Album of the Evening

[rando]

     

[Melvin]

Listened to Beck's latest last night. Fun album.

 

[Nikhil]

Clovis People Vol 3 - Otis Taylor

 

[firedog]

On 10/12/2017 at 11:37 PM, coot said:

Not new I know, but impressive none the less.

This is my favorite Mahler 2. It ever fails to thrill and move me deeply.

 

 

cant tell from the cover what it is. Details, please.

[coot]

Sorry - didn't realize the image was so bad. 2nd try from Amazon

 

 

Mahler Sym 2; Benjamin Zander conducting Philharmonia Orch.

Correction: It NEVER fails to thrill and move me deeply.

[rando]

Païta on Lodia this early evening.

 

Antonín Dvořák - Symphony No.7 in D minor, op.70

 

[Russell_L]

Both violinist and conductor are new to me, but darned if they didn't produce one of the sweetest and most compelling performances of these works I've heard.  Gorgeous sound as well.  Plus, at only 5.99 euros (even less if you're outside the EU) for the 96/24 stereo download directly from Audite, it was a no-brainer.

 

https://www.audite.de/en/product/CD/97733-prokofiev_violin_concertos.html  (watch the making-of video!)

 

Russell

 

 

[austinpop]

13 minutes ago, Russell_L said:

Both violinist and conductor are new to me, but darned if they didn't produce one of the sweetest and most compelling performances of these works I've heard.  Gorgeous sound as well.  Plus, at only 5.99 euros (even less if you're outside the EU) for the 96/24 stereo download directly from Audite, it was a no-brainer.

 

https://www.audite.de/en/product/CD/97733-prokofiev_violin_concertos.html  (watch the making-of video!)

 

Russell

 

 

 

Nice find! Thank you. I'll check it out.

[Musicophile]

 

streaming in 24/96 from Qobuz

 

see also here: https://musicophilesblog.com/2015/10/10/675/

[Shadders]

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-Pt-1-Unkle/dp/B06XS8KCBM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508357564&sr=8-1&keywords=unkle

Unkle - The Road: Part 1

[Melvin]

This Italian trumpeter is a recent discovery for me. Gorgeous album. Interesting take on the Stones "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".

 

[Klavier]

I bought this as a "CD quality FLAC" file from Presto Classical...or so I thought. It's nothing more than a slightly upsampled MP3 file (its bit rate is 595 kbps...a CD quality FLAC is 1114.2 kbps). This is the second time Presto has ripped off customers by selling such files. They refunded my money the first I complained and requested a refund, but they didn't even bother to respond this time. They are dead to me. BUYER BEWARE WHEN DEALING WITH PRESTO. Oh, the music is very intense and powerful, and the sound is decent enough, but it would have been better as a true hi-res file or a CD. 

[mansr]

10 minutes ago, Klavier said:

I bought this as a "CD quality FLAC" file from Presto Classical...or so I thought. It's nothing more than a slightly upsampled MP3 file (its bit rate is 595 kbps...a CD quality FLAC is 1114.2 kbps).

FLAC doesn't have a fixed bit rate. Uncompressed CD quality is 1411 kbps, so those files are compressed to 42% of original size. That's smaller than typical for FLAC, but well within reason for that kind of music. Without more evidence, I'd be hesitant to say you've been cheated.

[Russell_L]

30 minutes ago, Klavier said:

I bought this as a "CD quality FLAC" file from Presto Classical...or so I thought. It's nothing more than a slightly upsampled MP3 file (its bit rate is 595 kbps...a CD quality FLAC is 1114.2 kbps). This is the second time Presto has ripped off customers by selling such files. They refunded my money the first I complained and requested a refund, but they didn't even bother to respond this time. They are dead to me. BUYER BEWARE WHEN DEALING WITH PRESTO. Oh, the music is very intense and powerful, and the sound is decent enough, but it would have been better as a true hi-res file or a CD. 

 

I usually rip my CDs to ALAC (the Apple equivalent of FLAC) and typically get bitrates in the neighborhood of 500-800 kbps, so this seems about right to me.  (For comparison, for 96/24 conversions to ALAC, I usually get around 2000-3000 kbps).

