What do you do with your covermount cd?
Sun, Mar 21 2010, 11:16PM
Does anyone actually listen to the pointlessly short samples on the cover cd?
I find that most of mine sit around until I need a new CD case or Mrs P objects to the clutter. I used to enjoy the cd in the days when there was a whole movement - now it's obvious from the timings that just as interest starts to peak it will fade out.
You could save quite a lot of money by dispensing with them!
P
Tue, Mar 23 2010, 8:36PM
#2
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
Not much. When are you going to listen to a snippet from a cd? When you walk the dog? When you work? After sampling some tracks it's ditched...
Rather more like what is done here, just listen to a complete cd online. It are the "featured" cd's that won in a blind listening test on the Dutch radio. As said, the whole CD can be heard.
http://www.radio4.nl/page/plaatpaal
Rolf
Wed, Mar 24 2010, 8:15PM
#3
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
To be honest; target practice! M
Thu, Mar 25 2010, 1:14AM
#4
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
Not much. When are you going to listen to a snippet from a cd? When you walk the dog? When you work? After sampling some tracks it's ditched...
Rather more like what is done here, just listen to a complete cd online. It are the "featured" cd's that won in a blind listening test on the Dutch radio. As said, the whole CD can be heard.
http://www.radio4.nl/page/plaatpaal
Rolf
Hi Rolf. Thank you so much for posting this link! Is this something that is a regular feature? Or a one-time thing? Also, do you happen to know how long the cds will be available to listen to (as I don't speak Dutch)?
To get back to the question, I do try and listen to the tracks (doesn't always happen) to see if I can get a little bit of a sense of whether or not I might like something. I oftentimes enjoy the interviews with "the specialist" re the composers series. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Sir Charles Mackerras on Janacek recently.
Best wishes,
Petra
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 10:41AM
#5
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
Target practice :) Would love to see a youtube video of that!
@Petra01 the "plaatpaal" is regulary updated. One cd goes, the other takes it's place. Every week there is at least one updated.
I calculated that the Dutch radio has about 20.000 hs of classical music on-line now; problem is, it's unorganised and very hard to find. All (mind you, all!) radio broadcasts are kept on-line in 160 KBS. If you know how to program, it's easy to make your own library of it. Could that be a future scenario? You don't buy a CD but you just enter a code? Anyway, as a joke, I encoded a 2 hr radio program with live concerts from the Dutch radio. Harnoncourt in Telemann, live 1976, Chopin cello sonata live 1972 Anner Bijlsma, etc.
http://homepages.ipact.nl/~otterhouse/vttnsnob.html
Mac users might need flip for mac, and firefox asks permission first.
You can "skip" the Dutch introductions with the controls.
Greetings,
Rolf
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 12:17PM
#6
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
I usually listen to the interviews while driving. The covermount cd was a good idea for the early 1990s but not in 2010 with so much internet access. I would like if I could buy Gramophone without the disc, at a lower cost and save me recycling it. Better still, I look forward to the day I can download the magazine and have some useful interaction with articles published.
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 12:52PM
#7
RE: Home
@Petra01 the "plaatpaal" is regulary updated. One cd goes, the other takes it's place. Every week there is at least one updated.
I calculated that the Dutch radio has about 20.000 hs of classical music on-line now; problem is, it's unorganised and very hard to find. All (mind you, all!) radio broadcasts are kept on-line in 160 KBS. If you know how to program, it's easy to make your own library of it. Could that be a future scenario? You don't buy a CD but you just enter a code? Anyway, as a joke, I encoded a 2 hr radio program with live concerts from the Dutch radio. Harnoncourt in Telemann, live 1976, Chopin cello sonata live 1972 Anner Bijlsma, etc.
http://homepages.ipact.nl/~otterhouse/vttnsnob.html
Mac users might need flip for mac, and firefox asks permission first.
You can "skip" the Dutch introductions with the controls.
Greetings,
Rolf
Hi Rolf, Thank you for the further info regarding the "plaatpaal".
