Bowers and Wilkens Society of Sound Hi-Rez Flac Club

Lyndon · « **on:** 30 May 2010, 02:58 am »

Ted_B,
I am wondering about Bowers and Wilkens Hi-Rez club.
I was interested in their trial membership, but it sure doesn't seem to be covered in their FAQ sheet.
What is your take.
It looks very promising. Has this been discussed in the Hi-Rez circle before?
Lyndon
http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/display.aspx?infid=3550&terid=3559

ted_b · « **Reply #1 on:** 30 May 2010, 03:31 am »

Yes, I trialed it too. There are some good things in that Club, but you have to wade through the others. I was initially prompted by the relationship with Peter Gabriel.

There's some good info on that site, too. The 24 bit FLAC primer is nicely written.
http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/lab/sound-quality-lab/the-definitive-guide-to-24-bit-flac/

Lyndon · « **Reply #2 on:** 30 May 2010, 03:37 am »

Thanks, Ted
I guess the trial deal comes and goes.
It sure was not offered in my Peter Gabriel special deluxe edition from Amazon. It must have only been
offered in the "Enhanced Edition".
It always irritates me that they are not clear about the trial subscription. Get you to give them your email address for marketing, and then you see there is no trial downloads.
They lost my interest.
Lyndon
That and the fact that Kobe simply killed the Suns tonight. Nash is going to have an early vacation to Canada.

mobayrasta · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 Sep 2010, 09:56 pm »

I know this is an older thread but I had to put my two cents in. I have a yearly membership and it is just great! I have downloaded every album that they have offered and could not be happier. There are some really great albums. For my subscription fee I have all ready downloaded 30 full hi-rez albums. You just can't beat that! LOVE THIS PROGRAM!

mfsoa · « **Reply #4 on:** 2 Sep 2010, 02:12 pm »

So these files are downloaded through the B&W download manager, correct?

And then they are stand-alone data files that can be used like any other? (you don't need to play them through a B&W app or anything I assume) So you can use them like any other file w/ your Squeezebox?

Thanks

-Mike

TrungT · « **Reply #5 on:** 2 Sep 2010, 03:43 pm »

Mike
Yes, you download through the B&W download app, usually it have several choice of format, 16-bit or 24-bit FLAC and 16-bit ALC
After you down load the file, you can do anything with the file as you like.
I think new member can download all the old albums (35)

mobayrasta · « **Reply #6 on:** 5 Sep 2010, 01:48 am »

Quote from: TrungT on 2 Sep 2010, 03:43 pm

Mike
Yes, you download through the B&W download app, usually it have several choice of format, 16-bit or 24-bit FLAC and 16-bit ALC
After you down load the file, you can do anything with the file as you like.
I think new member can download all the old albums (35)

Correct you use the downloaded to get the files and then they come down as just regular old flac files. NO DRM!!!! I absolutely love this service!

whanafi · « **Reply #7 on:** 5 Sep 2010, 04:12 pm »

Have to agree, it is a great source of music.

A couple of caveats - the files are as advertised, but the web articles give the impression that the material is 24/96 when in fact it is 24/48.

I have also found that the meta data is pretty messed up and needs some manual intervention. I used MP3tag to clean up the tags, then converted the file names using the tag convert feature in MP3tag.

Have discovered a number of new artists that I didn't know about, particularly Afro Celt Sound System.

mfsoa · « **Reply #8 on:** 23 Sep 2010, 11:10 pm »

just signed up

OgOgilby · « **Reply #9 on:** 20 Nov 2010, 08:06 pm »

This is posted on the Bowers and Wilkens Society of Sound web site:

FLAC: Studio master sound quality (24-bit 48KHz)
These are the highest quality files we offer and are identical to the studio master. They work like zip files so the size is compressed but none of the sound quality. Unfortunately iTunes and Windows Media Player don’t accept these files yet but many others do.

I signed up for 6 months and think it's a pretty good deal.

Marius · « **Reply #10 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 01:28 pm »

HI,

Hi
contemplating subscribing to the B&W Society of Sound, http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/Society_of_Sound/Society_of_Sound/Music looks promising, but some specifics are a little unclear to me.

What exactly do you get? 2 downloads a month is clear, but what does " Get full access to our catalogue of lossless audio downloads" mean? Free access, or paid? And I can not seem to find the catalogue, so I have no idea what hires recordings are available.And how Hires they are. I have this free trial, but only see 16bit downloads.

Greetings, Marius

mfsoa · « **Reply #11 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 01:40 pm »

When I signed up, I was able to download all of their catalog for the price of the 2 titles/ mo for 1 year fee.
Not all are high-rez (> 16/44) and the highest rez are 24/48. Some people were complaining about that but B&W felt that the file sizes were too big otherwise, to which people responded that it should be up to the consumer what's too big.

-Mike

Marius · « **Reply #12 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 02:01 pm »

Hi Mike,

Thanks,
Is the resolution visible somewhere? I'd hate to find out that only 2 of the downloads are Hires and the rest is 16/44..
Marius

Quote from: mfsoa on 4 Sep 2011, 01:40 pm

When I signed up, I was able to download all of their catalog for the price of the 2 titles/ mo for 1 year fee.
Not all are high-rez (> 16/44)
-Mike

mfsoa · « **Reply #13 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 02:03 pm »

Yes, you clearly make a selection of "16 bit 44 K flac" or "24 bit 48 K flac" when you begin a download.

ted_b · « **Reply #14 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 02:06 pm »

Marius, Your link doesn't work...but the ones above do.

