Drinking Too Much Perrier Side Effects

Pronti per la musica liquida?

Grande entusiasmo generale attorno alla musica liquida. Articoli, siti, ed ora persino le riviste più tradizionali di Hi-Fi o quelle che erano più specializzate sull'home theater che provano music servers e media player, sia basati su PC sia stand-alone, e nuovi DAC che escono continuamente, sia da piccoli produttori sia da affermati nomi del settore.

Di software da suonare su questi nuovi componenti però ce n'è effettivamente in giro? Oppure, come per altri nuovi formati che hanno completato il loro ciclo nel decennio come prodotti di niche, such as SACD, even in this case the target is not the music fan but the tech enthusiast? In other words who is willing to choose the music to hear based on availability on the preferred format, rather than accept any form of decent but listen to your favorite music?

Let's test

take as a starting point contained in the reviews (always excellent) music section of the last number of Audio Review (AR). Let yourself as a fan of today's music, which has no CD or album to other formats and want to start directly with the liquid music.

Cominciando dalla classica. Il disco del mese è la sinfonia n.10 di Mahler, diretta da Boulez, un disco DG registrato a febbraio 2010. DG (Deutsche Grammophon) vende da tempo la propria produzione anche via rete, in formato "liquido" appunto, anche in qualità CD, Flac lossless e senza vincoli, DRM free. Quindi dovrebbe esserci questo titolo.


Andando invece sul sito si trova la prima sorpresa. Non tutto è disponibile per il download. In particolare, almeno per Boulez, è disponibile la produzione sino al 2008. Quella posteriore solo per ordine postale (CD per corrispondenza) ma a volte, come in questo caso, neanche quella. Gli ultimi album sono disponibili quindi in diversi casi sono nella classica catena distribution of stores. But there is an alternative liquid: iTunes. Here, the latest work by Boulez is present, but in compressed form (and even iTunes Plus, with increased quality). For the great Mahler orchestra is a little 'bit.

Let's try the second album, the last sonatas of Beethoven in a performance deemed exceptional by the reviewer, Elisabeth Leonskaja. An album released by German label MDG

, we discover to be available in hybrid SACD format. Easily available from Amazon and other online stores. But not for download. This, for the record, there is not even on iTunes. (It is not indicated in the review available in SACD)

continue with a most unusual album, Riccardo Chailly and Stefano Bollani involved with well-known compositions by Gershwin, Decca disc. This is not even in the on-line Decca (which is shared with DG, it is perhaps too recent (but the reviews of AR go back a few months ago.) On iTunes but there is, though always in compression standard and plus. Let's move on. A disc
Hungaroton
with the national orchestra of the Central European country involved, of course, the compositions of Bela Bartok (Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and others). it turns out that this is a SACD, although curiously it is not identified as such, even this time, in the review. Available from Amazon, but not for download.

last test, this is a record of BIS Records obviously a SACD (we talked about this label in the previous post), Villa-Lobos, Floresta de Amazonas with the Orchestra of Sao Paulo. This recent recording of 2010, we can even listen in streaming and full from the site of the BIS Records. In low quality, of course. But it is also not downloadable in liquid. To buy it you must go to the store, even after contacting the Italian distributor, to find out what is available. Theoretically it would be available through Amazon, but only on order. But even this is little BIS Records on iTunes, where you can buy this album for the modest sum of € 8.99 (less than half). But always compressed and AAC with DRM.

So our hypothetical fan who wants to abandon the CD and the physical media in general, would face serious difficulties, according to this test, to feed his disco classic on the basis of challenging reviews of Philip Gonnelli, Marco Cicogna and other reviewers AR. Unless I'm not saying give up high definition, but also the medium-resolution, quality and content of compressed music. Which the classic does not go very well, if u do not listen to your iPod.

Let the pop-rock

But maybe it's just a limitation of the classical genre, fence for adult fans in general (and beyond), particularly related to the physicality of the media. time a little 'page and go to the section on modern music. The record of the month is the latest release of Antony Hegarthy. The record of the 2010 Canadian musician with his Johnsons Swanlights is published by Rough Trade. On the site of the label is, you can buy (at a great rate, just over 10 pounds). But do not download, only iTunes standard.

And we continue with an album for Universal, the latest work by John Mellencamp, No Better Than This. iTunes ok (but still standard, what happened to the iTunes plus?). Amazon ok. From the website (you should arrive to that of the Verve) you can listen to streaming songs, but only by registering, it is designed for those patients then. No possibility to download in CD quality. Let's just another test because by now it was clear to the course. Record companies, even those prone to liquid music and download sites, including those that produce classical music, not exactly the kind preferred by young downloaders, do not trust and expect that their precious albums have at least finished their cycle as new during which it is planned, of course, the balance of production costs. For immediate download, but high definition, we are still in compressed format.

