I do understand why people buy CDs to play them, though.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

wkasimer said:


> If you had a physical collection as large as mine, you might feel otherwise. At one point, about 25 years ago, I realized that a) I was spending more time cataloging than listening and b) avoided buying certain things due to dread about having to enter the data into my database.


OK, well I have to ask: how big is it?



Roughly, ball-park will do.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> I appreciate your reply. But you did lead with "you're doing it wrong." Remember that tone doesn't come across easily, and the smiley doesn't help mitigate that but rather can come across as mocking.


Well, I absolutely apologise for that in that case. It was not intended, and the smiley was intended to show "joke".

Your assumption that I did mainly pop and little classical... we can just sweep that under the carpet. It's OK.



Knorf said:


> You're right, I haven't kept up with my metadata, because I find just about everything you described to be a huge forking pain in the you know what. I digitized about 600 or so CDs, and got thoroughly sick of it already. It would take years to digitize my collection, and I just would rather spend my time on something else and spin discs, which is easy and sounds really good every time.
> 
> The main problem with gapless playback is in my car.


Right. All bets are off in that case, since I have no experience of trying to listen to serious music in that environment. All sorts of things will intrude, including not playing gapless. This is a use-case I have not considered.

I offer to some friends of mine a "I'll tag it for you" service. Maybe you would consider finding something similar available in your location? My main point was that digital music is an utter joy _after_ tagging, but a complete pain in the butt before. For several barrister friends and the like, they've trusted me to do the tagging up, and just sat back and enjoyed. Like those guys who used to digitise home 16mm movies and the like.

Maybe you could find someone locally to do the same?



Knorf said:


> I'm not going to bother trying to argue whether higher res. music files can make a difference.


It's fine. I personally think that if you're 16, it might; but if you're 36 or above, it can't, physically. But as I said, it's definitely not a discussion I'm qualified to have, nor wish to get into


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Helgi said:


> This is why I don't understand why people buy CDs just to rip them and then put them away in storage, as the metadata on purchased downloads is usually fine (as opposed to the lottery of CD tagging databases). The only thing I do with a purchased download is change the composer name to "Last, First".
> 
> I do understand why people buy CDs to play them, though.


The metadata is _never_ fine, unless you want to believe that Georg Solti wrote the Ring, or that Klemperer wrote Symphony No. 9!

Never, ever rely on CD tagging databases. They've been corrupted by god knows how many years of dodgy submissions from people who don't care, and couldn't give a damn.

Just my tuppence-worth.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, I absolutely apologise for that in that case. It was not intended, and the smiley was intended to show "joke".


Thanks.



> Your assumption that I did mainly pop and little classical... we can just sweep that under the carpet. It's OK.


I concede I got that one wrong. But does it seem like an insult to you? My experience is that my pop music CD rips almost never have metadata problems; in fact the whole system seems established to make it easy for pop music, at the expense of anything else. If it felt like an insult to you, then I apologize.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> OK, well I have to ask: how big is it?
> 
> 
> 
> Roughly, ball-park will do.


I'm guessing 20,000, but it could be higher....


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Oakey said:


> How come? For the monthly subscription rate of Spotify you can buy 5-10 used high-quality used CDs.


And for the price of 5-10 used CD's, you can access hundreds of thousands of CD's for a month.


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> The metadata is _never_ fine, unless you want to believe that Georg Solti wrote the Ring, or that Klemperer wrote Symphony No. 9!
> 
> Never, ever rely on CD tagging databases. They've been corrupted by god knows how many years of dodgy submissions from people who don't care, and couldn't give a damn.
> 
> Just my tuppence-worth.


Well, that's what I mean. With purchased downloads, you get files tagged by the record company (I assume), and I haven't had any issues with files I buy from Presto for example.

When I rip a CD in iTunes, it pulls the metadata from a database that listeners from around the world have contributed to. So that's usually a big headache to deal with.

Which is why it's so much easier to buy the files directly if you're not going to use the CD at all for playback.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

wkasimer said:


> So do I, but I stream via Spotify pretty frequently, mostly to listen to items that I know that I'll only listen to once, or to sample things that I'm considering for purchase.


I have only a DSL connection to the outside world. With insufficient bandwidth, streaming is not an option. Underground utilities mean nothing is going to be replaced any time soon. If I had the option, I would take advantage of streaming.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

I still usually have to edit metadata from downloads by hand as well, because it's often inconsistent from one to the next, and that is a hindrance in cataloguing. But I agree downloads are usually a lot better than the Internet-sourced tagging for ripped CDs.


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## Rmathuln (Mar 21, 2018)

I buy CDs, SACDs, and BluRay Audio.
Obsessively in my wife's opinion.
I use dbPoweramp to rip them to MP3 and FLAC with a large number of customized tags.
The tagging strategy is designed to work well with AssetUPnP so I can serve up the music just about anywhere.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> But does it seem like an insult to you?


Honestly? You say I'm presumptuous and then you presumed. Yes, it was an insult.



Knorf said:


> My experience is that my pop music CD rips almost never have metadata problems; in fact the whole system seems established to make it easy for pop music, at the expense of anything else. If it felt like an insult to you, then I apologize.


Fair enough and I hope we can move on.

If you had any doubts about my 'street cred' as far as classical music is concerned, 12 years of listening records are available here.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Helgi said:


> Well, that's what I mean. With purchased downloads, you get files tagged by the record company (I assume), and I haven't had any issues with files I buy from Presto for example.


They're *always* complete garbage in my experience. I may buy one tomorrow (if other half permits) just to prove the point.



Helgi said:


> When I rip a CD in iTunes, it pulls the metadata from a database that listeners from around the world have contributed to. So that's usually a big headache to deal with.


Absolutely agree. Unfortunately, I mentioned once on these fora that what *you* tag affects what everyone else sees. It didn't go down well, as I recall. But it's true. And there isn't a single metadata repository out there that hasn't got complete crapola as far as classical music is concerned as a result.



Helgi said:


> Which is why it's so much easier to buy the files directly if you're not going to use the CD at all for playback.


As I say, I have yet to find an online music purveyor that gets metadata right either. Presto, whom I love very much, is no better than the rest of them, in my extensive experience -but obviously, it depends very much on what you metadata expectations are.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

wkasimer said:


> I used to be similarly compulsive about my music collection. Now, if I can't find what I sought to hear, I just play something else.
> 
> If you had a physical collection as large as mine, you might feel otherwise. At one point, about 25 years ago, I realized that a) I was spending more time cataloging than listening and b) avoided buying certain things due to dread about having to enter the data into my database.
> 
> And if there's a particular recording that I absolutely have to hear NOW, I just go to Spotify or Youtube and find it there, hopefully.


Well, I have a physical catalogue that is "extensive", let's say. I simply wouldn't let it get to the state where I didn't know what was in it. It seems to me a bizarre way to approach a collection of anything. But that's just me.

I remember one evening in Felix Aprahamiam's Muswell Hill house: couldn't sort his tie clips from his cuff links. I wasn't impressed. He had an organ in his front room, freshly imported from a French chateau or other. But I still wasn't impressed. Then he brought out the first BBC recording of Britten's Paul Bunyan (1976 production), on reel-to-reel, potentially fresh from Broadcasting House, and it was magical. So I forgave him everything. But I still wouldn't have given you a cheroot for the way he managed his music. It made me think what the British Museum would have looked like after a nuclear strike. Not pretty,


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Rmathuln said:


> I buy CDs, SACDs, and BluRay Audio.
> Obsessively in my wife's opinion.
> I use dbPoweramp to rip them to MP3 and FLAC with a large number of customized tags.
> The tagging strategy is designed to work well with AssetUPnP so I can serve up the music just about anywhere.


dbPoweramp is a very fine ripper and tagger. About the only one I've ever paid for! Which is a bit of a bummer since I've switched operating systems and now can't run the darn'd thing 

Oh well...


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> They're *always* complete garbage in my experience. I may buy one tomorrow (if other half permits) just to prove the point.
> 
> Absolutely agree. Unfortunately, I mentioned once on these fora that what *you* tag affects what everyone else sees. It didn't go down well, as I recall. But it's true. And there isn't a single metadata repository out there that hasn't got complete crapola as far as classical music is concerned as a result.
> 
> As I say, I have yet to find an online music purveyor that gets metadata right either. Presto, whom I love very much, is no better than the rest of them, in my extensive experience -but obviously, it depends very much on what you metadata expectations are.


I'm sure my music collection would give you a panic attack :lol:

I hardly ever have to edit more than the artist, album artist and composer fields on purchased files, even if I'm sometimes tempted to format the track names to get them exactly as I would prefer - in most cases it's just not worth the effort as they are good enough. With ripped CDs, it's having to double-check everything, correcting capitalisation and all kinds of errors.

As for my iTunes tags being published to a database for others to retrieve; I don't think that they are, but now that you've put the idea in my head I will have to check.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Mostly CDs. Though now I do not buy many new CDs anymore (about ten new CDs per year.) I am listening to my existing collection of about 600 CDs or so. I also listen to music on Spotify. 

Classical: >90% of listening to CD's, and less than 10% of listening on Spotify

Non-classical: It's hard to say, but a lot more of my listening is on Spotify, because my CD collection for non-classical is rather meagre.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> They're *always* complete garbage in my experience. I may buy one tomorrow (if other half permits) just to prove the point.


Actually, it turns out that I didn't need to. One is allowed to re-download things from previous purchases, which I'm not sure I was entirely aware of, so thank you! And here's one I bought in 2017.









Let's see what the in-built metadata looks like, fresh after download:









So the artist (which is what most music players sort by) is some comibation of Andras Schiff (which I could potentially live with) and various other people I've never heard of. Nicely separate by forward slashes -which, on Linux, means that I am at risk of having multiple sub-directories created if I were ever insane enough to ask this metadata to dictate my physical storage layout.

The album apparently is "Bach J. S" something or other. That's not a composer we know of in these parts -as the fact that he's later referred to as "Johann Sebastian Bach' in the Composer tag would seem to indicate. Then apparently, this Bach J.S fellow wrote something called 'The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 &2', which is a work I've never heard of. Oh, and it's in German in the Title track, along with a lot of complete musicological garbage that I can't make head nor tail of.

Lovely, to see, too, that Bach wrote "Classical" music, according to the Genre tag. Shame it's about 50 years out...

And God alone knows what that 'comment' tag is supposed to mean!

This is a fresh Presto download, I remind you.

OK, you say: what would _you_ do differently. Something like this:









I'm not claiming it's perfection, but Johann Sebastian Bach is correctly named both times he's mentioned. The work is correctly identified as 'W.T.C. Book 1', and it's principle artist is clearly identified. It's genre is now more accurately described as 'Keyboard', too.

Now: your particular choices of what to stick where in terms of the standard tags is entirely your own choice, and I'm not mandating a thing. But you cannot in all seriousness tell me that Presto's choice of metadata was anywhere even close to being sensible. Bach as "Classical"??? Come on!

All online sources of metadata are, without exception, complete rubbish and no-one who is serious about classical music should have anything to do with it apart from wiping it and starting from scratch. But that's just my personal opinion, OK?!