 

Russell

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, Russell_L said:

I usually rip my CDs to ALAC (the Apple equivalent of FLAC) and typically get bitrates in the neighborhood of 500-800 kbps

FLAC and ALAC are algorithmically very similar, so this is a valid comparison.

[Klavier]

According to my Lossless Audio Checker program, it is not a FLAC but merely an upsampled MP3.

 

[mansr]

28 minutes ago, Klavier said:

According to my Lossless Audio Checker program, it is not a FLAC but merely an upsampled MP3.

On a cursory look at the AES paper related to that program, I find the discussion on false positives severely lacking, in fact, it is entirely absent. As such, I do not give its verdict much weight in this instance.

[rando]

4 hours ago, Russell_L said:

 

I usually rip my CDs to ALAC (the Apple equivalent of FLAC) and typically get bitrates in the neighborhood of 500-800 kbps

 

This is my experience as well with compressed flac files.  Many people in this imperfect world lack sufficient internet speeds to dl large files.  @Klavier If they just compressed the snot out of it the solution seems easy enough.  

 

 

 

Those folks at Nimbus have been impressing me lately.

 

 

[accwai]

14 hours ago, Russell_L said:

 

I usually rip my CDs to ALAC (the Apple equivalent of FLAC) and typically get bitrates in the neighborhood of 500-800 kbps, so this seems about right to me.  (For comparison, for 96/24 conversions to ALAC, I usually get around 2000-3000 kbps).

 

I have a large number of CDs ripped to full image FLAC files. Random sampling of those shows 550-900 kbps, depending on complexity of the content, e.g. piano on the low side and full orchestra on the high side. Not very close to 1,100 kbps.

 

My understanding is that the FLAC processor does a decompress in parallel to the compress run, compare the input and output and would abort the run in case of difference. So CD rip that has run through the FLAC processor can be considered the same as the CD, even though the output bitrate might be considered on the low side.

 

12 hours ago, Klavier said:

According to my Lossless Audio Checker program, it is not a FLAC but merely an upsampled MP3.

 

Just ran a random sample of CD rips through Lossless Audio Checker. Significantly more than half of the tested rips are said to the "Upsampled", including most of the recent CDs from big classical labels. Many of those are demo grade albums with spectacular sonics. Higher proportion from small audiophile labels like FIM, MA Recordings and Hugo come back "Clean", but both TACET's Die Röhre and Lyn Stanley's Potions are tested "Upsampled." One has to wonder...

[Klavier]

The other file that was labeled FLAC had a bit rate of 393 kbps...that is absolutely too low to be considered FLAC. 

 

No wonder that I prefer LPs. I'm out of here.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, Klavier said:

The other file that was labeled FLAC had a bit rate of 393 kbps...that is absolutely too low to be considered FLAC.

Once again, FLAC does not have any restrictions on bit rate. Simple music, like solo piano, compresses very well. Checking a file at random, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 31 averages 409 kbps with at CD quality. Not too far off yours.

[ds58]

On 10/18/2017 at 1:48 PM, Russell_L said:

Both violinist and conductor are new to me, but darned if they didn't produce one of the sweetest and most compelling performances of these works I've heard.  Gorgeous sound as well.  Plus, at only 5.99 euros (even less if you're outside the EU) for the 96/24 stereo download directly from Audite, it was a no-brainer.

 

https://www.audite.de/en/product/CD/97733-prokofiev_violin_concertos.html  (watch the making-of video!)

 

Russell

 

 

 

 

Thank you for this! Unfortunately I can only find a “Purchase CD” link on the page... I am located in the USA, I wonder if that matters. ?

[rando]

Odd, I see numerous download options available on the linked page as viewed from a US location.

 

 

 

[Russell_L]

Yep--I'm in the US as well.  This is what comes up after you click the dark blue "ab" button to the right of "download":

[ds58]

Thanks, guys... must be a problem on my end, I will try it with another computer.

 

cheers!