The last test is on a record label, an indie, again taking the Review of HR, the third of those featured is dedicated to testing new live guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, with whom he speaks very well (it's pure rock electric guitar, however, no folk). The site dedicated to the album, Dream Attic

, there are different forms of marketing. Apart from a deluxe edition with various ammenicoli to $ 90, which does not concern us much, you see that you can download DRM-free MP3 (at 320kbps) at $ 10. Not CD quality, so. The album is also available on iTunes, always a quality standard (and therefore a bit 'below).

Let the music catalog

Okay. The novelties are closed, the hypothetical recruit the liquid music. We see the catalog, always taking as test the latest issue of AR, in the CD shrine, dedicated to the classic "can not miss." begin by Queens Of The Stone Age Rated R with their classic, an album of 2000, 10 years ago. At least that Universal makes it available for legal download in CD quality? No, it is found only on iTunes, as standard, but it costs more than usual (€ 13.99) because it is the "deluxe edition" with some bonus tracks. Is it cheaper to buy the CD in full quality (and new) on Amazon.

Two other Universal discs are randomly and then go further, to an even earlier classic, Belafonte Sings The Blues, reprinted by the English Blue Moon. It 'a collection of praiseworthy English label Fresh Records, who re-publish editions of the album, very comfortable right out-dated (originally published 50 years ago, so before 1960, right now, this was 1958). A low price, € 10.9, then there is sin that we ship and you come to 17 €, which as usual comes down to buying more CD drives together. They are also found in Italy in the shop, at a much higher price (19 € in this case, according to AR). So, no download, their strength is to sell a good CD with booklet, photos and everything else. on iTunes is not this issue, that of '58, and lower price (here the catalog does a bit ', albeit for very long time), to € 4.99. We could not find anything, so let's make a last attempt. We always in the CD showcase some of the previous issue. For example, in 312 it was recommended to discover a 1984 album by Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate, Medicine Show. Doing the usual searches on the site of leader Steve Wynn shows that you can buy album, also in digital download. In reality there is no album reviewed. And there is also no way to understand the format or the compression applied. It is not really given this information anywhere. The one is to buy a song or an album, such as Day Before Wine And Roses Live, a concert of 1982 in the first training. With the Euro back to 1.4 against the dollar seems to be the easiest thing, even though the instructions warn that once "outside U.S." will be a additional fee of $ 5, a sort of shipping cost also applies to download via the Internet ( !). In reality then, for unknown reasons (perhaps because your PayPal account is in dollars) the fee is not applied. And I can see che la musica è compressa eccome, sono MP3 a 128 kbps.

Ci manca da esplorare solo il

versante jazz

. Anche qui le cose vanno più o meno nello stesso modo. Le etichette, piccole o grandi che siano, non consentono il download dal loro sito o non sono collegate a siti di download a qualità CD. Se il download è previsto (non sempre) è in formato compresso. Trattandosi poi di piccole etichette la presenza su iTunes non sempre sussiste.
Unico elemento positivo per il genere jazz e che, essendo come la classica un genere più "da audiofili", la sezione relativa su HDTracks è abbastanza ampia e consente una discreta scelta. Sempre e comunque un piccolo sottoinsieme dell'universo.
Conclusions

So, our hypothetical recruit the liquid music has its own music server connected to the system, with a tera-byte hard disk to fill, law reviews, he is willing to buy music, is willing to buy it, maybe spending a little less (waiving the cover, the booklet and everything else), just wants the "liquid", without sacrificing quality, at least stay with CD quality. It must give up his intention, after having noted with some surprise that there is much more neglected in the SACD format. He in fact only two alternatives before him: 1) content of the music compressed format, just maybe not the most compressed, the iTunes AAC standard, maybe even iTunes Plus (if lucky), or 2) buy a second two approaches to see what is available on the sites for downloading music HD or CD quality HDTracks, Magnatune, Linn Records, Deutsche Grammophon, and limit their choice to those titles. And so it must still surrender to the physical media: buy CD (or SACD) on a physical medium, digitized with a ripper and transfer them to your music server, the cost is almost the same as buying on Amazon (see below), the quality is at least one of the CD and the choice is as wide as possible. Indeed, even after they have been "ripped" could resell i CD "come nuovi" su eBay.

C'è poi anche una alternativa numero 4, che però non possiamo approfondire su un blog pubblico.



Escludendo quest'ultima, la strada non sembra proprio agevole per il nuovo entusiasta della musica liquida. Paradossalmente, è ancora più ardua se vuole seguire pienamente la via legale. Il fatto è che le case discografiche non si fidano di lui.