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Helgi said:


> I'm sure my music collection would give you a panic attack :lol:
> 
> I hardly ever have to edit more than the artist, album artist and composer fields on purchased files, even if I'm sometimes tempted to format the track names to get them exactly as I would prefer - in most cases it's just not worth the effort as they are good enough. With ripped CDs, it's having to double-check everything, correcting capitalisation and all kinds of errors.
> 
> As for my iTunes tags being published to a database for others to retrieve; I don't think that they are, but now that you've put the idea in my head I will have to check.


iTunes, I couldn't speak for. I don't allow Apple anywhere near this house, I have to admit. So I have no idea what they get up to or don't!

But a lot of metadata tools (such as dbPoweramp) had a thing for submitting tracks to Freedb or CDDB or whatever it was before it all got horribly messy with forks and licensing issues.

It's not really an issue, but people who claim "I tag as _I_ require it" tend not to realise that, in the process, they are sort of 'poisoning' the database for everyone else. However, it's not a problem, the minute you accept the well is irretrievably poisoned. You just tag as you like using tools that don't fetch stuff from the Internet _at all_. Problem solved


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

Ah, I forgot about the genre tag. I usually have to edit that one. Now, the track name in your example is pretty bad I have to admit!

I might go through the tracks and delete "Das Wholtemperierte Klavier: " and keep the rest. Then I would change the genre to "Keyboard" as you did, and edit the composer tag to say "Bach, Johann Sebastian". That's about as far as I would go with this one, for my own personal library.

I'm afraid we're getting way off topic for this thread, so I'll leave it at that.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Pandora mostly. Other than that when I am practicing or playing at my church where I am the organist/pianist.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Rogerx said:


> Buying CDs ........................


Me too! I like to have the physical item with booklet, even though I often just flip through them and shelve them, perhaps never to be looked at again. I am building a stash of CDs for future listeners who want to listen by nostalgic means in the day when your music will be implanted in your head with concert hall sound at will.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Used CDs, and occasional mail order from on-line. You gotta be in a good city to do the used CD thing.


Or intensive searching of ebay and Amazon for deals on used CDs, sometimes misfiled with a spelling mistake so they don't come up in most searches.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I primarily use CD's.

Other mediums I use:

Sirius Radio (I have the App on my smart phone and use it in the car and when I perform my daily walk).
Verizon Fios has a great classical channel.
I recently joined and highly recommend the Naxos Music Library. I have used it to preview CD's. It has save me some money because I have heard CD's that were on my wish list that I removed.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

SixFootScowl said:


> Or intensive searching of ebay and Amazon for deals on used CDs, sometimes misfiled with a spelling mistake so they don't come up in most searches.


I like tracking down CDs that I know are available but hidden away because Amazon have made such an obvious pig's a**e of the description - it brings out the amateur sleuth in me. When I eventually find what I'm looking for I buy it and then advise Amazon via their _report incorrect product information_ facility on how the item should be described. But why are Amazon removing so many cover pictures (especially of Naxos recordings) and replacing them with an unavailability message - in Dutch???


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

The (new/used) CD market is a buyers paradise, great offerings at low prices. Spotify replaces the old record store headphones or listening booth (those were the days...) and TC replaces the N=1 record stores advice or the N=1 magazine review. 

Availability of top-notch or even niche recordings was never so easy, my musical heart enjoys.

But still, nothing beats a good live concert. I am also well served in that respect, until Corona jumped in:devil:


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Helgi said:


> Ah, I forgot about the genre tag. I usually have to edit that one. Now, the track name in your example is pretty bad I have to admit!
> 
> I might go through the tracks and delete "Das Wholtemperierte Klavier: " and keep the rest. Then I would change the genre to "Keyboard" as you did, and edit the composer tag to say "Bach, Johann Sebastian". That's about as far as I would go with this one, for my own personal library.
> 
> I'm afraid we're getting way off topic for this thread, so I'll leave it at that.


Agreed (though I think some of these issues are why, for example, 'Downloads' wasn't an explicit option in the poll). But yes, I pledge to move on!


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> I like tracking down CDs that I know are available but hidden away


I'm a curmedgeonly old stick-in-the-mud who loves his physical CDs. I also love hunting down and collecting older, out-of-print editions with original artwork rather than the more spartan and less inspiring re-releases we get today, often in box sets with very little in the way of accompanying literature. It is with an inflated sense of pride that I can display these in my (ever-shrinking) living room. I completely resonate with the _amateur sleuth_ aspect of it all. It's part of the fun of collecting. Anyone can just buy the first thing they see on Amazon, but when you've spent months tracking down that elusive first release, and finally find it at a very good price, it is a moment that 'sparks joy'. Of course, this practice does end up requiring more shelf space than those svelte box sets.

Apart from Amazon marketplace and eBay, I use Spotify extensively for previewing potential purchases and finding recordings that move me before I begin the hunt. I rarely put it through my system for actual, intentful listening.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Taplow said:


> _I'm a curmedgeonly old stick-in-the-mud who loves his physical CDs. I also love hunting down and collecting older, out-of-print editions with original artwork rather than the more spartan and less inspiring re-releases we get today, often in box sets with very little in the way of accompanying literature._


With you there, but I do draw the line at sets which use those revolting space-wasting multi-disc jewel cases rather than a nice crisp clamshell box.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

elgars ghost said:


> With you there, but I do draw the line at sets which use those revolting space-wasting multi-disc jewel cases rather than a nice crisp clamshell box.


Many reissues offer a fresh remastering, which I prefer over original artwork.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I am wondering why the poll only offered one choice.
Mainly it’s CDs, or CDs that have been moved to a HD. I will stream Qobuz if I don’t have a certain recording of interest. Live performances have probably become a thing of the past until a vaccine is available.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> But why are Amazon removing so many cover pictures (especially of Naxos recordings) and replacing them with an unavailability message - in Dutch???


I've noticed that too. It's very strange! So it's happening on both the US and UK Amazon sites?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

^
^

Not just those by the look of it.


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## accmacmusic (May 9, 2020)

I wish I could say: "Live!", bloody Covid...


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

apricissimus said:


> I've noticed that too. It's very strange! So it's happening on both the US and UK Amazon sites?


I'm going to guess it's for the same sort of reason that it's practically impossible to get hold of PDF copies of the booklet, even for legitimate paid-for downloads: making that sort of stuff available makes it possible to take a copy of a torrented version of the work and turn it into something that looks like you bought and paid for it.

Just my guess, of course.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I'm going to guess it's for the same sort of reason that it's practically impossible to get hold of PDF copies of the booklet, even for legitimate paid-for downloads: making that sort of stuff available makes it possible to take a copy of a torrented version of the work and turn it into something that looks like you bought and paid for it.
> 
> Just my guess, of course.


Never thought of anything like that - you may well be onto something. Yet I notice many of the images not available in Amazon's 'classical music' section still show up under their digital music category.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I'm going to guess it's for the same sort of reason that it's practically impossible to get hold of PDF copies of the booklet, even for legitimate paid-for downloads: making that sort of stuff available makes it possible to take a copy of a torrented version of the work and turn it into something that looks like you bought and paid for it.
> 
> Just my guess, of course.


But why is the message in Dutch? That's what I find most strange.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Don't underestimate our influence. :devil:


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Dutch 2 me in general sounds a bit like ''broken english''...


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## RobertKC (Dec 9, 2013)

Following is my 2.5 cents. I apologize in advance for my long ramble - I have cabin fever resulting from "stay at home orders" that have been issued because of the pandemic.

I almost exclusively buy Blu-ray audio/video recordings of classical concerts, opera, and ballet. If Blu-ray isn't available, I'll buy a Pure Audio Blu-ray (i.e., no video) or SACD. IMO, there's no comparison between the experience of seeing a concert in high-definition video and hearing via hi-res surround-sound (DTS-HD MA 5.1), compared with the experience that is delivered via streaming or a CD.

Even setting aside the benefits of video and surround-sound, IME/IMO the audio quality of MODERN (last dozen years or so) hi-res recordings is superior to streaming and CDs.

Decades-old recordings are limited to decades-old recording technology, and IME the audio quality of older recordings pales in comparison to state-of-the-art modern recordings. I'm not surprised if someone reports that they can't hear the difference in a "remastered" vintage recording delivered in hi-res, compared with 16bit/44.1kHz (i.e., Redbook CD quality). There's a limit to how good a decades-old recording can be made to sound in terms of audio quality. Garbage-in/garbage-out. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

_Reductio ad absurdum_: If someone told me that they transferred their LPs (or 78s) of 100 year-old recordings of Caruso to a 24bit/96kHz FLAC file, and then used their PC software to down-sample that FLAC file to 16bit/44.1kHz, and report that they can't hear a difference, my response would be: (i) I'm not surprised, because a 100 year-old recording will have very poor audio quality and the format of the digital file will not improve this poor quality, and (ii) this certainly does not prove that - in general - hi-res has no value.

I'll offer a more reasonable example: Last year I conducted brief, informal listening assessments of the audio quality of 15 different digital recordings that I own of Beethoven Symphony 9, recorded from 1942 to 2015, including every decade in between.


CD (Archipel) of a 1942 performance by Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berliner Philharmoniker
SACD (tahra) of a 1954 performance by Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Philharmonia Orchestra London
CD (Testament | EMI) of a 1957 performance by Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra
CD (Chesky) of a 1961 performance by Rene Leibowitz and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
SACD (DG) of a 1962 performance by Herbert Von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker
CD (Penguin Classics) of a 1972 performance by Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
CD (Seraphim Classics) of a 1988 performance by Riccardo Muti and The Philadelphia Orchestra
DVD (Euroarts) of a 2000 performance by Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker (PCM stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks)
24bit/96kHz FLAC download (DG) from HDTracks.com of a 2002 performance by Claudio Abbado (stereo only)
SACD (BIS) of a 2006 performance by Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra (stereo and 5.1 tracks)
Blu-ray (DRS | Dacapo Records) box set of 2013 performances of all Beethoven symphonies by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DTS-HD MA 5.0/5.1 and PCM Stereo). 
Blu-ray (Cmajor) box set of 2008 - 2010 performances of all Beethoven symphonies by Christian Thielemann and the Wiener Philharmoniker recorded at the Goldener Saal der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna (DTS-HD MA 5.0 and PCM Stereo).
Blu-ray (ARTHAUS MUSIK) box set of 2012 performances of all Beethoven symphonies by Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded in Tokyo Suntory Hall (DTS-HD MA 5.0 and PCM Stereo). 
Blu-ray (ARTHAUS MUSIK) box set of 2014 - 2015 performances of all Beethoven symphonies by Philippe Jordan conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of the Opera national de Paris (DTS-HD MA 5.1 and PCM Stereo). 
IMO - the modern recordings delivered on Blu-ray have superior audio quality compared with the older recordings - even if the older recordings were remastered. (I also prefer Blu-ray to my various LPs of Beethoven 9.) Moreover, the modern Blu-ray recordings feature surround-sound, and high-definition video, which both significantly increase my enjoyment of the recording.

Of course, vintage recordings are all we have for historic performances, and can be an important part of a collection. (And, some less popular compositions might not have been recorded in recent years.) Classical music lovers sometimes must decide which is more important: performance quality, or audio quality of a recording. I'm not a music scholar, and I'm not hyper-critical of a performance. Very often I enjoy modern performances of classical music. However, I have no tolerance for poor audio quality. I therefore usually choose modern performances of classical music that were recorded in hi-res. I respect that fact that many TC members are music scholars who place high value in many performances from decades ago. Different people have different priorities.

