Annunciato da tempo come una risposta della multinazionale Sony a iTunes, la sezione musicale del portale Qriocity (che si legge in inglese curiosity) è disponibile da quest'anno anche in Europa e persino in Italia. Gli hanno dato il nome Music Unlimited ed ha, a quanto pare, l'obiettivo di costituire una cornice di contenuti che metta al centro del sistema la popolare e diffusa Playstation, che sarebbe la sua chiave d'accesso, così come l'iPad lo è stato per iTunes (e viceversa).
Per tutti gli altri, e in particolare per gli appassionati di musica dotati di un PC collegato in rete (non importa If Windows or Mac), however, is a resource and a very interesting alternative to iTunes and even P2P (oops).
Enough with the download
Before proceeding to the synthetic review of this new service, however, must have a premise: It is a service that affects only those who are not obsessed by the need to have music. Since the days of Napster and, earlier, the objective of the Philips cassette dell'asppassionato medium was constantly to fill the house (or disks of the computer) to as much music as possible, to have it there and listen to at a later time , which sometimes never came. Until the liquid music was also a concern to put it aside until it was available (out of print records, unavailable etc.)..
If you flip the approach and we consider music as something to listen to when they go there to listen, or when we have time to do it, and accept that it is not ours, in the disco house or on our computer but shared , and accept the simple link to go to recover from the disco when we share goes to hear it, we can examine the benefits of a service such as OPTIONS X Unlimited. Which is similar to other competing services to iTunes, but they are available in the U.S. alone.
Music Unlimited: i prerequisiti
Perché il servizio sia realmente interessante sono indispensabili: 1) la ampiezza del catalogo 2) una qualità audio accettabile.
Il catalogo: con MU la Sony BMG ha fatto le cose per bene ed è disponibile non solo la produzione di questa major, ma anche quella di tutte le altre 3 e di parecchie indipendenti. Si trovano quindi anche album particolari e scarsamente conosciuti. Ho fatto un test in tal senso molto positivo che si può leggere dopo.
La qualità audio: l'audio è ovviamente compresso. Il sistema di codifica non è dichiarato così come il tasso di compressione. Listening is more than satisfactory, better than for example provided by DG. Should be equivalent to a 128kbps MP3.
Music Unlimited in practice
As I said this is a service only streaming, no downloading. Accessed by a Section Qriocity within the portal, which also provides other services, eg. video on demand.
Unregistered users can browse the catalog and access channels, but listening is limited to 30 "per song.
Registration is free of charge, is the usual credit card or debit card, and the rate is currently 3, € 99 / month for only listening to the standard channels, and € 9.99 per month to listen to albums and singles, as well as the premium channels.
For those who register at this time but there is a pleasant surprise, the full subscription is free. We must make the whole process and provide a credit card, but is then charged to zero. The service provides for automatic renewal, but it is correctly pointed out in the next access can be disabled, what can be done with one click. I guess the expectation is that those who started with this service then can not do without and then decide to continue. Expectation is not unfounded. No advertising and everything in Italian.
The following figure shows how the portal.
I mentioned channels without first clarifying what it is. They are like radio stations on a theme. Those include the premium top-100 (updated daily or almost daily) divided by genre (reggae, hip-hop, etc.).. The other non-premium are always divided by genre or decade, and the choice of songs is random, with a ladder, as in radio. But without presenters, programs, advertising or breaks, just music.
Below the top-100 for example, reggae, channels "ten" and channel 80 selected.
A kind of pleasure that can probably use, but we prefer to listen to radio enthusiasts in this case radio with real musical content of quality that still stand.
Music On-Demand
The most interesting part of the service is searchable and can listen to music on-demand. With a simple search (text) is inserted free author's name or album or song and the portal shows what he has. It usually has. For album is certainly not as common as the Mongolian-Chinese group Hanggai, which are heard both albums ADVERTISING. On Amazon, which has a huge catalog as we all know, for comparison this is only one.
The following figure shows how an album that we selected in this case, the last of White Lies.
Playlist and favorite
They are called respectively playlist and personal collection. The latter is a kind of substitute for download. Who can not do without in some way to appropriate music, can put aside virtually the album or song you currently can not listen, instead of looking back when he has time. In practice saves the links it found. The playlist invece sappiamo a cosa serve e si può organizzare anche qui come su iTunes.
