Ina Boyle VC, Symphony 1 & Psalm etc. from Dutton

[JeremyMHolmes]

Thanks Alan, keep us posted!

[TerraEpon]

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/May/Boyle_orchestral_CDLX7352.htm

A glowing review from the ever loquacious Rob Barnett on musicweb. He seems to have had no difficulty playing the (ahem) 'bonus track', or am I misreading?

He's updated the review saying he can't listen to it and thought the last track of the rest of the program was it.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Aha! I thought there was something strange. An entirely useless track from the point of view of most reviewers then. Might as well not have been recorded since it is accessible to such a minuscule number of music lovers.

[Alan Howe]

Trouble is, the review is still wrong; Rob writes:
In case you have any anxiety about the circa 84-minute playing time my experience was that I had no difficulty playing this disc on a conventional CD player: no blips or stutters.

In fact the length (playable on a conventional CD player) here is 75:32; the final 8:50 is the SACD track!! So, of course there should be no problem playing the first 18 tracks!!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes, I noticed that.

[dmitterd]

And now, appended to the review:

Note from Dutton
In response to the above review's comment about the Colin Clout piece not being playable, Dutton Epoch would like to point out that this is not the case.

This is an SACD dual-layer release, and Colin Clout has been included as an additional extra on the SACD layer, hence it's billing as an "SACD bonus track." This also explains the disc's almost 84-minute playing time: the maximum playing time of a standard PCM CD is 79m 57s (the Red Book standard) whereas an SACD's is up to 110 minutes. The only way that Colin Clout could be included was to place it on the SACD layer, otherwise it would have had to be omitted – it simply wouldn't have fitted on the standard PCM CD layer. Putting this disc in an SACD player – or any machine capable of playing SACDs – will allow the Colin Clout track to be heard.

[Alan Howe]

...which is ridiculous, since the vast majority of people DON'T HAVE SACD-CAPABLE MACHINES AND SO CAN'T PLAY IT!

In addition, the CD is advertised as a 'Hybrid' which 'can be played on any standard CD player'. IT ISN'T! It has one non-hybrid track! WHICH WE CAN'T PLAY! Not one of my three CD players can play it - and nor can my PC!

GRRRRRRRRRRRR! 

[Gareth Vaughan]

Exactly so. Dutton are being disingenuous. They have produced a CD which contains a track that cannot be played by the vast majority of their customers and are touting it as a generous bonus. A bonus is something you receive. Since, as I say, the vast majority of customers cannot receive it, it is a bonus only for a very small number of listeners with specialized equipment. Dutton should do the decent thing and make it available as a free download. THAT would be a bonus. This is an object lesson in how NOT to do things commercially, how to alienate your customers and waste the time of musicians.

[JeremyMHolmes]

This is an SACD dual-layer release, and Colin Clout has been included as an additional extra on the SACD layer, hence it's billing as an "SACD bonus track."

To say nothing of misused apostrophes... sigh.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I would not expect the egregious Oliver, from whom I have no doubt this message emanated, to know much about apostrophes. He is not concerned with customer service so why should a little matter of correct punctuation worry him?!

[M. Yaskovsky]

This SACD, which has a red book 'normal' CD layer too, goes on for 86'16; so the extra track on the Boyle CD could have been easily included on a normal CD http://bis.se/conductors/vanska-osmo/mahler-symphony-no6

[Gareth Vaughan]

Exactly - and I believe this point has been made on another forum too.