B&W Music Club

I did hear about this one a little while ago but for some reason I'm just not that excited about it. Maybe if it was more of a music store I would be into it.

Hopefully someone else around here is a little more excited about it and will actually try it. Let us know if you give it a shot!

Agreed that the appeal is a bit limited but an encouraging effort nonetheless. Also, it had been awhile since I wandered over to Gabriel's web site, so I did and saw in one of his recent video blogs that he mentions this arrangement and also has some short but likewise encouraging and nice comments about the movement to distribute higher quality sound after the proliferation of compressed mp3s. Always been a big fan of PG.

TheOtherTim

Hi All,

Thought I'd 'bump' this!

I've been a member now for four months during which time I've downloaded four of the best recorded albums I own. Granted, the £36 annual fee (well, that's what they charge us Brits!) may well be a bit of a shot in the dark as far as genres and personal taste are concerned, but I think I can now safely say that as far as recording quality goes, if you find better please let me know!

I've just finished listening to this month's offering, Julianna Raye's 'Dominoes', which is, quite simply, gorgeous! Resisting the temptation to fly off into 'review mode' and chuck a hat-full of adjectives around, the sound quality is as good as anything else I've heard, full stop! (Should that be - period? !!)

Of the four albums I have so far downloaded, there has only been one which only got one spin and that was the Dub Colossus effort. Just not my thing. The way I look at it, it is exposing me to artists I may not have otherwise come across and the odd duffer is still going to give me great value for money. At twelve albums a year, if I only like half of them they have still only cost me £6 each and here in good old Blighty, that is less than half what we would normally pay for a new release!

As far as the downloading thing goes, I have now settled on a regime. They offer two file types, both of which you are allowed to download :

Alac - best for iTunes and comes with all necessary art work etc.
Flac - best for burning to cd. I use Flac Frontend to convert to wav and then use Plextor's Plextools to burn. (I own a Plextor burner and I found their software gave much better results than anything else.)

Anyway, pop along and have a listen to some of the samples. Personally, I think it is dirt cheap - unless Mr. Gabriel is reading this, in which case perhaps I should say, superb value for money - and the recording philosophy and values are second to none.

I like it!!

Hey Bob - Alright, I think you talked me into this one.

Hi Chris,

Ok, got my fingers seriously crossed now!! Let us know what you think!

Hi Bob - I'm hooked!

This really is a complete experience with the video interviews etc... It feels like luxury music purchasing :-)

Hi Chris,

Yes, and also it is a bit odd - it feels like an exclusive club, somehow! Just you and, potentially, the rest of the world!!

Glad you liked it though, it fits in really well with the whole computer music thing and if the quality is maintained I'm sure it will go from strength to strength. Now, I wonder if Opus3 Records will follow suit?!!

Hi Bob - Is it possible to purchase the albums previously released?

Hi Chris,

Only from the usual outlets. Once the month is up the album rights, as it were, revert to the performer and the album will then go on general release. I missed the first two albums, but then bought them from am**on! If its your sort of thing I would heartily recommend the 'Little Axe' album ;)

I can't find the Little Axe album anywhere. It's not even on the Little Axe website discography.

Hi Chris,

Oops - bit remiss of me - didn't tell you the whole story! I forgot to mention the mp3 word! The only place I could find it was here :

http://www.mp3sparks.com/r2/Little_Axe/Bought_For_A_Dollar__Sold_For_A_D...

So I dl'ed it for iPod use! Not the best but will keep me happy until it appears either on the RealWorld web site or in the usual places. Amazon has a good selection of previous stuff of which 'Champagne and Grits' is my favourite.

Urmm, sorry! Promise not to dash hopes on the rocks of mp3 again. Bad Bob.

Hmmm - that ought to tell me something!

When I went looking for the B&W album I ended up buying 'Champagne and Grits' and 'Hard Grind' from am**on and downloading mp3's of the 'Bought for a dollar...', because I couldn't find the album proper. The mp3's went into iTunes and then back out as wavs for listening to on my main system. Obviously, for me, the reconstituted cd hasn't displeased that much, otherwise I might have remembered how I'd come by it!! I've just nipped through and done a quick side-by-side with Walter Trout's new album, and it really isn't much worse, despite Walter being a 'proper' cd!

Just goes to show that if the music is good enough, the (lack of) quality can be lived with. I mean, I know it could sound better, but it's still a great listen!

Lesson learned!

Has anyone else had problems logging into the B&W Music Club this weekend? I've tried under Windows and OS X, with Internet Explorer, Firefox & Safari. I enter the correct username & password, and login portion of the screen displays that the requested page cannot be found. I can't seem to find any link for technical support either. It appears I may have wasted a membership, as I only downloaded December's album when it first came out.