A parte queste due e le funzioni di navigazioni e ricerca c'è ben poco altro. Solo un pulsante "mi piace " / "non mi piace" dall'utilità non chiara. Forse per statistiche. Niente cronologia, solo la memorizzazione dell'ultimo album ascoltato nella sessione precedente. Che può essere una alla volta. Se accediamo da un altro computer la sessione ancora aperta viene chiusa. Per il resto installazione molto veloce, funzionamento senza incertezze ed interruzioni, almeno nei test fatti (a differenza di quanto avviene spesso con YouTube, che, va bene, è gratis), se una canzone è momentaneamente non disponibile viene visualizzato un messaggio.
I test: il catalogo
Vediamo quindi se il catalogo è effettivamente vasto come dichiarato. Ho fatto all'inizio qualche test a caso, cercando musicisti meno noti, ma "da catalogo", come Pentangle, J.J.Cale o Brian Setzer, e c'erano (tutta o gran parte della loro produzione).
Poi sono passato ad un test più difficile. Ho preso l'ultimo numero della rivista Audio Review, sono andato alla sezione musicale pop/rock e ho verificato se c'erano i dischi recensiti, tutte novità, ma quasi sempre di musicisti poco noti, di "avanguardia", secondo la linea editoriale della parte musicale curata da Federico Guglielmi. And there was almost everything. Here's the list.
There are
Adele - 21
Wanda Jackson - The Party Is not Over
Heidi Spencer & The Rare Birds
Lia Ices - Grown Unknown
Cristina Donà - I'll be back home on foot
Verdena - Wow
Paolo Conte - Nelson
Daniel Martin Moore - In The Cool Of The Day
Iron & ; Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
John Vanderslice - White Wilderness
There are (at least at the moment)
Marianne Faithfull - Horses And High Heels (but there the previous discography)
Sharon Van Etten - Epic (but no previous work)
Anna Calvi - Electric Diva
Secret Sisters
Kinzli & The kilowatts - Down Up Down
24 Grana - Same Boat
Elliott Murphy - Elliott Murphy
From this test, forced in part, we can deduce that a lot of music is also available less common, in fact the so-called "vanguard" of smaller labels. There are sometimes the latest releases of labels probably linked to other majors. What there is is usually found on Amazon (in the list above only 24 Grana there are not even on Amazon, as well as Hanggai mentioned before). But I think there's enough interesting material to satisfy fans more curious. I also tried to seek the same special album on iTunes, where are all but, again, the last exit of the Italian Grana 24.
The test I did on the pop / rock side edge or alternative, but the situation does not change for jazz (where, however, smaller labels are even more). For the classical catalog seems rather less complete. In other words, for composers and works is usually what you want. If you search for specific interpretations of the question changes. But it is an endless catalog.
The audio quality
I could not find it anywhere (and not declared) compression standard, which deals with Sony dell'Atrac could be an evolution, or the compression rate applied. If anyone finds it let us know.
then I did some listening tests, first on the music Acoustic and classical music then. I used the sound card to the top of my laptop (a Sony Vaio of 2010) with the codec set to 24/96. Then I tried with an external DAC, in particular with a Musiland Monitor U.S. 01 (see review in a previous post) to a dynamic headphones Sennheiser. Since the compressed audio stream I did not expect an improvement, but that there was no obvious and immediate, but easily detectable in the general cleanliness and ability to distinguish the individual instruments and sound levels, as well as the timbre of the instruments themselves. The tests were made in comparison to some classical pieces (Bach's Brandenburg with the direction of Jordi Savall). Even on the acoustic (at this time I'm listening very nicely Amos Lee) is very pleasant listening.
In summary
Listen to the cost of a CD for a month how much music you want, even non-commercial, you can check the reviews or advice, and informed choices in buying high quality, or at least as CD, only what they really worth or that otherwise has a good chance to be heard more than once, it seems to me a good advantage.
Good idea, therefore, to put Sony is finally available for us Europeans (and even for us Italians) this service. USA has several competitors that do not know whether or not higher (I read online opinions contrastanti), ma da noi no.
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