Leonard Bernstein anguishes over e-music
I'm listening to Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata on naxos.com.
I had struggles with naxos.com last night after paying $19.95 a year for basic streaming. For some reason, I couldn't actually play any tracks after logging in. I also found the site surprisingly slow. Today, I can at least play tracks although twice I've had internal web sql errors browsing to the basic composers page. There's also no way I can see to actually cue up music i.e. I have to click play for each track I want to hear when I am ready to hear it.
Unfortunately, the 48kbps sound is grating, even by my somewhat low audiophile standards (MP3s, computer speakers, bluetooth, iPod etc.).
I also used my San Jose library card to try Overdrive. This is a feature that lets you check out Windows Media format recordings for three weeks. The DRM is clunky; as far as I can tell, you can only play the music with the Overdrive player on a PC and only on an entire album basis rather than track by track. So now I have three Naxos albums for the next three weeks.
The library also offers freegal, which allows three unrestricted MP3 downloads a week. I've downloaded once; not sure it will be worth the trouble, though
The San Jose library has a new website, by the way.
I was spoiled by the user experience, social features and catalog of lala. Rdio is not as good on any of those dimensions especially the ability to find classical music and classical music listeners but the site is slick enough that I plan to keep paying for it. Mog had a better catalog but was less appealing to use and so I just cancelled my web subscription to that service. So my streaming churn continues...
Update: This just occurred to me. Unlike last.fm, lala, and Rdio, naxos.com doesn't "scrobble" to last.fm. It's not that I enjoy pointing out all the problems with a budget label's website; it's just that I feel the need to rationalize why I shouldn't just get the full-bore Naxos library subscription with better fidelity for several hundred dollars...
Comments