My point is this: The classical music lover is not limited to decades-old performances, and is not limited to CDs. Modern recordings of classical music are routinely captured and mastered in hi-res surround-sound (referred to as "multi-channel"), and made available to the consumer in a hi-res surround-sound format such as Blu-ray (if the recording also includes video), or, if the recording has no video, Pure Audio Blu-ray or SACD.

A "universal player" will play all types of digital recordings, and provides the classical music lover with maximum flexibility in building their library, and enjoying music:


CD.
DVD-Audio disc.
SACD.
Pure Audio Blu-ray disc.
DVD (e.g., audio/video recordings of concerts).
Blu-ray disc. Of course, Blu-ray is particularly relevant for visual art forms such as opera and ballet. Blu-ray delivers an additional benefit for opera by displaying the libretto in the HDTV screen. I also enjoy Blu-ray for orchestral concerts, because I can see the conductor, musicians, and concert hall. 
Ultra HD Blu-ray disc (A few Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are starting to become available.)
24bit/192kHz FLAC download.
Hi-res DSD download.
Other various lower-res download formats.
Various streaming formats.
Here's my thread about Blu-ray: Blu-ray Videos of Classical Concerts

Here's my hi-fi- systems that form the basis for my opinion that MODERN hi-res recordings often sound superior to streaming and CDs:

TV room: Main front left & right speakers are Klipsch Palladium P-37F. Center: Klipsch RC-64III. Single rear: Klipsch RP-502S. Subwoofer: Klipsch P-312W. The source is an Oppo UDP-205 for playing Blu-ray and SACD, and a USB hard drive containing high-res FLAC recordings. I generally use vintage tube amps for music: Scott 399, McIntosh MC225, Fisher X-1000, Scott 299C, McIntosh MX110Z / McIntosh MC240. I use solid-state amps for movies (and summertime): NAD C375BEE, and an NAD D 3045. A patch panel (banana plugs) allows me to connect the speakers to whichever amp I want, and Niles AXP-1 RCA selector switches connect the Oppo to the amp. HDTV is connected via TOSLINK to the UDP-205 to play audio from broadcast TV via the hi-fi. Chromecast Audio is connected via analog audio to the NAD C375BEE for internet radio.

Basement: Front, center, and left speakers are Klipsch RF-7 II. A single rear speaker is a Klipsch RF-7. Subwoofers: SVS SB16-Ultra, Klipsch R-115SW. Source: Oppo UDP-205 for playing Blu-ray and SACDs, and a USB hard drive containing high-res FLAC recordings. Amps: Scott 272, Inspire "Fire Bottle" SE Stereo Tube Amplifier HO, Scott 222C, McIntosh MX110Z tuner/preamp, Fisher KX-200, Scott 296, Pilot SA-260, Scott LK150, Fisher 800B, Altec 353A. (This system also has a Schiit Loki tone-control. I can connect the power amps direct to the Oppo, or insert the Loki.) A patch panel allows me to connect the speakers to whichever amp I want, and F/F RCA cables enable me to connect an amp to the Oppo, and a power amp to the Loki if I choose to do so. Chromecast Audio is connected via TOSLINK to the UDP-205 for internet radio.

Living room: Stereo speakers are Snell Type CV. Center: Klipsch RC-64III. Single rear: RP-502S. Subwoofer: Klipsch P-312W. The source components are Oppo BDP-95 for playing Blu-ray, SACDs, and CDs (and a USB hard drive containing high-res FLAC recordings), and Dual 1249 with Stanton 681EE equipped with a new Shibata stylus. Amps include a pair of McIntosh MC30s, Scott 296, McIntosh MX110Z / McIntosh MC275, a pair of Pilot HF-56 mono receivers, an NAD pre-amp and Acurus A250 power-amp for movies, and a McIntosh 2155 driving JBL L830s in the kitchen / dining room. A patch panel (banana plugs) allows me to connect the speakers to whichever amp I want, and a F/F RCA cables enable me to connect an amp to the Oppo. Chromecast Audio is connected via analog audio to the NAD pre-amp for internet radio.

Bedroom: Front, center, and left speakers are Klipsch WF-35. SVS SB-2000 Pro subwoofer. Source is an Oppo BDP-105 for playing Blu-ray and SACDs, and a USB hard drive containing high-res FLAC recordings. Fisher 500C drives the left & right speakers. Fisher TA 500 (AM/FM mono receiver) drives the center speaker. Chromecast Audio is connected via TOSLINK to the BDP-105 for internet radio.

Office: Stereo speakers are JBL L880. Sources: Oppo DV-980H SACD/CD/DVD, and my Windows 10 laptop with Music Streamer II DAC. Amps: Scott 299B, and an NAD D 3020 for general internet use (and summertime). ​
The reason that I've upgraded 4 of my 5 hi-fi systems to surround-sound is because IME/IMO the superior experience delivered by modern Blu-ray classical recordings warrants the investment. I use the Oppo's analog 5.1 audio outputs, and combine the Surround-Left and Surround-Right into a single rear channel via a Y-cable. (In classical recordings, there is very little rear content - usually just applause - sometimes a small amount of hall reverb.) I use one vintage stereo tube amp for the main front L&R speakers, and a second vintage stereo tube amp for the center and rear speaker. It works great, and sounds fabulous. IMO.

My frame of reference: Before coronavirus caused all concerts to be canceled, I had 30 classical concerts (season tickets to the symphony and opera, plus some chamber concerts) on my calendar for the 2019/2020 concert season. The live performance of classical music in a world-class venue (no sound reinforcement system) is the benchmark against which I judge the audio quality of recordings played on my hi-fi systems. My goal is for my hi-fi systems to create the illusion that I'm in the concert hall.

By way of example, when I play the following Blu-ray of Mahler Symphony 2 on my basement hi-fi system, the experience is MUCH closer to the live concert hall experience compared with any CD. My basement system's four tower speakers plus two subwoofers collectively provide plenty of "acoustical power" in this average size listening room for large-scale classical music and opera. (I sit approximately 10 feet from the speakers.) Collectively, they total four 1 ¾" titanium compression drivers mated to Tractrix horns, eight 10" woofers, one 15" powered subwoofer, and one 16" powered subwoofer. When the right tube amps are paired with these Klipsch speakers, this system does an excellent job of reproducing the natural timbre of orchestral instruments, and does an excellent job of delivering the full dynamic range and frequency range of a large orchestra.










My vote: Modern Blue-ray (or Ultra HD Blu-ray) audio/video discs, because they deliver the "next best thing" to being in the concert hall.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Party at RobertKC's house. 7pm! See you all there!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I voted Spotify since this is how I listen mostly, but I also will buy a CD when I can't find it any other way and really want to hear the music (my buying has dwindled to almost nil over the last few years), and I also listen to other services like Soundcloud, artist websites, or YouTube.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

RobertKC said:


> Decades-old recordings are limited to decades-old recording technology, and IME the audio quality of older recordings pales in comparison to state-of-the-art modern recordings. I'm not surprised if someone reports that they can't hear the difference in a "remastered" vintage recording delivered in hi-res, compared with 16bit/44.1kHz (i.e., Redbook CD quality). There's a limit to how good a decades-old recording can be made to sound in terms of audio quality. Garbage-in/garbage-out. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
> 
> _Reductio ad absurdum_: If someone told me that they transferred their LPs (or 78s) of 100 year-old recordings of Caruso to a 24bit/96kHz FLAC file, and then used their PC software to down-sample that FLAC file to 16bit/44.1kHz, and report that they can't hear a difference, my response would be: (i) I'm not surprised, because a 100 year-old recording will have very poor audio quality and the format of the digital file will not improve this poor quality, and (ii) this certainly does not prove that - in general - hi-res has no value.


I think you made a very good point.

It could be true that those "high-res" versions of older recordings (analog era), don't have much information to begin with. So even after down-sampling they don't lose much details, thus the difference is inaudible.

I have several SACDs that are very recent recordings (after 2010), and allegedly of excellent quality by pentatone, but I don't have a SACD player to play them. 
At some point I am going to extract those audio and experience that high res sound. Not exactly a straightforward task!
Perhaps it's easier to buy a SACD player.


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## Sad Al (Feb 27, 2020)

rice said:


> I agree. Besides patronage and attending concerts, I think buying CDs (not used) is the best way to support musicians.
> It's sad to see many people moving to music streaming only. I doubt those playbacks would pay out substantial amount of money to the artists.


Musicians shouldn't be supported. Real artists should live in poverty. Celebrities, footballers and lawyers should be rich and so they are. That is God's will.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

RobertKC said:


> Decades-old recordings are limited to decades-old recording technology, and IME the audio quality of older recordings pales in comparison to state-of-the-art modern recordings. I'm not surprised if someone reports that they can't hear the difference in a "remastered" vintage recording delivered in hi-res, compared with 16bit/44.1kHz (i.e., Redbook CD quality). There's a limit to how good a decades-old recording can be made to sound in terms of audio quality. Garbage-in/garbage-out. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
> 
> _Reductio ad absurdum_: If someone told me that they transferred their LPs (or 78s) of 100 year-old recordings of Caruso to a 24bit/96kHz FLAC file, and then used their PC software to down-sample that FLAC file to 16bit/44.1kHz, and report that they can't hear a difference, my response would be: (i) I'm not surprised, because a 100 year-old recording will have very poor audio quality and the format of the digital file will not improve this poor quality, and (ii) this certainly does not prove that - in general - hi-res has no value.


Sorry to cut a lot of very good stuff.

I just wanted to mention that I believe you are mixing up two rather separate issues. First, you are describing multi-channel audio. Second, you are discussing high-res audio. But they're not actually the same thing.

High-res audio has no formal definition as such, and is indeed something of a marketing term rather than a strictly technical matter. But in general, it's taken to mean anything sampled at greater than 16-bit depth and at a higher frequency than CD's 44.1KHz. So, for example, a 16-bit, 48KHz audio just about squeaks in as high-res, though it's more common to regard 24/88.2 or 24/96 or 24/192 as 'true' high-resolution audio.

The real point is, though, that you can be a _stereo_ 24/96KHz recording and still count as high-res.

Now, 5-1 or 7-1 surround sound is likely going to be high-res, but it doesn't strictly have to be. Even MP3 has 8 channel identifiers, after all, so its distinctly low-res audio can do multi-channel if you wanted it to.

So you can do high-res audio with two speakers, and low-res audio with multiple channels. And of course, what you go on to describe is high-res audio *and* multi-channel.

Now, fortunately, my ears have no difficulty spotting multi-channel from stereo. But they cannot tell high-res from standard CD-quality audio -and the most recent reports I've read indicate that, even after extensive training, more than 40% of people in blind listening trials can't tell the difference either (for which almost 50:50, basically random, result the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem provides theoretical explanation). So, whilst I don't doubt the wisdom of your investment in multi-channel audio setups, that's not quite the same thing as a general thumbs up for high-res audio on its own.

Anyway: I'm still somewhat envious of your audio setups, and if they do for you what you need them to, who could ask for anything else?!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Flamme said:


> Dutch 2 me in general sounds a bit like ''broken english''...


Probably the other way around, to be fair - modern English evolved from different languages of the past whereas Dutch is 'purer'.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Sad Al said:


> Musicians shouldn't be supported. Real artists should live in poverty. Celebrities, footballers and lawyers should be rich and so they are. That is God's will.


