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classicsonlinehd.com - online streaming at cd quality and above

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on August 13, 2015 at 17:53:16

I've been using the classicsonlinehd streaming service for about a week now. It's run by Naxos, whose recordings form the basis of their depth of catalog.

When you register, you download a player for the service, which allows for listings of new selections, popular selections (to the extent that term has relevancy in classical music!), a classics online "radio" (if you don't want to make your own selections and want to be surprised - I haven't used this feature yet), as well as a normal search function.

What makes this service interesting is the "hd" part: depending on your connection speed, cd quality is only the starting point, and the bit rate of the stream is shown second by second on the player. This is a great feature which confirms that the variable bit rate of this service always exceeds the 320 kbps rate (fairly good, but it is lossy mp3) of services such as Spotify. From what I've seen, the lossless streaming of CD quality recordings on classicsonlinehd varies (by the second) from about 350 kbps to 850 kbps. (The main determinant seems to be relative dynamic level of the music.)

But as I say, CD-quality is only the beginning, because there are titles on this site which are available in resolutions of 24/96 and even 24/192! At the latter resolution, the bit rate exceeds 2500 kbps (2-channel of course, not multi-channel). So you can be listening to 24/192 in lossless compression, streaming over the internet. This is living!

Nevertheless, most of the selections are available at "only" CD resolution, although I suspect that more and more recordings will be available in hi-rez. Another observation I have is that some recordings which came out as SACD's are available on the site only in CD resolution. The only drawback for me is the absence of the availability of multi-channel. Otherwise, it's pretty clear to me that services such as classicsonlinehd are the future of listening.

Another thing I already mentioned is that the catalog of available albums and selections is based on the Naxos label as well as the many labels that Naxos distributes. In addition, they have some selections from Sony, RCA and Chandos, although the depth of these latter three is somewhat spotty (not much Reiner for instance). I was delighted to find the whole series of "Richter at Carnegie Hall" albums from 1960 which Sony has just reissued (at "only" CD resolution obviously). I worshiped these recordings when I was a kid, and I was thrilled to be able to hear them again (in much better SQ than I had remembered too - although the original recordings were compromised by Columbia having to hide the microphones so that Richter did not know they were there - he was furious when these albums were first released!).

Anyway, it's been a pretty good experience so far. There's a 28-day trial period, after which it costs $15/month.

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