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It took me quite by slow, gradual suprise if I may say so - I've been listening to classical music more and more in recent years. The same process that led me to jazz years ago took place - I simply got bored with limitations of rock and other genres and (probably the best way to describe it would be to say that) I felt an urge to 'expand'. I still listen to rock, jazz, blues, world music and other stuff (and I'm pretty sure I will in the future) but my focus definitely seems to shift to classical. I've collected a couple of hundreds of classical albums (most of them in hi-res - I'm a believer) seeking advice mainly on forums like talkclassical, classicalforums etc (happened before registering on CA) but I'm pretty sure there are still many great recordings I haven't discovered yet. And I know there are many people here on CA who are deeply into classical. I think that thread like this could be on one hand a kind of guide for people like me who don't consider themselves experts (I don't read about music nowadays as much as I used to - I simply prefer to listen to it, it probably can be called laziness) and on the other I believe it could be of some use to the ones who have deep knowledge of the genre too. Please post any number of albums you personally consider essential, the ones without which in your opinion no classical albums collection can be called 'complete' or 'satisfying', the ones you can't imagine your own collection without, the recordings you'd wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in the genre - your real desert island albums - from any period you like - starting from early music and ending with contemporary composers. Don't hesitate to post albums that have already been mentioned by somebody else as this can be an important signal and even stronger cofirmation that the recording is an important one. Additional comments on performance and sound quality are welcome! Derailing the thread in order to go into any specific details is welcome too! Every post is appreciated! And yes, I know for some choosing just 5, 10 or even 20 most essential albums may seem virtually impossible. But isn't the impossible tempting in a way.? Hope you'll enoy it! Let me start with just two albums that are important to me personally. I've been listening to Glenn Gould 'Goldberg Variations' since I was 20 and still every time I listen to it am as impressed with his performance as I was back then. I've always preferred the 1981 version in part due to sound quality of the recording. Hearing some years ago Martha Argerich - Riccardo Chailly performance of Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.3 quite explosively triggered my interest in the pianist (ok.. I'll be frank - it can almost be called a love affair), the composer - I like Rachmaninov a lot and in classical music in general. IMHO absolutely stellar performance. SQ could be better but I think the emotional impact of the music more than compansates for it.

I am ready to make the jump back into multichannel audio with my collection of around 700 ripped SACDS and eClassical FLAC downloads (will have to go back and extract/claim them), 95% of them classical. Once upon a time I used an Oppo 103 and Denon 4310 AVR with a quintet of Klipsch Reference line speakers, but between the room setup and fiddling with Audyssey I was never really wowed by the results, and switched exclusively to stereo after acquiring a Teac DSD-capable dac and a pair of Epos Epic 2s. Now we have moved into a house with gameroom/loft area (14ft depth x 14.5ft width, 14dx11.5w usable space excluding walkway to bedroom) that should work for a surround setup and I am ready to select new speakers for it. I will be using stand-mounted bookshelfs for the rear channels and need to select an ideal solution for the main and center channels. Option 1: Three < 40in Towers: My first inclination was to go with something like Kal Rubinson's Monitor Audio Silver 8 setup (IMG_0033a.jpg (960×720) (stereophile.com)) with a trio of tower speakers (likely will add subs eventually), as many seem to assert that traditional center channel speakers are inferior for music purposes. However I am afraid this will make setting up a mounted TV or projector less practical (we'd like the space to double for home theater) - I care less about aesthetics and more about the screen being too high on the wall for a 14ft-deep room, though shorter towers (Monitor Audio 200s) could help with TV height situation (also see option 3). Option 2: Three Stand-Mounted Bookshelf Speakers (one on lower stand?) I suspect KEF LS50 Metas would work well for this, though adding sub(s) may be more imperative. Would using a lower stand (or cabinet) for the center bookshelf speaker be problematic for imaging? Option 3: Shorter Tower (or Bookshelf) from Same Family for Center Monitor Audio's Silver series offers this option (a 35in 200 could be paired with two 40in 300s), but finding this option with other speaker brands seems unlikely, and sonic signature of a shorter/bookshelf speaker might be too different to justify selecting it over a traditional center channel. Option 4: Traditional Center Channel Would room correction/DSP be able to overcome the sonic shortcomings of this option? This would be the easiest way to go for home theater and available variety. Other Considerations: _As a Roon user I will eventually want to integrate a multichannel Roon Ready endpoint like the exaSound S88. _Selecting speakers that could be driven by my Denon 4310, at least for the short term until I upgrade amplification, would be ideal. _I expect I will need to use room correction software like Dirac Live to achieve the best results. Thanks for you input! David W.