I'm not sure I care for this god. Is he keeping the lovely Blu-ray Audio disc format down as well?! Tosser.

For the record, I adore many of the SACD and B-rA disc editions of older recordings that have been released, Karajan, Szell, Reiner, Munch, etc. In most cases, these recordings are amazing and have _never_ sounded better in any other format. I often play them blind for professional musician friends whose jaws then drop when I tell them they're recordings from the 1950s and 60s. I think they're very well worth collecting*.

Again, I am obligated to say that whether is because of superior mastering for the high-res production, whether the high-res format is something I can really hear, or I'm just hallucinating is unclear. I think I _can_ tell.

*But for Chuthlhu's sake, don't pay the idiot gouging prices we're seeing nowadays on the Amazon "marketplace. "


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> Probably the other way around, to be fair - modern English evolved from different languages of the past whereas Dutch is 'purer'.


Dutch sounds 2 me like a m ixture of german adn english, thats the most precise I can get.
As 4 the topic, last couple of years I only listen 2 radio and some old discs...


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Knorf said:


> I'm not sure I care for this god. Is he keeping the lovely Blu-ray Audio disc format down as well?! Tosser.
> 
> For the record, I adore many of the SACD and B-rA disc editions of older recordings that have been released, Karajan, Szell, Reiner, Munch, etc. In most cases, these recordings are amazing and have _never_ sounded better in any other format. I often play them blind for professional musician friends whose jaws then drop when I tell them they're recordings from the 1950s and 60s. I think they're very well worth collecting*.
> 
> ...


This and RobertKC's description of his amazing systems have made me think about "how you get your music" again. Forgive me if I'm veering off topic somewhat.

My number one preference is to attend concerts. If I never bought tickets, I could possibly save up enough money to buy about one-fourth the equipment that RobertKC has, but the experience of live music is too important to me to give up. Well, I'll miss the Ravinia Festival over the summer and I've already missed some Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts, but yeah. And I can't work during the stay-at-home order, so I'm going broke already. But yeah again. Anyway, I can play 5.1 Blu-ray on my system and have a couple of concert discs. The sound is impressive. However, I actually prefer simple stereo. To me, it's more like my concert-hall experience than 5.1 is. (Cheap seats? Yes.) My absolute favorite is three-channel SACD. I can definitely tell the difference between it and normal CD sound when using all three speakers (and an SACD player, obviously). The SACDs I have were mastered in the late 1950s and 1960s on analog tape using three microphones and tracks. I am not interested in getting SACDs unless it was three-track recording in a microphone arrangement that I favor. I don't tend to like spot-miking as it leads to a listening experience that is different from what I get at the concert hall (very subjectively speaking). Happily, I can listen to good-quality stereo CD recordings through my pretty good system and get everything I desire sonically. If I ripped the CDs (not SACDs) to FLAC files, I would get (as I understand it) exactly the same quality, and I can certainly appreciate the potential organizational advantages of recordings stored in this way. I am not convinced that all streaming audio is as good as the CD sound I get, but that should be a topic for a different thread, I guess. Although I listen to classical music internet radio a lot, I think it's clear that the audio quality is inferior to a good CD.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Simplicissimus, my preference is for live concert going as well, and I listen at home to only stereo, for similar reasons as you. 5.1 and 7.1 sound gimicky to me, especially for Classical music. Even in stereo, I think I hear a difference in most of the high-res formats when I've compared them. YMMV.


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

I _believe_ I can discern a difference between 16 and 24 bit files, mostly in that they sound more spacious, but it's not enough of a difference to my ears for me to bother with paying extra and keeping two copies of the album in my library (44/16 for my iPod).

It is tempting though, especially when it's a new recording and the hi-res files are nearly the same price as the regular ones. So I buy them occasionally.

I go to sleep these days thinking about the grand metaphysical dilemma of CDs vs. files, and my current thinking is that CDs only make sense for me if it's a release of around 5 discs or more. That's the point where downloads become more expensive than the physical product.


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## RobertKC (Dec 9, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Sorry to cut a lot of very good stuff.
> 
> I just wanted to mention that I believe you are mixing up two rather separate issues. First, you are describing multi-channel audio. Second, you are discussing high-res audio. But they're not actually the same thing.
> 
> ...


Of course, "hi-res" (meaning greater bit-depth and higher sampling rate than Redbook CD) and "multi-channel" (meaning more than 2 channels) are two different things. I own:


Hi-res stereo (i.e., 2 channel) recordings (e.g., 24bit/192kHz downloads of modern recordings from HDTracks), and 
Hi-res multi-channel (e.g., 5.1) recordings (e.g., SACD, Pure Audio Blu-ray, Blu-ray), and
CDs (16bit/44.1kHz), which by definition are NOT "hi-res". 
(I don't own any multi-channel recordings that aren't hi-res.)

Sorry if my earlier post was confusing about this.

As I said, my favorite classical recordings are of modern performances (last dozen years or so) delivered on Blu-ray. Blu-ray audio/video recordings of modern performances typically offer 2 audio tracks, which can be selected via the Blu-ray's menu:


DTS-HD MA 5.1 (or 5.0), which IME is either 24bit/96kHz or 24bit/192kHz, and is variously described as "multi-channel" or "surround-sound".
Stereo, which IME is either 24bit/96kHz or 24 bit/192kHz, and is usually described as LPCM 2.0.

Some examples of modern Blu-rays are listed here: Blu-ray Videos of Classical Concerts

A few older films have been digitized and delivered on Blu-ray, and do not have a multi-channel audio track, and the audio and video quality are limited to the original film. Here's two examples that I own (both of which IMO are worth owning):



















In addition to owning many Blu-ray discs, I own numerous multi-channel hi-res recordings on SACD and Pure Audio Blu-ray. (Some Pure Audio Blu-ray discs offer 3 audio tracks, including a 7.1 track.) And, I own numerous stereo-only hi-res downloads from HDTracks. IME/IMO, these modern hi-res recordings almost always have excellent audio quality that exceeds CD quality.

Candidly, I long ago grew weary of the studies that purport to show that people can't hear a difference between hi-res and CD. I won't spend much time on this debate. I'll just say this: I don't care about whether someone who is using PC software to manipulate music files can hear a difference between different parameter settings in their software. I care about the quality of the recordings I buy.

As I discussed in my post #141, based on my assessment of 15 recordings of Beethoven 9, IME the audio quality of modern hi-res recordings is far superior to vintage recordings on CD. AND - (separate issue) - I enjoy multi-channel, and high-def video. Therefore, I buy Blu-rays.

I understand that some people argue that the superior quality of hi-res is due to mastering. This issue doesn't interest me. When I buy a top-quality modern Blu-ray (or modern SACD or Pure Audio Blu-ray), it has hi-res audio, and IME such recordings usually sound fabulous. I imagine that the superior audio quality results from many factors, including the fact that the music was recorded in hi-res (e.g., 24bit/192kHz PCM, or DSD), and that great care went into making the recording, great care went into the mastering, and the recording was delivered to the consumer in a hi-res format. (Analogy: Back when I could go to restaurants (i.e., before the pandemic), I was relatively unconcerned with how my meal was cooked, and more concerned about how my meal tasted, and the service from the staff, and the ambience of the restaurant.)

I understand and respect the fact that different people like different hobbies. (I collect vintage tube amps.) I'm not interested in copying CDs, SACDs, and Blu-ray discs, and editing the metadata, and storing the files on NAS. I understand that people who copy their digital recordings to NAS must choose the bit-depth/rate to archive their music, and are concerned with the attendant trade-offs. This is simply not relevant to how I play recordings.

I buy a disc, drop it into the tray, and hit the PLAY button. My philosophy when choosing discs is simple: buy the recording in the format it was mastered in. For a modern recording that was captured and mastered in 24bit/192kHz, why would a buy a version that has been down-sampled to the 40-year-old Redbook CD's 16bit/44.1kHz format? I'd rather buy the recording in its original 24bit/192kHz (or 24/96) format (e.g., Blu-ray, or Pure Audio Blu-ray, or hi-res download). Or, if the music was recorded in DSD, buy an SACD.

I understand that there are naysayers about hi-res recordings. My question for the naysayers is this: Have you experienced a modern (recorded in last dozen years or so) high-quality hi-res recording played via a high-quality hi-fi system? Or, have you copied a decades-old CD or LP to your computer, and said: "When I convert the file to a higher bit density it doesn't sound better" - and thereby formed your opinion that "hi-res" has no value? Some people listen to a decades-old recording delivered on an SACD and conclude that "hi-res" has no value. And … this is an emotive topic, and I don't want to start a heated debate … apparently, some people believe what "experts" say, vs. listening for themselves.

Modern recordings often deliver more than hi-res audio. For me, surround-sound, and high definition video significantly increase my enjoyment of recorded classical music.

Several years ago, I was skeptical about the value of surround-sound for classical music. Then I assembled a "proof of concept" system using some of my existing amps and speakers, connected to the analog 5.1 audio outputs of one of my Oppo universal players. After living with this 4.1 (left, center, right, single rear, subwoofer) system for a while, I was sold on the benefit of modern hi-res surround-sound for recordings of classical music. I subsequently converted a second hi-fi system to multi-channel, then a third system, and then a fourth.

Obviously, some forms of classical music involve a significant visual component - e.g., ballet and opera. Are you content to listen to a CD and not see the ballet dancers? Are you content to listen to a CD and not see the actors (and scenery) in an opera? I understand, and respect the fact, that for some people the answer is "yes" - they'd rather close their eyes and just listen to the music. I'd rather see the performers, stage, and venue. People are different.

Even for orchestral music, I enjoy seeing the conductor (and their various mannerisms), and musicians (particularly soloists), and concert hall. (Some venues are beautiful.)

Would you rather just listen to a CD, or hear and see Pepe Romero in excellent Blu-ray audio/video quality (which is only approximated via this youtube video). (FWIW, I like the slow movement that begins at 7:25.)






Would you rather just listen to a CD, or hear and see Kathia Buniatishvili in excellent Blu-ray audio/video quality (which is only approximated via these youtube videos):






Would you rather just listen to a CD, or hear and see Elīna Garanča in excellent Blu-ray audio/video quality (which is only approximated via this youtube video:






Would you rather just listen to a CD, or hear and see Anna Netrebko in excellent Blu-ray audio/video quality, and realize the benefit of having the libretto displayed in the language of your choice on the HDTV screen:






Would you rather just listen to the music, or also see Ekaterina Kondaurova dance the titular role in The Firebird?






Again, the audio and video quality of these youtube videos pale in comparison to Blu-ray. I'm just trying to show a small sampling of the types of performances that are available on Blu-ray.

In general, would you rather just listen to a CD, or hear and see the entire concert experience?

IMHO, you need to experience modern Blu-ray recordings of classical music to "get it".

In response to @Knorf, if we weren't all subject to "stay at home orders" due to the pandemic - yes - I'd be glad to invite people over to listen for themselves and form their own opinion. (I am Robert in KC - i.e., Kansas City.) I'm NOT saying that I have the greatest hi-fi systems in the world. With that said, people could hear a variety of recordings (LP, CD, SACD, Pure Audio Blu-ray, DVD, Blu-ray, hi-res download) on 5 different hi-fi systems, and a wide variety of amps (ranging from 1950s era tube amps to modern hybrid digital amps), and a variety of speakers.

