Like many I prefer to own my music and have stuck to cds many years for that reason. But for higher quality audio I'm a bit confused (not too hard to do). SACDs and DVDA are basically dead and hard to find the titles I like. I find it difficult to find blu-ray audio too.
I saw that some sites like hdtracks say I can purchase the music and I then "own" it. But I'd like to hear from someone's practical experience on "owning" music from some of the sites. Thanks.
That's a good question. There is a lot of nonsense in this area. The CD really is adequate for most purposes. It gets you to the limit of human hearing, and its dynamic range is just adequate. 44.1KHz, 16 bit was chosen as it gave reasonable playing time on a disc with the technology available then. 48KHz, 24 bit is more than adequate for any conceivable musical program. Going higher is simply a waste of bits.
SACD is something that should never have happened and was largely Sony's fault. There is absolutely nothing wrong with PCM. DSD is a nightmare to work with, so it is not surprising SACD using DSD is dying. Now I think people tend to want a picture with their audio, especially opera and musicals. This is where DVDs, and then BDs come into their own. BDs offer adequate FR and dynamic range in multichannel audio with or without a picture and now in Dolby Atmos. However a lot of these issues are up mixes of existing recordings, and original Atmos discs just stating to appear. I now have two discs, one audio only and the other AV. They are a revelation.
The next issue is that demand for hard digital media is in decline. Paradoxically hard analog media in the form of vinyl LPs is on the rise and has now overtaken CD sales. This has certainly surprised me and many others.
Of course the big elephant in the room is downloads and streaming. I am finding that many recordings that would have been available in CD are now only available as downloads. I would say most are available in hard copy or as lossless or lossy downloads. Price decreases in that order. I have purchased some CDs as downloads, but I have to say I have a preference for owning a hard copy, as you get a printed booklet with it. Also I have handled hard media for over seventy years now and old habits die hard as they say.
Then we get to audio streaming sites. Most use compressed audio codecs, but there are those offering lossless streams.
In the classical arena, there are increasing choices. The Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall led, and continues to lead the way. All concerts remain in the archive, which goes back to the tenure of Herbert Von Karajan, who foretold the digital age before it began. So he insisted his concerts be recorded and archived on video tape. The organization has grown with, and led the technology. Their concerts have been available in lossless audio for some time and most concerts are now released in Dolby Atmos AV streams. Unfortunately Dolby Atmos specs, limit the volume of streamed Atmos program which is misguided. However you just have to advance the volume. The quality of these Atmos stream has, and is improving at a rapid pace. The BPO now has millions of subscribers world wide, generating very healthy revenue. This has allowed their musicians to be paid truly professional wages, with salaries significantly above other orchestras. Other orchestras are taking slow painful steps. For some reason they only stream some, and not all concerts, and most only archived for a short period of time.
The Metropolitan Opera have Met Player, and the archive is permanent. However not all productions make it on to Met Player.
Medici TV based in France offer a world wide streaming service, but in my view the site organization could be better. Quality in the main is excellent.
As you might gather this is a rapidly evolving landscape. The BPO, Medici TV and Met Player have apps for streaming devices and smart phones. The BPO have an Atmos capable app. available on some smart TVs. The others require and HTPC to connect for AV.
Lastly there are musicians producing program on YouTube, especially organists. The Scott Brothers have led the way, and now Richard McVeigh, organist to Romsey Abbey has made a big splash with this BIS Channel. (Beauty In Sound). He recently passed 100,000 paid subscribers. Then their is Jerry Martin, and cardiothoracic surgeon from Ohio has some splendid options. I have to say he is a really accomplished organist. Anna Lapwood master of music at Pembroke college also has offerings. She often records on the Albert Hall organ at midnight. Actually there a now so many you can not mention them all.