Also, I'm amazed that Dutch radio has all of those performances available to listen to and to download! Sadly, I don't know how to program. I imagine that it isn't too hard for non-Dutch speakers to figure out how to listen to the programs (Is this a free service too? I'm getting the impression that it is from you. Is this available also for people who don't live in the Netherlands?).
Best wishes,
Petra
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 3:35PM
#8
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
I listen to it once to determine that I really don't want any of the new recordings. These days my main reason for Gramophone is re-issues and new recordings of some Handel works. I re-use the plastic sleeves for CDs I burn from on-line sources; the disc is dispenced with.
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 3:53PM
#9
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
The standard of recording of classical CDs and the performances that they contain are so variable that I find Gramophone's reviews and cover CDs indispensible.
I have always been disappointed with mp3s for listening at home. The quality just isn't as good as a CD played on decent equipment.
The cover CD enables me to listen to enough of a piece to assess whether the sound is up to scratch and the performance matches my preferences, something I couldn't do nearly as well with an mp3 at the normal 128 and 160 rate.
For in-car listening, mp3 is good enough because of the noise levels in a car.
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 4:06PM
#10
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
I find the covermount CD to be disposable. Longer excerpts would be better, but, the present format is not to my liking.
BBC Magazine gives us complete performances in their covermount CDs. I collect those and do not toss them.
BBC magazine is not as good as Gramophone, but the covermount CD is far preferable to Gramophone's bits and pieces approach.
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 4:23PM
#11
covermount cd?
I listen to the samples while I read the relevant reviews.
The interview I usually transfer to my iPod and listen in the car.
I should find the magazine much less attractive without the samples, but it was even better when there was no interview and the samples were longer.
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 4:49PM
#12
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
As a high mileage business driver I shove it in the cd player and listen to it on the way home. It certainly can't be worse than some of the God awful stuff churned out or rather dug up, having been securely buried for the last two hundred years, by radio 3. Sean Rafferty at 5 excepted.
I agree the excerpts are on the short side but it means that one listens to many more pieces and composers than one might through choice. I know I've bought stuff I wouldn't have had I not heard it on the freebie(not telling, hiding my ignorance) and when finished you can use it as I saw the Swiss do last year: Farmers dangle them from their fences producing, when the sun shines, a wonderful prismatic display of coloured light.
Mon, Mar 29 2010, 4:59PM
#13
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
The CD can be a guide to the recording quality of the excerpts - unfortunately I am now moving into SACD, so it's of limited use.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 2:14PM
#14
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
I give mine to the charity shops. I have never understood how a few minutes of, for example, a Mahler symphony gives you any insight or indication as to how good or otherwise the rest of the music is. I cancelled my subsctiption because of these unwanted CDs and now only buy it if the copy contains anything of interest to me.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 2:55PM
#15
RE: What do you do with your covermount cd?
I love the covermount competition - though I disagree with the odd out out in the results from the issue I received today!
I love covermount cds, for I listen to the samples to determine how the, outstanding, good, or poor recordings are effectively, or even ineffectively transferred to the cd format from the recorded master sound recordings. For over 40 years I have been avidly interested in the history of sound recording, and for me, the contents of the covermount cds not only provide enjoyment of hearing musical segments, or snippets, of the recorded performances but also enable me to judge the sound reproduction of the transfer. It is therefore an exciting and rewarding twofold listening process.
I also buy samplers, whenever I locate them. However, living on a remote island, 2,400 miles from the US mainland I rarely find samplers in the only 2 stores that stock classical cds, and therefore rely on seeking them out when I visit friends in California. When I last visited my brother in Germany a few years ago I returned with 28 samplers.
Both covermounts and cd samplers are housed on shelves immediately beneath EMI cds. At this time I have 5 shelves of EMI cds totaling in the region of 1350 titles. But that is another story.
In summation I would be disappointed if covermounts were discontinued.
Irvine Shamrock