If my posts result in just one person learning more about Blu-ray concert recordings, and this introduces them to a new way to enjoy recorded music during sequestration, then I'll feel that my long ramblings will have been worthwhile.

I'm afraid that it will be a long time before we can return to concert halls. IMO Blu-ray is the next best thing to being in the symphony hall, or opera house, or theatre.

P.S. In case you can't tell … I have "cabin fever" from being stuck at home …


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

RobertKC, excellent post, thank you! I agree with so much of what you've written.

ETA: I think we all have cabin fever. I am frustrated that one of the things I love to do the most in the world, performing great music in public, is being denied. I mean, I agree it's the correct decision. But, aside from the significant loss of income, I miss that connection we create with our audiences, more than I can say. And I miss my wonderful musician friends and colleagues. 

Every gig I had scheduled from mid-March through the summer has been canceled. It's heartbreaking. The next performance for me is no earlier than mid-September.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Oakey said:


> How come? For the monthly subscription rate of Spotify you can buy 5-10 used high-quality used CDs.
> 
> My CD collection started as a student in the late 80s when CDs were 40 guilders a piece, which is about €20 uncorrected for inflation (and €35 according to my invlation calculator)


It's not that much about money, though partially it still is, but also the fact that life is not that stable yet and moving around with a CD collection of, let's say, 1000 CDs would be rather difficult .


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## RobertKC (Dec 9, 2013)

Each post is limited to 5 imbedded videos. Here's 5 more youtube samples from Blu-rays that I own that I think are excellent.





















You better have "big boy" speakers and subwoofer(s) for this outstanding Blu-ray:


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Spotify for exploration
Buying secondhand CDs or downloads whichever is cheaper when I want to buy then it all goes on an Apple Time Capsule to play
All backed up to iTunes library for £25 a year


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

RobertKC said:


> Would you rather just listen to a CD, or hear and see Pepe Romero in excellent Blu-ray audio/video quality


Personally, if we're talking orchestral music, I'd prefer to listen to a CD without any possibility of visuals, apart from the score, 99 times out of 100. Closeups of conductors or assorted intstumentalists of the sort you get whenever the Proms are televised are, I find, rather more annoying than anything else. Your included video of Chailly conducting the Mahler is a classic of its type: I couldn't bare to watch even the 2 minutes of it in your clip, though I was quite happy to listen to the audio with the video scrolled off out of sight. Sorry. It's just me and my tastes, I guess!

A performance by a 'great' might be a different matter: I think _looking_ at how Boult conducted is an education in itself, but then I guess I'm more interested in conducting technique at that point than the music as such. So: if we're talking appreciating orchestral music _qua_ orchestral music, I'd prefer it without visuals.

Obviously, too: opera and ballet are a rather different kettle of fish, but I'm usually quite happy to use my imagination when enjoying most operas or ballets: I loved my Melbourne Ring Cycle, for example, but was terribly disappointed at the lack of real dragons and rainbow bridges. And in similar vein, I find that given the amount of directorial messing-about that goes on these days, few opera productions really match up to my pre-imagined expectations. (Sydney's Barber of Seville in 2016 was a notable exception; so was Christie's production of Les Boréades).



RobertKC said:


> I understand that people who copy their digital recordings to NAS must choose the bit-depth/rate to archive their music, and are concerned with the attendant trade-offs


Generally, not. I have occasionally been gifted (or accidentally purchased!) hi-res recordings. At that point, yes, a straightforward rip might produce a high-res FLAC, and that would then have to be thunked down to standard CD bit- and sampling-rates, since there's no point holding on to that which I cannot hear. But generally, it's just rip to FLAC and copy to NAS. No choices needed, apart from getting the metadata correct.



RobertKC said:


> Have you experienced a modern (recorded in last dozen years or so) high-quality hi-res recording played via a high-quality hi-fi system


Depends on your definition of high-quality audio system of course, but yes I have. In terms of modern recordings, for example, I have the Antonini Haydn 2032 series and the Vivaldi Naiive recordings, all mostly recorded, if memory serves, since about 2008, and all sounding superb -and still sounding superb when saved as standard CD audio, I have to say. But again, that's me: I've done ABX testing on my own ears between (ordinary-res) FLAC and 320Kbps MP3 and 192Kbps MP3. I almost always cannot hear a difference between FLAC and 320Kbps; and I can in fact only tell the difference between FLAC and 192Kbps MP3 slightly better than half the time. In my mid-50s, my ears are pretty well biologically incapable of hearing the difference, I'm afraid, and have been for around 10 years or more. (Shakes fist at skies!! )



RobertKC said:


> Or, have you copied a decades-old CD or LP to your computer, and said: "When I convert the file to a higher bit density it doesn't sound better"


You may have to allow for the fact that those of us who have been doing digital audio for over 20 years know that you can't invent information from nowhere! So no, I would never have done those things. I would never, for example, take an MP3 and convert it to a FLAC: it's just a pointless thing to do. It's like those sci-fi crime thrillers you get when they can't make out the number plate on a wanted car: in real life, you can't just say "enhance!" and make pixels appear that weren't in the original capture!

On that same basis, anyone who does say that you can't hear the difference between high-res and ordinary-res audio (whether it's actually true or not, it doesn't at this point matter) aren't attempting to upscale something and declaring defeat, but are saying that if you take _the same mastering_ and play it at 24/192 v. 16/44.1, _most_ people won't be able to hear the difference. And those who've prepared the various reports on the matter are doing the "exact same recording and mastering, but only changing bit-depth and/or sampling frequency" tests: they know how to compare apples with apples and not with citrus fruit.

Now, whether the "I can't tell the difference" is _actually_ true or not, in general, I neither care nor comment. As I've repeatedly said, I know it's true for *me*, but that's as far as I ever take it.



RobertKC said:


> Modern recordings often deliver more than hi-res audio. For me, surround-sound, and high definition video significantly increase my enjoyment of recorded classical music.


And I think that's the point I was picking up on in my earlier reply. It's not the hi-res audio _per se_ that tips the scales for you, necessarily; but the fact that you like your multichannel and the video element. And they're both fine preferences to have and weren't being criticised in any way.


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## RobertKC (Dec 9, 2013)

LOL - I agree that the video excerpt of Chailly probably wasn't the most flattering- though overall I like watching him conduct. (I like the fact that Chailly pauses for several seconds before beginning, and everyone is quiet and ready to focus on the music.) This is the only excerpt that I could find on youtube for this recording. I think that this Blu-ray of Chailly conducting Mahler 2 in 2011 is outstanding. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio is excellent, and delivers the full dynamic range of Mahler 2. Overall, IMO very enjoyable.

I like watching different conductors' styles of conducting. It took me a little while to get acclimated to Thielemann's unique conducting style, but I enjoy watching him conduct. I enjoy watching Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting Beethoven symphonies (plus several other works) in 2013. I can't think of a conductor on any of the Blu-rays that I own that I dislike watching.

_Generally_, I also like watching musicians. However, I have one Blu-ray where the camera spent so much time on one flute player - even when he wasn't playing - that it went from amusing, to annoying, to creepy … IMO …


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Incidentally: Google has announced today that Youtube Music is now a "thing" (and you can import your Google Music locker into it). And later this year, Google Play Music will die.

Full details available here, if you're interested.

I tried Google Play Music for a while. Unfortunately it insisted on ordering 'albums' by their recording year. Since Suzuki didn't record the Bach cantatas with ascending BWV numbers aligned with the year he recorded them, I couldn't find a darn'd one of them! I swiftly abandoned it. As, apparently, have Google!

Let's hope Youtube Music (distinct from the video service that I believe the poll was referring to) is better in its ability to sort and search for music!


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Let's hope Youtube Music (distinct from the video service that I believe the poll was referring to) is better in its ability to sort and search for music!


Don't get your hopes up! I think you can be sure that it will be tailored to play mostly pop music, and not handle classical music well.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Coach G said:


> With over 4,000 classical CDs, *my music collection is complete*. I listen to my CDs, occasionally LPs, (I started my collection in the 1980s) and go to YouTube to hear supplemental/alternate recordings.


[GASP!!!!!!!] A music collection is NEVER complete!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good Lord Coach, do you realize that words MEAN THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????????????

V


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Merl said:


> This should have been a multiple poll where you could pick the many ways you get your music . I said 'other' as I buy a lot of digital stuff but also buy lots of secondhand CDs and I also have a Spotify account. If I cant find it in any of those places I'll get to hear it somehow.


I agree with Merl: This should have been a multiple poll. I buy all my classical on CD because I have a very good stereo system and want to hear great sound when listening to classical. But, I download or use my subscription to Apple Music for everything non-classical because the sound isn't as important to me and I can still get *decent* quality for that. I want to OWN my classical music. If I ever stop the Apple subscription I will still have ALL of my classical. I can acquire through other means without spending a fortune everything else I listen to.

V


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Incidentally: Google has announced today that Youtube Music is now a "thing" (and you can import your Google Music locker into it). And later this year, Google Play Music will die.
> 
> Full details available here, if you're interested.
> 
> ...


Was this for the streaming service or uploaded music? I've uploaded about 10,000 tracks to Google Play Music, and after fiddling with the tags within Google Play, my classical uploads appear sorted by genre [classical in this instance]/composer/work.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

RobertKC said:


> .....
> 
> I buy a disc, drop it into the tray, and hit the PLAY button. *My philosophy when choosing discs is simple: buy the recording in the format it was mastered in.* For a modern recording that was captured and mastered in 24bit/192kHz, why would a buy a version that has been down-sampled to the 40-year-old Redbook CD's 16bit/44.1kHz format? I'd rather buy the recording in its original 24bit/192kHz (or 24/96) format (e.g., Blu-ray, or Pure Audio Blu-ray, or hi-res download). Or, if the music was recorded in DSD, buy an SACD......


Sorry for the pun, but sound advice if I ever heard it. Listening in the native format when possible is always the better choice to get closer to the event, as it was recorded.

I find the biggest challange with Hi-Res is for older recordings. If 2L recorded something at 384/24 and I buy a downsampled 192/24, I know I'm getting a quality product. But if I buy an old rock and roll album recorded on analogue equipment 50 years ago, why spend for a Hi-Res FLAC file. However, if those files were created by going back to the original master tapes, converting them to a Hi-Res format, and then mixed and mastered digitally, it might very well be worth the investment. I know labels like Mobile Fidelity have a loyal fan base as their re-mastered recordings captured in DSD are a nice improvement over the original release.

And just because it was mentioned earlier, here's my 2 cents on hearing differences between file formats. I've got a decent headphone rig, so as a test, I went to the 2L Test Bench and downloaded the same music file in a variety of formats (44.1/16, 92/24, 192/24, 2.8/DSD, 5.6/DSD). Load them into Foobar2000 and you can just toggle between them for comparisons in a matter of seconds. I can clearly hear the differences between files, some more than others. 96/24 and anything higher does sound better than red book CD. I have a hard time comparing 192/24 and 2.8/DSD. I think I prefer the 192/24. 5.6/DSD, which is the highest they offer as a sample as well as the highest rate my DAC can handle) clearly is superior to all other file formats. I can clearly hear it on my headphone rig. However, I do not hear the same thing on my 5.1 system, and for good reason. The room correction software samples everything at its own rate to do bass management, speaker volume settings and crossovers.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

jegreenwood said:


> Was this for the streaming service or uploaded music? I've uploaded about 10,000 tracks to Google Play Music, and after fiddling with the tags within Google Play, my classical uploads appear sorted by genre [classical in this instance]/composer/work.


