Covermount CD Discontinuance

With respect,Andrew, I don't think I can be acused of mis-quoting you in comparing your chosen illustration of Hi-res MP3 files at 320 kbps and the Gramophone Player at 256kbps. The Player is obviously worse. However you're right if you mean that MP3 as a process can be applied at levels between,say, 160kbps and 320 kbps and as the Player is then indeed of MP3 standard, it can't be "worse than MP3." I apologise if I misinterpreted you, but it's good to get official acknowledgement of the MP3 standard.

Getting off the Bitrate Bandwagon which distresses so many people, this bolsters my original point that Gramophone has replaced an artefact offering a high technical quality with a process offering much lower technical quality and one which in my case, as I posted before, is impossible to listen to seriously.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of readers including some contributors here are obviously not bothered about this and are happy to lump in the Player with the thousands of other internet sources of variable and often mediocre quality, while welcoming the extended extracts and video. Fine, that's their privilege, but it sounds just like " Never mind the quality feel the width", or perhaps that should be " Never mind the quality, feel the lack of bandwidth". Hundreds, maybe thousands, of readers will consider it a retrograde step.

Meanwhile, the Gramophone team seems to be working furiously assessing bitrates and codecs to make the Player palatable, but to paraphrase another aphorism, that looks like trying to find some silk braid to sew around the edges of the pig's ear after you've thrown away the purse.

I'm resigned to the loss of the CD and I'm sure I'll get over it, probably by the time I finish writing this, but it does look as if the printed magazine and the occasional foray into the text pages of the web archive must now bear the brunt of maintaining my monthly Gramophone ' experience'. Good Luck.

Andrew - I'm absolutely flabbergasted by your replies. I'm sure everyone else is too. Not sure why you're being quite as rude as you are. Readers are your lifeblood. Lose them (which you seem to be doing by the bucket load) and you're doomed.

I find myself agreeing with post.

Only expressing an opinion. If we had not expressed our feelings on this original thread, which we are entitled to do, our concerns about the loss of the CD, would not have been registered.

Adieu...............................

And neither did I ever say you did. I merely made the link between what you did say in your interesting article and what was mentioned elsewhere in the magazine whilst promoting the Player. In the interests of reasoned discussion I had even apologised if I had misinterpreted you.

Never mind. In response to some of the recent comments I hope no readers are lost whatever is said or done. Gramophone is bigger than that. As a forty-year reader and long-term subscriber, the magazine has always had my support and I hope it will continue to thrive as I would still like to be reading it on my 100th birthday in another forty years time. Whether I shall be listening to it is debatable. I hope you make it too, Andrew, so you can join me on my houdah with a celebration glass of Wincarnis.

Couldn't agree more: attending the recent Gramophone Awards event further heightened my appreciation of both the heritage of the magazine and the fondness with which it is so widely regarded.

If my defence of the magazine came over as brusque to some, I make no apologies – the whole team is dedicated to producing as good a product as we can, across print and this online presence, and the continued knocking becomes very wearing when all concerned are working so hard to deliver the magazine and website.

While technologies may come and go in the delivery of the music, that music – and our enjoyment of it, however it's delivered – will remain front and centre in our consideration.

Wow!  When I first found this forum I thought it a rather sleepy backwater.  What with this and the "high bitrate" thread, we have certainly generated some passion.  More passion than light, in some cases, perhaps, but - hey ho, it's interesting!

Andrew, you are right: "It's the music, stupid!" should be our mantra.  

Austin, sorry, I missed your post number 52 somehow.  Your "OMG" paragraph has been aired in the high bitrate thread I think, but your general point needs a comment.

What advantages have I found in the Player?  All the claims made for it ring true for me.  I regret that I can't, at the moment, get it fed through to my DS player and have to listen through the computer, so can't comment on its potential sound quality.  However, I have experience of the quoted bitrate with internet radio stations and it's very impressive indeed on my system.

However, my point throughout has been that with any change some will be disappointed but will have to swallow their disappointment in the interests of progress and the greater good.  It happens with every innovation in every field of human endeavour.  Yes, a few don't have computers.  Yes, a few want to listen again and again to samples.  Yes, for some the sound quality of the CD and its convenience is something of a loss.

Everyone's point of view has personal validity but the expression of opposition here has been wholly disproportionate, in my opinion.  When people's integrity gets questioned, when nit-picking, minor points get blown out of all proportion, when a majority's gain gets ignored because of an individual's personal inconvenience, common sense can give way to stubborn, selfish narrowmindedness.  No one's life is seriously the poorer for the loss of a little convenience and sound quality.  To read some of these posts gives an impression of inconsolable desolation!  But it's like any change: it becomes a metaphor for other things - the slippery slope argument.  The Gramophone Player does not presage iTunes mediocrity .  In a years' time this discussion will seem quaint and eccentric.

I too regret the loss of my reel-to-reel tape recorder, but it hasn't ruined my life.

Really, guys, keep it in proportion!

Vic.