Society of Sound B&W

[AJSki2fly]

Having just re-ripped my CD's as AIF onto a NAS drive to get as good a digital re-play via Apple TV and WD live tv boxes with random play when being lazy, I decided to try out some 24 bit FLAC files.

So after a few google searches I stumbled across the Society of Sound on The Bowers and Wilkins web site. For those of you that do not know about it it is quite good, you can join for a year for £34 and get 2 new album releases a month, also as I found out you can download all those already there, 30+ albums. Society of Sound is a collaboration between musicians, B&W and Abbey Road Studios to make high quality music at at studio quality available to the public. Peter Gabriel is one of the famous artists. There is quite a mix of genres and there are some very good listening experiences, The Widerness of Manitoba - When You Left the Fire being a must hear.

In my opinion if you want to get into FLAC then this site is well worth trying out. The quality is exceptional.

[AlfaGTV]

Good quality music, both in regard to content and sound quality! Reasonable cost for access to those HiRes FLAC's.

I was very impressed with Peter Gabriel's Half Blood, stunning performances

Regards Mike

[seoirse2002]

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[RichB]

34 quid for over 50 high quality albums cant be bad. I'm going to cancel my spotify premium subscription (£120 a year) and take this and perhaps another quality subscription service on instead. My music collection is now sufficiently large enough that I can focus on quality rather than quanity.

I also like the idea of owning my copy of the music rather than just renting it.

Are there any other similar services out there?

[nat8808]

spotify premium subscription (£120 a year)

I forget that it's £10 a month and of course adds up. I stick to the ads (but haven't used it in a long long time - not sure I can remember my log in details).

I like charity shops and a good secondhand shop nearish by to keep me in new music. Blogs of obscure, long deleted material are also fantastic. Not least of all, the radio, good ol' FM !

The B&W thing does sound good as long as the music is to people's taste.

[RichB]

yep i signed up to SoS amd downloaded all of the contemporary 24bit stuff on offer. Now to find a quiet time to give it a proper listen.

As it happens I rather like peter gabriel and the remastered live in athens was a must for me.

I'll get to the LSO and classical stuff later, I tend to be on the road a bit these days so I'll save these for when a dull moment stuck in some anonymous hotel on a motorwaay strikes.

[Alex_UK]

Do you really get all the back catalogue for that amount? Bargain if you do!

[RichB]

Do you really get all the back catalogue for that amount? Bargain if you do!

No, it is currently limited to that months selection and the previous year, about 26 albums by my count. Still they are very good and I'm enjoying them all. I'm saving the classical ones for moments of contemplation when working away from home.

[Alex_UK]

No, it is currently limited to that months selection and the previous year, about 26 albums by my count. Still they are very good and I'm enjoying them all. I'm saving the classical ones for moments of contemplation when working away from home.

Thanks for clarifying Rich - appreciated.

[RichB]

Given that I'll get another 2 albums a month for the next year then it would still amount to around 50 albums and the quality is exceptional for most. In other words its worth the subscription.