B&W Music Club - Society of Sound

Just a little heads-up about the new collaboration between Bowers & Wilkins and Peter Gabriel. All the gen here

In a nutshell £34 buys you 12 months of membership and 12 albums - supplied as either Apple Lossless or FLAC (your choice) downloads. There's a free trial so you can check out the current artists and quality.

Downside? - no control over what you 'buy'.
Upside? - at £3 a pop it's not much of a risk!

Tried it, loved it, bought it

Is this the future? Maybe not, but it's a fine idea, excellent music (so far, anyway!) and very good quality to boot.

 

Got to agree - Four albums down and not a dud yet.
The only issue so far is the somewhat dodgy tagging on the
flac releases.

 

Hi Guys

This is in principle a great idea but for those of us who don't download its a closed party. Why not offer it on cd too,you supply the discs and they charge a bit more ??

Regards D louth

 

Hi DL,

I know this is probably going to go massively OT but I just can't help myself

The two albums I have so far downloaded came in at 200mb and 221mb. It is most unlikely that they will exceed 250mb. Bearing in mind this will normally be a once/month thing, then this should be well within the reach of even the most draconian of usage cap?

 

Setting up to burn and distribute cds is a whole different logistics ball game. I guess computers and internet access are ubiquitous enough now for online only to be a valid business model

 

So if you've got an antiquated CD player that doesn't do MP3 and the rest, and you're not going to play it off the computer's hard disk, which format do you go for to burn a CD that'll be compatible with the CD player? Apple lossles or FLAC? ... and once downloaded, can you just leave it up to Windows Media Player or Real Player to burn the CD for you, or is there more to it than that? (Luddite)

 

Itunes is free and will burn normal cds from apple lossless files. There are many many other software options too

 

Thanks, lbr.
So that's all I need - Apple lossless burned via i-tunes?
Are Apple lossless and FLAC files of the same audio quality, just different ways of losslessly compressing the same original file?

 

Hi eisenach,

Mega pardons to 'lbr' while I jump in - spent today checking out the differences! I downloaded both versions of Brett Andersons 'Wilderness' - burned one using iTunes and the other using Flac Frontend, to decode the Flac's to wav's, and Nero to burn the cd. If I detected a difference at all, it would be that the iTunes cd was a bit brighter overall. But I'd be REALLY looking for something to be different and then I might be hearing things

My 'sensible hat on' verdict would be that there was no discernible difference in audio quality between the two.

In terms of 'user friendly' factor - it'd be iTunes all the way! Download the iTunes file/ unzip it/ open iTunes and 'Import' it from the file menu - job done. The files also include a jpeg for the album art, in case iTunes can't find one online, and a pdf file to print out for the cd insert, if you're so inclined.

The answer to your question about the differences between Flac and Apple Lossless is yes! Apple's is controlled by Apple, FLAC is open source - but both use lossless compression techniques and both say nothing is lost if you restore back to the original. (Let the flame war begin)

When I've done a comparison in the past I would say that, for me, comparing a 'ripped/restored/burnt' cd against the original it would be about 95% as good. This may just as easily be as much the result of the reading and subsequent burning processes as of the compressing/de-compressing processes. What I would say, though, is that I have to work hard at discerning the differences, so it is really not an issue.

Hope this helps

 

What he said

 

Thanks.
I think I'll have a go with a FLAC file when I have time, if only because I'm a "cut-my-nose-off-to-spite-my-face" kind of chap and don't really like i-tunes and the cult worship! Besides, when I did install it once to see what all the fuss was about, it tried to take over my computer, setting itself as default, even though I'd told it not to :grrr: and trying to install Quick Time &c. Did someone call it malware?!

 

Yeah - don't you just love it when that happens!

If you're going to use FLAC it will be worth your while having a good read of the faq's and suchlike on the website. It isn't that complicated but it can't half get complicated.

The FLAC software is a command line tool. (Strictly in accordance with the 'let's make it hard' school of software programming beloved of the open source community). I settled for the normal Windows installer package, (the command line stuff), followed by 'Flac Frontend' from the list of 3rd party add-ons, (a graphical front-end for cammand-line haters like me). That provides a good 'free' set-up. From what I read in the forums, (forii?), dBPoweramp is the 'paid-for' option to go for if something a little less bolted together is to your liking. The free route works just fine as long as you don't mind software built for purpose, rather than built to impress!!

Have fun!

 

Fora