Hi David - Same problem for me. No worries, i'm sure it will be fixed shortly.

I can't find anything on their website that says what type of 24-bit FLAC file they are producing.

Has anyone tried the 24-bit and figured it out ??? I don't think I would be interested in 24/44.1

Mike

The files are 24/44 - this taken from the decoded files I downloaded yesterday. And mighty fine they do sound:)

I am sure that the B&W "raw" digital files that are created in the studio have a higher data rate. The sound would be even better if they just put out the finished product at 88.2

Mike

I just got a reply from B&W. They say that the 24-bit Flac is 24/48, which is a step up from CD 16/44.1 quality.

Mike

Have to disagree, I'm afraid. The only 24bit release I have seen to date is the latest by Portico Quartet and the FLAC copy I downloaded is most definitely 24/44.1 Perhaps the next release will be 24/48.

Hi all,

Just downloaded the latest release, Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara - The Afrobilly Sessions, and the 24 bit flac is definitely a 24/48 release. Oooh, don't you just love people power! Next step - start badgering them for 24/96 ;)

Very cool Bob. I'm off to download my copy.

'Tis playing as I type and will be sent round for a second helping in a minute! Right up my 'World' music street - lovely stuff!!

Hey Bob - You can now download the previous albums from B&W!!!

i believe the Music Club has been renamed Society of Sound as well. I'm downloading a ton of stuff right now. This feels like I'm getting free music! Plus, the old albums are 24 bit FLAC releases now.

I'd missed that! I'd already dl'd this month's offering, the very wonderful 'Madam', and gone on my merry way for the next month. I completely missed the back catalogue stuff.

Chris - you are a star! :) :) :) :)

Has anyone else had problems downloading the Grindhouse and Little Axe albums from the B&W Music Club archives? The other albums download fine for me. But downloading these two files in Safari on Mac OS X Leopard gives me the dreaded "Error 1" when unzipping. When I open a terminal window and use unzip it says that the files are corrupted.

I had trouble with Little Axe 24 Bit Flac. Track 6 was corrupt. Apple Lossless was fine.

Hope this is fixed soon.

No problems here. I did download it last night though.

P.S. My new 50 Mbps Internet connection may have something to do with it also :~)

EDIT: I spoke to soon. The download worked fine but that's it!

Thank you for taking the time to fully document the problem (including screen capture) Chris. I just wanted to verify that it wasn't something weird on my end. Enjoy your new high speed link!

I emailed B&W last night about the issue but have not had a reply, so far. I've tried three different zip utilities but all report the same issue. The closest I get to the problem is when using PeaZip, which reports that a password may be required - the problem being, of course, that I never get the chance to put one in!

If I get an answer, I'll post back.

Hi Bob - I'll send an email to my contact over there as well. Also, I think the password thing is a red herring.

I'm inclined to agree, re the password thing. Just clutching at straws! Hopefully you'll have more clout than me, in the e-mail stakes! The length of time it takes to conduct a conversation, using the 'instant electronic' medium of e-mail, never fails to disappoint me! ;(

from B&W. They seemed to think that the issue was 'not widespread' and asked me loads of 'helpdesk' type questions. Gave them the answers to the questions and pointed them to this thread by way of comment on how many other cases are around. As a number of us have had the same problem, they will hopefully find this helpful. Fingers crossed...........

I had this same issue yesterday, actually, with 3 downloads. . .Little Axe, Grindhouse, and Dub Colossus. I re-downloaded the Dub file this morning and it extracted just fine. However, I tried the same thing with Little Axe and it still blew up.

All the other files (Madam, Gwyneth Herbert, Tom Kerstens, and Juliann Raye) were fine.

Hi,

Susanna here from B&W. I'm sorry some of you have been having trouble with accessing the music.
We've had to upload a lot of new zip files to make the back catalogue available and it seems some of them may have uploaded incorrectly.
We are working to correct this right now and will keep you updated.
It was great to read this whole conversation about the music and what you thought of it. We are experimenting with something here and any feedback is always useful. An exclusive club is exactly how we wanted it to feel.
We have a blog that we try and encourage members to feedback each month on the album so they can share their opinions: http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/musicclub/

Sorry again but as I say, I will keep you updated,

Susanna

And welcome to CA. Many thanks for your efforts and, as you can see, Society of Sound is a bit world famous over here! It does it for me, anyway! I'll take this opportunity, if I may, to say that the decision to offer the back catalogue was inspired! I can't wait to hear the Little Axe in all its 24 bit glory. Many thanks. :)

I received an e-mail from B&W this afternoon saying that the new files should be available from 'tomorrow morning' - I assume that to be a UK time! ;) Should be good to go soon, anyway!

Apologies to Susanna if I've jumped the gun with the info but, well, good news can't wait!

