
What material do you get from a record company and what do you do with it? Do you do any processing of the recordings at your facility in the Netherlands?Ĭontent providers deliver us the original audio files in the highest quality they have, coupled with relevant metadata in a DDEX format. After several appearances at trade shows and presentations at industry events, we started getting more requests from other record labels and digital music aggregators offering their content to be made available on primephonic. We started with Naxos, the largest classical music distributor globally, and several independent hi-res labels. As of this writing, there were close to 500 classical DSD titles listed on the site, significantly more than I’ve seen anywhere else.Įager to learn more about the label, I recently posed some questions to Veronica Neo, primephonic’s Head of Business Development.Īt this point, do you need to seek out content providers, or are record companies coming to you? At least one option is available for every recording and occasionally all five.
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Recordings are potentially for sale in five different formats and priced accordingly: CD quality WAV stereo, 24-bit FLAC stereo and surround (Premium Studio Quality), and DSD stereo and surround (Premium Pro Studio Quality).

With a catalog of more than 400 labels representing over 10,000 classical titles and an in-house staff of musicologists and editors that curate exclusive interviews and other features, primephonic is a resource that classical listeners need to know about. The online enterprise launched at the 2015 Munich High End show and now has a staff of 20. Primephonic is headquartered in the Netherlands but has recently opened an office in New York City. Dirk Jan Vink and Simon Eder, respectively Managing Director and Director of Marketing and Communications for the classical label Pentatone, started the company. Of the latter group, primephonic is the newest player on the scene.
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With digital distribution, it doesn’t matter if a title sells only a dozen copies per week.ĭownload sites devoted completely to classical music, both those associated with a particular label and those that are virtual download supermarkets, are flourishing. Keeping esoteric “deep catalog” items in stock in a bricks-and-mortar store was clearly unsustainable-just ask Tower Records. It’s hard to justify the distribution costs of physical media with numbers like that. A new compact disc release can have sales of a few thousand units worldwide, or even just a few hundred if the artist or repertoire is unfamiliar. The availability of high-resolution (HD) downloads of classical material has been transformational. There are now more than two-dozen online sites offering high-resolution content for listeners who have taken an interest in high-fidelity computer audio. Especially with high-resolution files, defined as better-than-CD-quality, the program one hears at home, at least theoretically, can be identical to the one the artist and production team signed off on. Sound quality, abominable when the medium is a highly compressed format, can now be extraordinarily good.

Traditionally, of course, this has meant LPs, tapes, and varieties of silver discs, but the ascendance of electronically delivered content can’t be denied. We tend to grow our music collections selectively with the same care with which we assemble our audio systems. Borrowing from a vast and undifferentiated stream with practically limitless choices just doesn’t sit right-at least not as the only option.
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Generally speaking, audiophiles like to own their music.
