Pricing of digital downloads

[neiltingley]

I'm really surprised to find out I can get the Bavouzet Prokofiev concertos for under 20 quid (studio master) on one site v.s nearly 30 quid on a well known retails site that is offering downloads as well as physical media

Happy to name names but not sure if that's acceptable on these forums?!

I've often wondered how the "traditional" online classical retailers of CDs etc are going to survive in the modern era. Chalking up massive margins doesn't sound a very savvy plan for longevity. Might be a one off. Has anyone else noticed massive price differences between download sites ?

[Bryn]

Nothing wrong with tipping other contributors here off regarding 'bargains'. If someone else knows of lower cost source I feel sure they will chime in.

[HighlandDougie]

I can get the Bavouzet Prokofiev concertos for under 20 quid (studio master) on one site ...
Happy to name names

Yes please!!

[neiltingley]

Nothing wrong with tipping other contributors here off regarding 'bargains'. If someone else knows of lower cost source I feel sure they will chime in.

Eclassical are having a very selected 50% off sale but that's not including the chandos titles. Qobuz don't sell Chandos unfortunately so I can't give you a price from them.

Presto.co.uk - £27.96

http://www.prostudiomasters.com/sear...iew/album/1417 - Approx £17.20 (depending on exchange rate)

http://www.theclassicalshop.net/ - £18.74 (the site is running too slow to use and has a lot of bugs*)

I'm only quoting prices for 96/24 studio masters. Why anyone would bother downloading mp3 i don't know. I've not checked CD quality prices but I guess a bit cheaper.

* glitches , errors etc (I do software testing for a living)

[johnb]

The set is also available on Amazon at £19.93 for physical CDs so I'm not sure just how attractive those downloads are, unless the high res format is important to someone. (But that raises issue of how Amazon's pricing affects the struggling independents.)

Curiously the 24/96 download is slightly cheaper than the CD quality download on the 'theclassicalshop' website

[HighlandDougie]

http://www.prostudiomasters.com/sear...iew/album/1417 - Approx £17.20 (depending on exchange rate)

Infuriatingly, only available to residents of the USA and Canada so it's Chandos's "Classical Shop" or nothing (which I equally have found to be prone to errors in downloads/missing tracks/slow servers etc).

[neiltingley]

The difference between CD and highres is subtle and probably not an issue for anyone except audiophiles. I'm not totally sold and I can't abide the sound of the ultimate studio master - 192/24. There's something glaring and glassy about the sound of these ones. The 24/44.1 or 24/48 are plenty for me. You hear a little more of the soundstage and they do sound marginally smoother. I guess I need to upgrade to a family car priced amp to get the 'benefit'. (I'm not a market-fixing forex trader or oligarch so not an option for me!).

[jayne lee wilson]

My own experience of three 24/192 issues (Ticciati's Linn Schumann, Da Capo albums of Holmboe Chamber Symphonies & Concerti), is simply that they vary as any recordings do, but, as with 24/96, they can make greater demands on your system's dynamic abilities and its resolution at the frequency extremes. All of which can lead to harshness on playback. I have had to work at it and then some, adjusting system balance via music player settings and Dac filters etc., to get the best out of them. Hi-res files do seem more sensitive to small differences; your experience of them can be transformed by finding the right blend.

Like many people I began, years ago, with minimalist amps and almost no system adjustability - I'm grateful for it now. Part of the fun, right?


***

Oh yeah, pricing... HD Tracks and Linn are the dearest (more excuse for Linn selling only its own label), Qobuz & eclassical best value (Qobuz tends to have more files in 24-bit; eclassical offer more fairly-priced selectivity off an album); Chandos TCS somewhere in the middle. I don't usually find theclassicalshop site difficult, but their download manager is a bit counterintuitive...!
Big Pluspoint for Qobuz & eclassical (&TCS,iirc) is the lifetime right to download your files anytime you choose - auto backup! Linn are good about this too, but you have to request it for older ones.

[Don Petter]

I have had to work at it and then some, adjusting system balance via music player settings and Dac filters etc., to get the best out of them. Like many people I began, years ago, with minimalist amps and almost no system adjustability - I'm grateful for it now. Part of the fun, right?

Well, I'll stick with the fun of winding up my old Gramola.

Happy Christmas!

[neiltingley]

My DAC only has two filters :-(

[Roehre]

Well, I'll stick with the fun of winding up my old Gramola.

Makes two of us

[kernelbogey]

A question as someone who has not yet bought one download: are you buying the download outright, so that you own that file, just as you would own a CD that you had bought?

It may seem an odd and naive question but I recall that someone who had bought a Kindle and many down loaded book files from Amazon had her account terminated - meaning she lost all her book files that she thought she had bought - on the grounds of persistent contractual violations, or some such; which i interpreted as meaning she had been buying downloads elsewhere, loaded onto her Kindle.

So the point of my odd question is: can outfits that you buy downloads do the same to your files?

[Dave2002]

So the point of my odd question is: can outfits that you buy downloads do the same to your files?

Probably not, but if you thought they could, then burning the files to disc would probably avoid that issue.

if the music files are "simply" data, in some standard format, then the source organisation should not be able to retrict access to previously purchased material. It would be possible for some suppliers to put extra codes in to check some form of licensing agreements dynamically, and to restrict access if they so desired, but that would require a degree of extra sophistication/complication which perhap only large organisations could manage. Attempts by some large organisations (e.g. Sony) to control how users use "their" material have eventually turned out to be counter productive and abandoned, but some users have been hit by problems nevertheless.

[jayne lee wilson]

I wouldn't worry at all about music files downloaded to your HDD or SSD. Once you've bought them that's it. I've recently transferred some 2010 purchases to a new drive and - of course - there wasn't a problem. Classical Music specialists are usually very friendly and helpful: I'd lost sight of Mackerras' SCO Mozart Symphonies in the interim, and Linn restored them to my download history on request at no further cost. As I've said above, most of the others give you the lifetime right to copy your music from your onsite account whenever you choose.... (to wherever you choose, BTW!)..

[Dave2002]

I guess things must have changed over the last decade or so. I recall my nephew losing a whole bunch of lossy downloads to his iPod, which was then a new toy, and not being able to recover them. Since than Apple has changed its policies, and he has probably now recovered them, if he was at all concerned, but I am sure he must have been denied the experience of deriving pleasure from them for several years. i used to have a subscription to emusic, but I gave it up when the rules changed so that if I wanted to/needed to download another copy of any file I would have to pay again.

Some firms are offering a good service, and hopefully will continue to do so, but I don't have much faith that all companies can be relied on in perpetuity.