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Posted by Tony Haywood
on February 14, 2007, 3:14 pm
81.159.207.21
I was interested to read in Patrick Waller's log about his experiences using the Naxos Music Library. I have been happily dipping in to it for over a year now, and can only agree with him on the benefits, as well as the odd drawback. On the downside, it's true that the click-delay does annoy, especially on multi-banded but seamless works, such as Strauss's Alpine Symphony. The technical help does say you can get rid of it, via My Computer and clicking on 'No Sounds', but this is not ideal for other applications and you still get a slight beat. Interestingly, Mozilla and Netscape seem to avoid this with their media players, but unfortunately have their own drawbacks, such as not giving track or timing details, which is hopeless for certain pieces. So I stick with Explorer and accept the odd click. It's worth it for the vastness of the library - as Patrick says, there are many thousands of titles to listen to in very acceptable sound - he's right that 'near CD' quality is the best option. I'm personally not bothered about the downloading, as I use it like any other library, and if I like the disc enough I will certainly buy, as I've just done with Gielen's Mahler 9, a recording I didn't know and was glad to be able to try. The BIS, Bridge and Hanssler catalogues are especially welcome, but I notice Chandos are now on there, so it's obviously growing as labels realise it's no bad thing to have your wares there for the world to sample in the comfort of their own home. It is a pity that the only liner information is from the Naxos discs, but you can generally find stuff out online as you're listening. I think it's a superb facility that's worth every penny - long may it flourish!
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