Several music bloggers have already written about the recent unveiling of Deutsche Grammophone‘s online store for high bit-rate (320kbs) mp3 files without DRM (digital rights management).
I decided to wait until I’d actually gone through the process of purchasing and listening to some of their product. Especially nice are the several hundred previously out-of-print titles that have been reissued as downloads (100 of these are exclusive to the DG web shop). Here’s a brief summary of my experience at the store.
The process of searching and browsing the shop is quite easy – and it helps that the search parameters are geared towards what you want to search for in a classical web store – title, composer, format, ensemble, artist, etc. I found a title that I’d long been wanting to buy – Augustin Dumay and Maria Joao Pires’ recording of the three violin sonatas of Johannes Brahms.
The process of opening a free account and paying for your items is clear-cut and simple. The downloading of the files gives you three options: (1) use the download assistant, (2) download individual tracks manually, or (3) download a zip compressed file of everything you’ve purchased this session.
I chose to do option three because my browser wasn’t kicking into java to download the applet that manages downloads, and I didn’t want to do option two and have to sit around and wait for each one to download. So, I downloaded the very large zip file, imported the files into itunes and put them on my ipod. Since the files are 3x larger than the typical itunes file ( 320kbs vs. 128kbs) the downloading process takes a bit longer.
The sound quality from the 320 kbs files? Excellent – as close to CD quality as my ears can discern. I wasn’t unhappy with the 128kbs files from itunes, but I’d read that the higher bit rate can make a difference, and this I found to be true. The depth and detail of this recording were significantly better than other comparable files that I downloaded from itunes. The lesson for me? I’ll buy DG issues from their own web store and if I buy from iTunes I’ll only buy their iTunes+ files (at 256kbs) unless I can’t avoid it.
I hope that the rest of the Universal family of classical labels will follow DG – I’d love to see a lot of the Decca and Philips recordings that I love out in this new format (or perhaps they’ll simply be available via the DG site?).
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