Hi can anyone tell me if there's a good player/ library organiser for classical music? I currently have a small library of music on my SSD, so am not yet tied in to one format or system. I have iTunes running ATM, and although things are much better than they were metadata wise, I am not seeing many of you running iTunes on a PC. Am I wrong here or am I missing something? Is there a dream player/library combo out there for classical fans? All the best from Bill.

GET 25% OFF LITTLE KRUTA'S JUSTICE ON HDTRACKS WITH CODE CPUJUSTICE Offer expires 11/30/2019 "Gorgeous" - MetalSucks "Beautiful" - Metal Injection What would happen if you took And Justice for All, the iconic 1988 album from Thrash Metal icons, Metallica, and reimagined it for a Classical orchestra? Add to that four emerging Jazz and Soul vocalists. You're left with one of the most intriguing interpretations of Rock material ever recorded. Brought to you by Little Kruta, featuring a band comprised entirely of women, Justice will forever change the way you perceive Metallica, Classical Music, and what an audiophile recording can be. On Justice, Little Kruta, consisting of Kristine Kruta (Musical Director & Cello), Maria Im (Concert Mistress & Violin), Katie Jacoby (Violin & Soloist), Chiara Fasi (Violin), Molly Fletcher (Violin), Laura Sacks (viola), Tia Allen (viola), Adi Meyerson (upright bass), and Rosie Slater (percussion), are joined with sensational vocalists Alita Moses, Camille Trust, Lauren Desberg, and Jenn Mundia -- each joining for two songs. Recorded in a single day in a decomissioned Brooklyn church, the Pierre Piscitelli arrangements of the beloved thrash melodies are completely transformed into moving pieces that will speak to fans of all genres. Justice features a fascinating blend of musical styles, influences, and personalities. Little Kruta has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (Aminé, Metro Boomin and Gunna), Late Night with Seth Meyers (K.Flay), Saturday Night Live! (Shawn Mendes), at Brooklyn's Barclay's Center (Ruff Ryders), and more. Little Kruta has joined artists including Kaki King, The Wonder Years, and Vérité both on-stage and in-studio. Comprised of master musicians who are just as comfortable in the booth as they are on stage, the foundation of this orchestra is built on a true love of playing, and led by cellist Kristine Kruta. Photo Credit: Radhika Chalasani

This is my first post here. Would appreciate some advice on selecting a network audio player setup. I have an extensive classical music collection which I ripped to my PC and have spent a lot of time tagging to organise it as I wish. I use foobar2000 to play it on my PC (Windows 7) and that’s just fine. Everything is FLAC and I use lots of tags (composer, composition, movement, catalog, year (of composition), genre). I also use album artist for the performer(s) and duplicate the composer into the artist tag. I like to be able to browse by composer, or by genre, then sometimes also by performer as I have multiple recordings by different performers for many works. Now I want to be able to play this on my hifi system which is a mid range Denon system that’s a few years old now. Currently I don’t have any kind of network music player or software or whatever. So I guess I need some kind of network music player. I dont mind copying the files to a NAS or other dedicated music server on my network if I need to. I basically want to be able to browse my collection in a more sensible way than just by ‘album’ [which can sometimes be meaningless for classical] or ‘album artist’. So I need to be able to intelligently browse the collection and select stuff to play, use/setup playlists etc. Will I need to get a tablet/ipad or similar to act as the ‘remote control’ to browse my networked library and which then feeds the stuff to the player? I’m a total novice when it comes to this sort of thing. In terms of fidelity of music I am not looking for the ultimate in audiophile quality sound. Just reasonable quality without breaking the bank. The ease of browsing the library and selecting music is what matters to me most. If someone could suggest the kind of equipment/setup I should be looking at, without spending a great deal of money, that would be great. Would something like a Denon DNP-F109 do? This would match my existing hifi and apparently plays FLAC files. But its unobvious to me what kind of interface it gives for browsing your music collection. Any advice gratefully received. Thanks.