FWIW, I downloaded the 16bit Little Axe file last night and it extracted just fine. Of course, I want the 24 bit version!! The Grindhouse file was still corrupted.
Bob

Everything working fine for me now. The Little Axe is just marvellous - 24bit rules!

Many thanks to Society of Sound for their efforts - much appreciated.

Thanks for letting us know! I'll re-download the Little Axe (Awesome is he not?! - [This is not his best work though]) and Grind house tonight.

Regards to all,

Baxtus

I have recently moved into computer-based music and hi-rez downloads adn have been exploring the sites as Linn, Naim and most recently the Society of Sound.

I accept the fact that availability of hi-rez music currently is very low with hardly any mainstream music availalble. So when I went to Linn and Naim I knew choice of music to individual taste may be limited, but still I was able to find a lot of albums that I enjoy and some were excellent.

Unfortunately, I found the SoS quite disappointing. Very limited choice of albums and artists. I listen to a variety of genres and try to keep my mind open and try all kinds of new music, but what I found there was a plain disappointment.

I also had technical problems (download manager not working at all and contacting SoS's support did not result in anyhting more that a reply of 'we are sorry for the inconvenience' type).

I will keep watching it for new albums and hope SoS and other hi-rez sites develop.

almaatakz commented... "Unfortunately, I found the SoS quite disappointing. Very limited choice of albums and artists. I listen to a variety of genres and try to keep my mind open and try all kinds of new music, but what I found there was a plain disappointment. "

You have to remember that the Bowers and Wilkins Society of Sound is not a traditional download site. Their mission statement (so to speak) is to provide the subscribers with an album of well recorded / mastered music, from a variety of genres, on a monthly basis. Having said that, if you only actually enjoy 2 or 3 of them in a year - and there is now a general release and an LSO release each month, £35 (think thats about the year's subscription) is still good value especially as you have access to the previous releases too.

I'm not trying to say you HAVE to like the SoS ... but you should judge it in the context that they intend - it's not really comperable to Linn / Naim / HD-Tracks.

Eloise

Eloise

Yes, Eloise, indeed. I was well aware of it's "music club" as opposed to a "shop" approach. Thinking positively, reading their 'mission statement' (which makes an impression of carefully selected music which I read as "outstanding in some positive way", not just quirky) my expectation was something like that:

60-70% music that will be just not to my taste i.e. for somebody else's taste perhaps
20-30% music that I might not like immediately but that can grow on me with time, being high-quality representation of its genre
20-10% music that I might like straight away

But what I found there was well below expectation. It was uninteresting, in some cases there was not enough musicality in music, more like 'sounds' (that is to me, I hope others did like more music there). so, indeed, I found the contrast between the expectation created and what I found resulting in a very low impression. This is not where I want hi-rez download music to be going... ;-(

What were the impressions with others here?

@ almaatakz: I guess my expectations of the SoS club were very similar to yours ... but I've found that about:

20-30% I've enjoyed immediately and repeatedly listen
50-60% I've either enjoyed listening to or found in time I enjoy it
20-30% I've listened to but not really found to be my tastes

With the addition of the LSO recordings I expect there will be more "go back to" music as well.

As I say ... for me the concept works but I can understand others not liking it ... though I still think for the cost it is good value - especially for new members. Also IIRC there is a "trial" membership which allows access to 4 track EP versions of some of the music.

Eloise

This is a completely subjective issue and a matter of personal taste. Maybe your expecations weren't realistic?

How can any site offer limited selections that will appeal to everyone? One man's meat. . .

My only expectation from SOS is well-recorded music. Whether or not that music meets my tastes isn't a consideration as I'm always looking to expand my horizons. If I don't like something that's fine, but it's not B&W's fault and I certainly don't feel that I'm not getting my money's worth.

------ Maybe your expecations weren't realistic? -----

You are probably right. yes, it is very subjective and personal taste, fully accept that.

difficult to put a finget on it - I expected the selection to be more refined.

------ If I don't like something that's fine, but it's not B&W's fault and I certainly don't feel that I'm not getting my money's worth. -----

Also a valid point. I am not dismissing them at all and will continue to try their music.

It's just when I went through other sites, the impression was like "of cause many things not to my taste (perfectly normal) but some are certainly excellent" and here it was like 'hmmmm, that is a bit disappointing"

Offhand ... does anyone else have trouble loading the Bowers and Wilkins website on a Mac? With both Firefox and Safari the home page (www.bowers-wilkins.com) just continually reloads for me.

Eloise

I've tried it with Chrome and Safari in OSX 10.6.3 - no issues.

Maybe clear the cache and try again ?

how do I convert a 24 bit flac file to AIFF file that I can use on my mac. Sure there must a primer somewhere?

Download Max from sbooth.org. Works like a charm.