With my own music. Take a look:









Just taking the album title's initial letter, ignoring when the first word is 'A' or 'The', we have m,r, t (looking good so far!), g (oh ), j, m, m, r, m, m, a b ...failrly random, until you look at the recording year. Then we have 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. And _within_ each year, it's alphabetical by album name. But there was no way I ever found to switch off the year-ordering as primary sort order.

Now, to be fair, that was 2016. They may have changed it since. But it was annoying enough for me to send a help request asking for adjustable sort orders -to which they never responded, despite lots of people chiming in on the thread to request the same thing. So if they did fix it, they never let on!

My other beef with Google Play Music was this:









The fact that hardly any 'artists' got usable photos was a disappointment; the fact that the image used for Adrian Willaert pops up again two rows later for another artist altogether kind of indicated to me that whatever it was they were matching, they weren't doing a very good job of it!

In the end, it was easier for me to copy my entire collection, convert it to MP3, upload to Microsoft 365 OneDrive and play it on my phone via CloudPlayer. At that point, I was back in charge of the metadata, the ordering was under my control, and all the artist and album art was me-configurable, too. And I got a free Office suite thrown in for the better half, too!

*PS. Edited to add:* I had missed the bit where you "fiddled with the tags within Google Play". That may be the answer. But I believe in getting the metadata right, once; so I don't go messing with it to suit the demands of a particular platform. And with 50,000 tracks uploaded, it wasn't something I would have been to undertake even if I was of the mind to do it as Google expected me to do


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Joe B said:


> And just because it was mentioned earlier, here's my 2 cents on hearing differences between file formats. I've got a decent headphone rig, so as a test, I went to the 2L Test Bench and downloaded the same music file in a variety of formats (44.1/16, 92/24, 192/24, 2.8/DSD, 5.6/DSD). Load them into Foobar2000 and you can just toggle between them for comparisons in a matter of seconds. I can clearly hear the differences between files, some more than others.


Can I ask your age?

If you are in your 20s and were genetically blessed, it's possible you can hear higher than 20KHz, at which point a sampling rate higher than 44.1KHz could well be necessary for you to be able to hear the complete audio signal.

I'm afraid my ears top out at about 13KHz, so I wouldn't be able to hear anything better than about 30KHz (allowing for Nyquist's 2 x upper frequency limit + a bit for non-linear filtering above the upper frequency). CD is more than I am able to hear, anyway, sadly. And I'm told that my top frequency is about average for my age 

The top note on a piano is at around frequency 4.2KHz, though, so I've still got some headroom left!

*Edited to add: *You mentioned the 2L Test Bench, so I thought I'd try it out. Specifically, I downloaded the Chromatic Fantasia (2nd down the list) in:

Ordinary CD: 26MB
Hi-res 24/96 : 99MB (+387%)
Hi-res 24/192: 197MB (+757%)
Hi-res 24/352: 355MB (+1365%)

It's a test I'd recommend to anyone interested in using 1000% more of their hard disk to store the extra signal in the 24/352 version! Definitely worth having a go.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> Was this for the streaming service or uploaded music? I've uploaded about 10,000 tracks to Google Play Music, and after fiddling with the tags within Google Play, my classical uploads appear sorted by genre [classical in this instance]/composer/work.
> 
> View attachment 135738


I use Google Play Music as well, and have never had any issues with sorting. I have some 40,000 tracks uploaded currently. But apparently the service is going to end completely, both for streaming and uploaded content. Here's an article that discusses the changes and explains how to transfer your music from Google Play to YouTube:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/21254766/google-play-how-to-transfer-music-youtube-playlists-uploads-library


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

WildThing said:


> I use Google Play Music as well, and have never had any issues with sorting.


Well, for the love of God, would you tell me what you're doing right or I'm doing wrong?! Because this is me, today:









Why does the 1973 Checkmate come at the end of the list?

Best as I can tell -because 1973 comes after 2005 and 1993...

PS. Just to point out: I'm going to my music library and selecting Artist. Because I choose _whose_ music I listen to first, most of the time, rather than have a specific piece already in mind (which would better be dealt with by visiting the 'Albums' page). The albums sort order is fine:









But that's a fat load of good if one accesses one's music via the Artist page first. Why they can't get a consistent sort order regardless of which page you use to access your music, I have no idea!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> With my own music. Take a look:
> 
> View attachment 135763
> 
> ...


My tag fiddling - indeed my choice of Google Play Music - derives from my desire to play music using vocal commands to my Google Homes. That's very tricky with classical, requiring a strict naming convention, rules contrary to those I use on my home server. Also no duplicate works. There is no way Google Home is going to parse, "Hey Google, play my song Beethoven Symphony Number 3 conducted by Herbert von Karajan, 1963 cycle."

Note that I have joined multi-movement works into one song.

All of this courtesy of the time available for a retiree.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

OK, it was time to test it, not complain about it. Starting point:









You'll note that the Violin Concerto starts the list at the left, despite V coming after D and F. But you'll also note that the Violin Concerto has no year shown after the '4 songs' bit of text.

So:









That's me adding a completely spurious '1954' to the metadata (where before it read '0').

And Lo!









And now the Violin Concerto leaps to the end of the list, on the far right, even though V comes _before_ W, because 1954 comes _after_ 1961.

So, I'm afraid, it's true: Google Play Music cannot sort music properly on the Artists page, at least. Which means I rejoice in its imminent demise (though I understand others may not!)


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

jegreenwood said:


> My tag fiddling - indeed my choice of Google Play Music - derives from my desire to play music using vocal commands to my Google Homes. That's very tricky with classical, requiring a strict naming convention, rules contrary to those I use on my home server. Also no duplicate works. There is no way Google Home is going to parse, "Hey Google, play my song Beethoven Symphony Number 3 conducted by Herbert von Karajan, 1963 cycle."
> 
> Note that I have joined multi-movement works into one song.
> 
> All of this courtesy of the time available for a retiree.


Retiree myself: it's still not something I would be willing to do!

Interesting you wanted voice activation, though. Not something I've ever desired or thought about. For when you're driving, perhaps?


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, for the love of God, would you tell me what you're doing right or I'm doing wrong?! Because this is me, today:
> 
> View attachment 135784
> 
> ...


I'm not really sure, to be honest. My interface seems to be rather different than yours.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

WildThing said:


> I'm not really sure, to be honest. My interface seems to be rather different than yours.
> 
> View attachment 135790


Yeah, see my subsequent post. You've gone into the 'Albums' page.
I go to the 'Artist' page.

Different sort orders on each one, apparently!

With 8,365 albums to wade through, and only about 480 composers, I'd never willingly go via Albums!


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Well, it seems as if Youtube Music won't be worth wasting much time on either!









Benjamin Britten _and_ Maria Callas! Maybe Maria made a fine Ellen Orford when I wasn't watching?!









Nope. As I kind of suspected: it's a Maria Callas album, true enough. But I am still at a loss to know the relevance of Benjamin Britten here! Oh, the joys of third-party metadata!


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Can I ask your age?
> 
> If you are in your 20s and were genetically blessed, it's possible you can hear higher than 20KHz, at which point a sampling rate higher than 44.1KHz could well be necessary for you to be able to hear the complete audio signal.
> 
> ...


Sorry, you missed my point. There is a lot more going on with a high res recording besides an increase in the upper frequencies. To infer that hi-res allows me to hear higher frequencies and therefore I am either young or genetically blessed is BS.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Joe B said:


> Sorry, you missed my point. There is a lot more going on with a high res recording besides an increase in the upper frequencies. To infer that hi-res allows me to hear higher frequencies and therefore I am either young or genetically blessed is BS.


I know the reason why record companies _record and process_ at high-res (it's so that their non-linear filters don't introduce harmonic artefacts, in a nutshell). I wasn't clear on why you would want to _listen_ to them if it wasn't because you could hear things in them that were otherwise lacking.

So what else is going on with high res recording that you mentioned and I missed? Sorry if you were offended by the age/genetics comment. It was meant as an objective compliment, not as a dig or anything like that.


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Why does the 1973 Checkmate come at the end of the list?


Is there a blank space before the C?


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Helgi said:


> Is there a blank space before the C?


No. See my post #171.

It's entirely down to the recording year altering the sort order. Change the date, you get a different ordering.

Sorry. Meant to add. Proof: Starting point:









Checkmate (the Del Mar with dodgy album art) at far right, last in the list, dated 1973.

I now set its recording date to be 2020 not 1973.









Result:









Checkmate now listed first in the list. Nothing else altered. Just the recording year.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> OK, it was time to test it, not complain about it. Starting point:
> 
> View attachment 135786
> 
> ...


Here's what I get when I go to my albums page:









My conflation of composer and principal artist has a 15 year history not worth getting into here. One more thing - I do not use the date field; I leave it blank. To me it is irrelevant. If it were the year the piece was composed, it might have some value, but what do I care what year a classical album was released. And sometimes it's the year of the original release, sometimes it's a remastering, sometimes it's the release of the SACD version . . .

Voice requests are nice when I'm in the kitchen or generally in the midst of something. Also nice when I'm lying in bed. To be honest, they work better with playlists (and most of my playlists are popular music or jazz). And to be more honest, it started as an experiment. Then, figuring out how to make it work (at all) with classical was a further experiment.

Edit - When I said I left the year field empty, I meant for classical music. For popular music, Google Play seems to sort my albums in reverse chronological order for a given artist. If an album has a blank date field it comes first. This makes marginally more sense to me than the year of classical music releases. It's might be useful to know where a Dylan album fits within his ouevre.

And to be clear, I didn't use Google Play Music to strip the year. Most of my tagging was done in JRiver, where I could simply highlight all albums in my Classical Genre and change the date and year fields to null.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

jegreenwood said:


> Here's what I get when I go to my albums page:
> 
> My conflation of composer and principal artist has a 15 year history not worth getting into here. One more thing - I do not use the date field; I leave it blank. To me it is irrelevant.


And that's why you'll have no trouble with the sort order, then. On the Artists page, once you click into a specific artist, the album sort order is Year/Album name. Leave your year blank, and you're left with Album Name only, which is why it sorts fine for you.

Incidentally, in the screenshot you took to accompany the "this is what I get when I go to my albums page", you've actually gone to your Artists page. Where it says along the top, "Playlists Stations Artists Albums", the word "Artists" is underlined in orange. That's the page I would use as my entry point to my library too. It's the one that sorts albums, once you click on a specific artist, by year first (if you have it).



jegreenwood said:


> Out of curiosity, are you editing artist, or album artist or both.


I'm not sure what you're referring to. In the two examples I've posted, I go to the Artists page. I pick an artist and click on him/her. I select to edit one of the albums that is then displayed. I edit the year. The sort results change.

If you're talking generically about how I tag my music, I only ever tag up Artist and Composer (to be the same thing). I leave the Album Artist blank (since it has no meaning in classical music, I think).



jegreenwood said:


> Voice requests are nice when I'm in the kitchen or generally in the midst of something. Also nice when I'm lying in bed. To be honest, they work better with playlists (and most of my playlists are popular music or jazz). And to be more honest, it started as an experiment. Then, figuring out how to make it work (at all) with classical was a further experiment.