Wondering where classical music and jazz fans are getting their audiophile downloads? Thanks!

David Lau of Brookwood Studio talks at length on Fine Arts Recording and Editing for Classical Music

The New York Philharmonic Picks Jaap van Zweden - The New Yorker I'm not familiar with any of his recordings. Anyone have any opinions on him or on him taking this post? Any recordings of his to recommend?

I have just imported this brand-new recording on the London Symphony label. A "live" concert of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev last October. Quite a bargain for less than $14, including air mail from Presto Classical. It contains 2 discs; one is in Blue Ray with a HD 1080p video and two separate digital audio tracks: 5.1 DTS-HD MA 24 bit/192 kHz 2.0 LPCM 24bit/192 kHz. The other disc is recorded in hybrid SACD/CD format at 16bit/44.1 kHz. I am hoping this format catches on - as it offers superb High Definition 24/192 Playback for "Audiophiles" as well as standard CD quality. I am playing it back on a Samsung BD P-1500 BR player using the Toslink output (using the PCM 192/24 setting) connected to a Peachtree DacIt, which (I guess) down converts to 96/24 "on the fly". I highly recommends this recording for critical listening. CVJ

Artist | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads I was under the impression that some of these recordings (especially those released on SACD) were 24/96 original recordings. Can anyone tell me if I am dreaming this up? I would certainly jump for some later Rattle/BPO recordings (i.e. his Bruckner 9th, which I do believe to be 24/96) were the studio master downloads available.

Does anyone have any ideas on whether XLD can be used with other databases than freeDB or musicbrainz? And if so, how to do it? I have over 3000 classical CD's to rip and the lack of proper and consistent metadata for classical music is a challenge.. The Kaleidescape system really seems to be doing a pretty good job and uses the All Music Guide, but I have no idea if it is possible to integrate AMG-based data with XLD for ripping. I have searched high and low on the forums for answers but could not find any. If I missed something please let me know. Thanks!

Hi All, I am looking for a good pair of speakers for my laptop under 150 USD. I mainly listen to classical music (not operatic) and folk, pop, rock etc at times. I am on a budget as I am a student. I could throw in a sound card if it is a long term investment (i.e. I can use it on another laptop when I buy one) if that is going to significantly improve the sound quality at this price level. I would greatly appreciate if you provided your recommendations and the rationale that your followed in making it. My knowledge of acoustics is fairly limited so I would appreciate if you explained things to me in simpler terms or with definitions. Thanks you kindly for your time and input.

If you have a large classical music library DON'T look to SOtM sMS1000. I contacted Eric at Tailored Technologies and explained in the first conversation that I had a large classical music library and also wanted Sonata music server software or the cataloging capability of Sonata. After many conversations Eric convinced me that the sMS1000 would do the job. WRONG! The sMS1000 works through Vortexbox and Logitech Squeezebox which only accesses 1 metadatabase which is NOT classically oriented. The ipeng or mpad control apps only show 2 fields. The title field usually shows up but the artist field gets confused between composer, performer, conductor, and orchestra and only displays the word 'various', which is of NO help. Eric's suggestion was to get DBpoweramp. He didn't tell me I would need another computer to run DBpoweramp from and rip from. Eric accused me of "changing the goal posts" but my requirements were stated up front and didn't change. I think the need of another computer was a MAJOR goal post change. I refuse to spend an additional $600 for a laptop computer. My legs are going south on me and have a queen size adjustable bed in my listening room and cannot make 1000+ round trips to my desktop to rip the CDs. Eric also knew this up front. Lastly. Adrian, from Simple Design, the other SOtM dealer in the US and, as I understand it designed the sMS1000, told me he would NOT recommend it for a large classical music collection. The End!