My take on this is the trial gives you one song to two albums per month, the subscription gives you two albums per month, at a sample rate of your choice (highest being 24/48). The real issue is that the darn catalog is only available once you commit (as far as I can see). Edit: Thanks Mike. Great to know you can download them all.

Boston Symphony orchestra has a very nice subscription. For $30 you get 3 month access to a dozen 24/88 albums and many more redbook ones (plus some multichannel). Of course it won't take 3 months to download 12 hirez albums, but the point is that if you like them all it's less than $3/album for 24/88k.
http://www.bso.org/bso/shop/audioDetailDMSubscription.jsp?pid=prod3230013&area=

Marius · « **Reply #15 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 02:22 pm »

Sorry for that, repaired!

I can see the catalogue in the free trial (at least I believe it is complete) but there are no indicated Hires recordings available. I see 29 recordings, and few of them have 16bit flac indicated, the rest have nothing stated. Maybe those are 24 bit? I can not tell, and sure am not going to subscribe if they are not 24. Please Mike, have a look for example at the latest: Mahler 7 with Giergiev, in my download manager it states 16 bit. Debussy with Giergiev states nothing. could you please tell what resolution they have when subscribed?
I hope you or other subscribers on this forum canbe more specific about their hires downloads than B&W is...

Thanks,
Marius

Quote from: ted_b on 4 Sep 2011, 02:06 pm

Marius, Your link doesn't work...but the ones above do.

My take on this is the trial gives you one song to two albums per month, the subscription gives you two albums per month, at a sample rate of your choice (highest being 24/48). The real issue is that the darn catalog is only available once you commit (as far as I can see). Edit: Thanks Mike. Great to know you can download them all.

Boston Symphony orchestra has a very nice subscription. For $30 you get 3 month access to a dozen 24/88 albums and many more redbook ones (plus some multichannel). Of course it won't take 3 months to download 12 hirez albums, but the point is that if you like them all it's less than $3/album for 24/88k.
http://www.bso.org/bso/shop/audioDetailDMSubscription.jsp?pid=prod3230013&area=

mfsoa · « **Reply #16 on:** 4 Sep 2011, 10:13 pm »

All six of the Gergiev pieces I have from the SoS (including La Mer and the Mahler 7) are 24/48.

I general, all of the "big" conductors that make up 80+% of the classical side of the SoS catalog are available in 24/48, like all of the Gergiev, Sir Colin Davis and Haitink .

Marius · « **Reply #17 on:** 5 Sep 2011, 05:01 am »

Thank you!
Marius

Quote from: mfsoa on 4 Sep 2011, 10:13 pm

All six of the Gergiev pieces I have from the SoS (including La Mer and the Mahler 7) are 24/48.

I general, all of the "big" conductors that make up 80+% of the classical side of the SoS catalog are available in 24/48, like all of the Gergiev, Sir Colin Davis and Haitink .

Marius · « **Reply #18 on:** 5 Sep 2011, 08:10 am »

Almost got my self to subscribe, and then I read the Flac Primer. A lot of response but this doesn't sound good: On http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/speakers/definitive-guides/the-definitive-guide-to-24-bit-flac/ Flo writes:

"FLAC 24 is the way to go but unfortunately I’d love to know why most of the recordings via this site sound so flat!
The only exception is “strangely” the Peter Gabriel Album… Which really sounds great.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the concept of investing in artists but on the B&W site I would have expected top quality for all recordings.

I have downloaded a few tracks from other sites (I won’t mention names) at full 24 bits 96k or 88k and they all sound stunning!

All the LSO recordings are so flat, there is no life in them. I own Berlioz’s symphonie fantastique on CD from the LSO live collection and it sounds far better than the 24 bit recordings available on the site. Why? The venue is the same and I’m guessing the same team was involved in the recording.

I ran the tracks through a spectrum analyser to see if I could spot something dodgy had occured during the convertion to FLAC and I found that all LSO tracks included a 16khz or 21khz spurious signal within the recording. What is this all about? My CD doesn’t show anything similar.

I haven’t downloaded all the tracks but so far I’m nearing MP3 quality on most of them…

On another point, why are the 24 bit flac files sampled at 48k? One more time the LSO files are SACD recording at 88k which isn’t a multiple of 48. There is bound to be some information loss during the convertion!

I’m fortunate to own a very revealing system (I spent tens of thousands of pounds on it) and if something has been badly produced, it will show very quickly. I convert the files back to WAV and burn them on DVDs to play them from a PS audio transport, so no pollution from the PC… The PS audio will play anything up to 24bit 192k.

So unless things improve, audiophiles please look elsewhere. It is sad because there really is some good music available."

What to think of that now.

(sorry for the long quote)

Marius

Marius · « **Reply #19 on:** 19 Sep 2011, 11:35 am »

Hi,

Today I got this answer from Society of Sound:

"Virtually all the albums available through Society of Sound are 24-bit. The only two that aren’t in the current catalogue are Shashank and Ennio Morricone as neither of these were recorded as 24-bit originally and we don’t upsample:
http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/Society_of_Sound/Society_of_Sound/Music/Shashank.html

http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/Society_of_Sound/Society_of_Sound/Music/ennio-morricone.html"

"If you are a trial member you only have access to the 16-bit versions. Full subscribers get an additional 24-bit version"

so that's final then.

Thanks Marius