Interesting. Thanks for the background.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> And that's why you'll have no trouble with the sort order, then. On the Artists page, once you click into a specific artist, the album sort order is Year/Album name. Leave your year blank, and you're left with Album Name only, which is why it sorts fine for you.
> 
> Incidentally, in the screenshot you took to accompany the "this is what I get when I go to my albums page", you've actually gone to your Artists page. Where it says along the top, "Playlists Stations Artists Albums", the word "Artists" is underlined in orange. That's the page I would use as my entry point to my library too. It's the one that sorts albums, once you click on a specific artist, by year first (if you have it).
> 
> ...


You are correct - I meant Artists not Albums. But my remaining question is why you keep anything in the year field at all? Do you use it for anything? As I mentioned in my edit, I can see some potential use in popular music, but not in classical.

As for artist vs. album artist. If I had an album with Richter playing two concertos with different orchestra/conductors, I might use it. But frankly I don't.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

jegreenwood said:


> You are correct - I meant Artists not Albums. But my remaining question is why you keep anything in the year field at all? Do you use it for anything? As I mentioned in my edit, I can see some potential use in popular music, but not in classical.


I did a history degree... dates are a 'thing' for me, I'm afraid!

But you're absolutely right that it is almost never a useful piece of information to have -and finding it in some CD booklets can sometimes be really hard. It's frequently the one piece of metadata it can take me minutes to locate. To the point where I've guessed them in the past, or even ...just made them up 

I think when you've got Boult doing two RVW cycles, or Karajan doing 15 Beethoven cycles... the recording date _might_ be pertinent (so you can distinguish between them... though even then, that would usually end up in my album title as 'Symphony No. 9 (Boult - 1959)' versus 'Symphony No. 9 (Boult - 1969)'. So even then, sticking something in the recording year tag is somewhat pointless.)

But removing accurate data that's there though: that's a tough one for me, I'm afraid. I _hate_ losing data.

It is also something most music players _can_ sort on (or search on) where they couldn't cope with it as just a piece of text in the album tag. So if I were ever of a mind to ask 'how much of my collection pre-dates Nixon's ascendancy to the Presidency', the recording date would be of practical significance.



jegreenwood said:


> As for artist vs. album artist. If I had an album with Richter playing two concertos with different orchestra/conductors, I might use it. But frankly I don't.


I'd rip it as two separate 'virtual albums' and his surname would appear as the 'distinguishing artist' in the album name tag, so I'd _never_ have a use for 'album artist'. I did actually write a script to forcibly remove any album artists that existed in any of my 60000 tracks' metadata (Prestoclassical tend to throw it in there, just for giggles, I guess). That was a pointless piece of data I didn't mind wasting!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I did a history degree... dates are a 'thing' for me, I'm afraid!
> 
> But you're absolutely right that it is almost never a useful piece of information to have -and finding it in some CD booklets can sometimes be really hard. It's frequently the one piece of metadata it can take me minutes to locate. To the point where I've guessed them in the past, or even ...just made them up
> 
> ...


Yes, when I have two cycles by the same conductor, I would include the recording year in the album field.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Ideally, the metadata would consistently and accurately have two dates: one for the date of the completed composition (at least the year), and the other the date of the recording (at least when it was produced.)

Those dates are often important in cataloguing and retrieval. Ask any music librarian.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> Ideally, the metadata would consistently and accurately have two dates: one for the date of the completed composition (at least the year), and the other the date of the recording (at least when it was produced.)
> 
> Those dates are often important in cataloguing and retrieval. Ask any music librarian.


Well, whatever a librarian might consider important isn't necessarily what a mere _listener_ might deem significant.

I find it a common problem with many tagging strategies that their users seem to think that audio file metadata suddenly becomes the _only_ source of information about their music. I think this explains why we get things like 'Act 3, Scene 2, In a darkened cave, Rodrigo and Elizabeth: Amor vincit omnia' as TITLE metadata, for example. I've personally never felt the need to pile the kitchen sink into my tags, as things such as CD booklets and Google continue to exist whether I do or don't.

That said, if a piece of information _is_ important to someone for finding or ordering their music, then they should definitely consider sticking it into a custom tag. There's no practical limit to what's possible, of course. I've seen recording engineers' names included, as well as things like key and time signatures. Whatever floats someone's boat, I guess. It's just unfortunate that many music players then don't expose such tags very easily, or allow them to be used in filtering or ordering operations. But yes: that depends very much on one's music player software.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> *Well, whatever a librarian might consider important isn't necessarily what a mere listener might deem significant.*
> 
> I find it a common problem with many tagging strategies that their users seem to think that audio file metadata suddenly becomes the _only_ source of information about their music. I think this explains why we get things like 'Act 3, Scene 2, In a darkened cave, Rodrigo and Elizabeth: Amor vincit omnia' as TITLE metadata, for example. I've personally never felt the need to pile the kitchen sink into my tags, as things such as CD booklets and Google continue to exist whether I do or don't.
> 
> That said, if a piece of information _is_ important to someone for finding or ordering their music, then they should definitely consider sticking it into a custom tag. There's no practical limit to what's possible, of course. I've seen recording engineers' names included, as well as things like key and time signatures. Whatever floats someone's boat, I guess. It's just unfortunate that many music players then don't expose such tags very easily, or allow them to be used in filtering or ordering operations. But yes: that depends very much on one's music player software.


Exactly. I developed my tagging strategy by thinking about the information I need to select the music I want to hear and determining how accessible that information was on my music playing devices - from old iPod classics to iTunes on my iPhone to Squeezebox/iPeng to JRiver. By no means do I think my strategy is for everyone. As to everything else, I don't care if it's blank or even wrong. I spend enough time entering and maintaining the information I need. And that includes several custom tags.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Knorf said:


> Ideally, the metadata would consistently and accurately have two dates: one for the date of the completed composition (at least the year), and the other the date of the recording (at least when it was produced.)
> 
> Those dates are often important in cataloguing and retrieval. Ask any music librarian.


Those are the dates I enter for every piece of recorded music on CD that I have in my collection. I started my catalogue several years ago using MS-Excel and so it remains, clunky but up-to-date and useful. I manually enter the data based on liner notes and my own research. Some record labels make it easy and others are a mess. IME, Sony provides the best documentation of recording date and location. Easy to find in the notes. Decca and a few others tend to put that data at the back of the notes in small print, so it's a hassle to flip around in the little booklet while entering the data. Some others, like L'Oiseau Lyre and Erato, are really deficient. The data are often incomplete, and it's difficult to find them through one's own research. Because my catalogue centers on the compositions, it does not document directly the actual, physical CDs. I have never decided whether I should add another field to each record for the CD serial number or start a new catalogue in which I could also document the album cover artwork, which I think would be nice. I'm thinking I should recreate my catalogue using some kind of more suitable software. It would be great if I could then import my thousands MS-Excel records, which document my approximately 1000-CD collection.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Simplicissimus said:


> Those are the dates I enter for every piece of recorded music on CD that I have in my collection. I started my catalogue several years ago using MS-Excel and so it remains, clunky but up-to-date and useful. I manually enter the data based on liner notes and my own research. Some record labels make it easy and others are a mess. IME, Sony provides the best documentation of recording date and location. Easy to find in the notes. Decca and a few others tend to put that data at the back of the notes in small print, so it's a hassle to flip around in the little booklet while entering the data. Some others, like L'Oiseau Lyre and Erato, are really deficient. The data are often incomplete, and it's difficult to find them through one's own research. Because my catalogue centers on the compositions, it does not document directly the actual, physical CDs. I have never decided whether I should add another field to each record for the CD serial number or start a new catalogue in which I could also document the album cover artwork, which I think would be nice. I'm thinking I should recreate my catalogue using some kind of more suitable software. It would be great if I could then import my thousands MS-Excel records, which document my approximately 1000-CD collection.


Excel can output to CSV; most proper database software will import it, just fine. (I ran Oracle databases for a living: I wouldn't recommend anything that heavy duty, though!)

I'd only question (gently!) the utility of a separate database in the first place. If _all_ your music was in the form of digital files, they can act as a _self-describing_ database all on their own (that's the point of metadata tags in the first place, of course).

However, I definitely get that if you have a mix of digital files, LPs, CDs, Edison Cylinders etc, then 'one [external] database to rule them all' makes sense.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Excel can output to CSV; most proper database software will import it, just fine. (I ran Oracle databases for a living: I wouldn't recommend anything that heavy duty, though!)
> 
> I'd only question (gently!) the utility of a separate database in the first place. If _all_ your music was in the form of digital files, they can act as a _self-describing_ database all on their own (that's the point of metadata tags in the first place, of course).
> 
> However, I definitely get that if you have a mix of digital files, LPs, CDs, Edison Cylinders etc, then 'one [external] database to rule them all' makes sense.


I never ran an Oracle database, but about 30 years ago I did teach myself PC based databases and database programming (getting as far as developing the time billing system for my small law firm). But even for that, there is a learning curve. If Simplicissimus has MS-Access, it might be worth a look to see if it is worth the effort. (I was a Paradox/PowerBuilder/Delphi guy.)
It does look like you can import directly from Excel to Access.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

jegreenwood said:


> I never ran an Oracle database, but about 30 years ago I did teach myself PC based databases and database programming (getting as far as developing the time billing system for my small law firm). But even for that, there is a learning curve. If Simplicissimus has MS-Access, it might be worth a look to see if it is worth the effort. (I was a Paradox/PowerBuilder/Delphi guy.)
> It does look like you can import directly from Excel to Access.


You can. I haven't really used Access since about 2000, but I know it has gotten a lot more complicated than it used to be!

I'd think MySQL (or MariaDB: it's the same thing, really), with a Excel front-end, via linked tables, myself. But it's a big topic.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, whatever a librarian might consider important isn't necessarily what a mere _listener_ might deem significant.


I find having the dates important. It seems obvious to me why that's so, and I think most recording collectors woild agree. For example, it's possible to have multiple masters of the same recording (compare Karajan early digital releases to the 'Karajan Gold Edition') and knowing which is which is definitely important. Having dates of the composition is critical with Bruckner symphonies, or many pieces by Boulez, which have multiple different versions.

And, you're wrong about what music librarians want. They _don't_ want any information beyond what is essential for cataloguing and retrieval. And neither do I. All the other crud you posted is never something I enter. I have far too many titles to bother with that nonsense. For librarians, who catalogue hundreds of thousands of titles, excess information is _not_ something they want. Librarians literally have this stuff down to a science.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> You can. I haven't really used Access since about 2000, but I know it has gotten a lot more complicated than it used to be!


Like all Microsoft products, it has become incredibly bloated over the past 20 years. There are a billion little buttons, ribbons, and other doodads to remember how to use. And then they change the interface every few years or so. I would have thought it would have collapsed under its own weight by now, but MS Office products are still very commonly used, alas, and are the de facto standards in most commercial/business settings.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

When Microsoft started to use ribbons, it was clear that the end of reasonable usablility had arrived.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Knorf said:


> I find having the dates important. It seems obvious to me why that's so, and I think most recording collectors woild agree. For example, it's possible to have multiple masters of the same recording (compare Karajan early digital releases to the 'Karajan Gold Edition') and knowing which is which is definitely important. Having dates of the composition is critical with Bruckner symphonies, or many pieces by Boulez, which have multiple different versions.
> 
> And, you're wrong about what music librarians want. They _don't_ want any information beyond what is essential for cataloguing and retrieval. And neither do I. All the other crud you posted is never something I enter. I have far too many titles to bother with that nonsense. For librarians, who catalogue hundreds of thousands of titles, excess information is _not_ something they want. Librarians literally have this stuff down to a science.


In my case, when I have multiple masters of the same recording, I generally keep my favorite and dispose of the rest. Not always though. In those cases the name of the album includes the necessary identification (e.g. SACD or 88-24 or MFSL).


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## Helgi (Dec 27, 2019)

I recently started cataloguing my collection in a spreadsheet to have a better overview than I do in iTunes. It's not up to library standards perhaps, but it was easy to set up and is wonderfully flexible. I'm using an app/service called Notion, at http://notion.so.

It makes sense to me to keep a separate catalogue from the actual files, as the spreadsheet can deal much better with multiple artists, multiple genres and so on. And also to keep all formats in one collection - I have CD box sets that I'm not sure I'll ever rip completely.

A couple of screen shots:















I'm still experimenting, but it works brilliantly so far. I can filter the view to show all entries featuring any mix of artists, orchestras, conductors, composers or whatever else I can think of. I keep a separate spreadsheet for opera and it's very useful for that, with multiple singers per recording and so on.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I still get most of my music on physical media.

Up until covid-19, I would make almost weekly trips to Amoeba in Hollywood, Counterpoint Records in Hollywood, Freak Beat Records in Studio City. It is just too easy to find all sorts of inexpensive treasures at these places. 

Amoeba especially has a quite large classical (new and used) section, with a large avant-garde / contemporary subsection.

I also buy a fair amount of vinyl. 

As of late, I am downloading quite a bit of hi-res files from HD Tracks and High Definition Tape Transfers in DSD128. 

I am checking into streaming services to see if they have a decent amount of avant-garde and contemporary classical for my tastes. So far, they seem pretty good.

I use YouTube for research only.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> I find having the dates important. It seems obvious to me why that's so, and I think most recording collectors woild agree. For example, it's possible to have multiple masters of the same recording (compare Karajan early digital releases to the 'Karajan Gold Edition') and knowing which is which is definitely important. Having dates of the composition is critical with Bruckner symphonies, or many pieces by Boulez, which have multiple different versions.


You really do have a problem with being reasonable. I just want to say that up-front. Calm down. Back off. And start being reasonable, please.

Now I'll answer your points, such as they are.



Knorf said:


> I find having the dates important.


Good. Fine. What suits you, suits you. I don't have a problem with it. I've said it repeatedly. If _you_ need to sort and catalogue your music by categoey X, I think that's fine.



Knorf said:


> It seems obvious to me why that's so, and I think most recording collectors woild agree.


But at this point, you and I part company. It's not obvious to me, who has been digitising this stuff for 20 years, and has a career in data management, why what "most collectors" think makes sense for anyone else. I'm not a librarian. I'm not a grand doctorate of composition. But I can lay my hands on most pieces of music composed within the last 300 years without drama, whether within my own personal collection or not.

I think most recording collectors would think you're being a bit precious at this point, to be frank.

You're allowed to think what you think. No one would argue otherwise. But please don't do the argument to 'we're so great and you're not' stuff. It ill becomes you.



Knorf said:


> For example, it's possible to have multiple masters of the same recording (compare Karajan early digital releases to the 'Karajan Gold Edition') and knowing which is which is definitely important.


Is it? So you say. Personally, I couldn't give a stuff, so no, it's not "definitely important" to me. Deal with it.

(PS. You mentioned it critical to know two dates before: the date of composition and the date of recording. Are you now introducing other dates you're interested in? You are free to do so, but you need to, know I think, that about 1 person in 10,000 would give a fig).



Knorf said:


> Having dates of the composition is critical with Bruckner symphonies


Is it? So you say.

Frankly, my dear, I couldn't give a damn. Especially since he kept revising everything he wrote and one date is as good as another.

No. What you're saying is it's important for you. And that's fine. And you're allowed to think important what most of us listeners wouldn't even give a nose sneeze about. You're most welcome to that opinion. But it's you're *opinion*. And I'll say that I think you're being precious. Those of us who have been listening to digital music for a decade or two know what's actually important... and my bet is on very few caring a snort for dates of composition (which are readily available from sources which aren't digital file metadata or did you miss that minor detail?)



Knorf said:


> And, you're wrong about what music librarians want.


Your composition music doctorate or whatever it might be seems to have confused your ability to read English. I said I knew what Listeners want, not what music librarians want. In fact, I made zero claims about what music librarians might want or not want. Because *it's not relevant*.



Knorf said:


> They _don't_ want any information beyond what is essential for cataloguing and retrieval. And neither do I.


Then we agree but are not of the same opinion (look it up. It's a quote from a Britten opera). I'm betting that your music player can't find the quote. Mine can. Just sayin'



Knorf said:


> All the other crud you posted is never something I enter.


Good, because it's not stuff I want in my metadata either. Please go back and read carefully. I quoted it *because* it was crud, not because it was something I wanted people to actually tag with it. But they do. Your argument is with them, not me.



Knorf said:


> I have far too many titles to bother with that nonsense. For librarians, who catalogue hundreds of thousands of titles, excess information is _not_ something they want. Librarians literally have this stuff down to a science.


And I am not a librarian. Neither are you. Neither are 99.9% of the people reading this. Who gives a flying fig what a librarian would want?! Do they have to deal with what material appears on a phone screen versus a PC desktop screen? No. So their opinions at the point of cataloguing for *listening* are _worthless_. They are probably really keen on the Dewey Decimal System. GO DEWEY!

The rest of us who care about what Clementine displays, versus what Foobar2000 or CloudPlayer displays... we can get on with our lives... and tag accordingly.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Helgi said:


> I recently started cataloguing my collection in a spreadsheet to have a better overview than I do in iTunes. It's not up to library standards perhaps, but it was easy to set up and is wonderfully flexible. I'm using an app/service called Notion, at http://notion.so.
> 
> It makes sense to me to keep a separate catalogue from the actual files, as the spreadsheet can deal much better with multiple artists, multiple genres and so on. And also to keep all formats in one collection - I have CD box sets that I'm not sure I'll ever rip completely.
> 
> ...


I really don't see a huge issue with what you've got, though I'm not entirely clear if the two screenshots are supposed to be left/right of the same records.

My question to anyone contemplating tagging is: do you think The Sixteen are as important as Bach? And do you think Klemperer as important as Beethoven?

Once you decide the composer is King, all things flow from there, is my personal opinion. If you decide that Conductor or Pianist is King: that's entirely fine, but we part ways and nothing I say about tagging has any relevance to you.

It seems important to me to know that Glen Gould is playing the Bach (so I can avoid it ). The label: personally, I don't care (especially since they keep buying each other out. I'd love to know who owns Decca these days, for example. It isn't the same company that did all the Britten recordings in the 1960s, that's for sure!)

Personally, and only personally, your database seems recordings-based. Which is entirely fine. But I would never do it that way. Beethoven, for example, never wrote a work called Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3. He wrote a second piano sonata. And he wrote a third. I would never classify them together, just because some record company thought them worth 'marrying' together for sales volumes reasons some time in the 1970s.

I'm intrigued by the 'recording is King' school, only because I simply don't understand it! My gut feeling is that it stems from the LP owners, only because they had no choice in the matter. But I'd be willing to be persuaded otherwise. Meanwhile, it seems to me that the LP owners have not noticed that you get to control the content of what you buy. What you are supplied with isn't the final answer. You get to _choose_, these days, what counts as a 'virtual album', versus what you're supplied with.

But that's me. You're you. I'm not saying you're doing it wrong. What you're doing just happens not to be right for me. In my mind, the only things that count are composer, composition, genre, principle artist. Anything else, to me, is just flim-flam. But your mileage might not only be different, but it's most definitely allowed to be different.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> You really do have a problem with being reasonable. I just want to say that up-front. Calm down. Back off. And start being reasonable, please.


Wow. Just, wow. This was really not called for. 


> Good, because it's not stuff I want in my metadata either. Please go back and read carefully. I quoted it *because* it was crud, not because it was something I wanted people to actually tag with it.


Yes, this was entirely obvious, which is why I called it crud. It seemed to me you thought it was crud as well. It appears I inadvertently ommitted the word "about," i.e. I meant "the other crud you posted about..." I apologize for that. But even without "about" it should be obvious that I was referring to the extra nonsense you mentioned encountering.

But you had to get carried away with _ad hominem_ insults. Sad, really. But I will cease attempting to interact with you.


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## TMHeimer (Dec 19, 2019)

I record when I play (solo, band, orchestra) with a boom box audio cassette player that's 20 years old. Also have made some VHS tapes into DVDs. For listening to music other than my own it's pretty much internet videos (youtube, etc.).


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Knorf said:


> Wow. Just, wow. This was really not called for.


It really was.



Knorf said:


> It appears I inadvertently ommitted the word "about," i.e. I meant "the other crud you posted about..." I apologize for that.


Too late.



Knorf said:


> But you had to get carried away with ad hominem insults. Sad, really. But I will cease attempting to interact with you.


It's only ad hominem if it's attacking the person. I was criticising the unreasonableness and hauteur associated with your posts. I belive those criticisms were valid.

I'll be pleased never to have to interact with you again, too. Save you having to keep making belated apologies for your "inadvertent" mistakes, assumptions and leaps to judgment. If I could only find a way to block a user here, you'd be my first user on the list.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Simon Moon said:


> I still get most of my music on physical media.
> 
> Up until covid-19, I would make almost weekly trips to Amoeba in Hollywood, Counterpoint Records in Hollywood, Freak Beat Records in Studio City. It is just too easy to find all sorts of inexpensive treasures at these places.
> 
> ...


Will Covid kill what is left of CD retail?

It can't help this dying media.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

eljr said:


> Will Covid kill what is left of CD retail?
> 
> It can't help this dying media.


Good question.

I have to say since Presto started doing CD-quality downloads, I've rarely purchased a physical disk. But there's a great second-hand bookshop in town which has an _excellent_ second-hand CD section in the back. I get my physical media there these days.

So I think I agree the medium is dying as a way to make fresh purchases of brand-new recordings. But I think the second-hand market will be strong for a while yet.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Good question.
> 
> I have to say since Presto started doing CD-quality downloads, I've rarely purchased a physical disk. But there's a great second-hand bookshop in town which has an _excellent_ second-hand CD section in the back. I get my physical media there these days.
> 
> So I think I agree the medium is dying as a way to make fresh purchases of brand-new recordings. But I think the second-hand market will be strong for a while yet.


Presto's CD vs. download pricing is unpredictable. If prices were equal, I'd generally go for the download, as it saves the expense and delay of shipping to NYC (especially these days). But if it were a luxury box set, I might go for that (except they are sometimes cheaper at Amazon).

But for me, these days, I'm often satisfied with Tidal, even if I know that some day it might not be available. I have eleven Beethoven cycles, all of which I like to varying degrees. If I read reports of another good one, I will listen to it on Tidal. But I'd be hard-pressed to purchase it. If it vanishes in several years, I still have eleven others. I feel pretty much the same about the many works where I might have 3-5 versions. If the music is new to me (and it grabs me), there is a much greater chance I will buy it.


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