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

[eschiss1]

My info is 2nd-4th hand, so I shouldn't insist on it.
For those who have heard Boyle's Pastoral, does it rate all this letter writing or is it just a matter of principle?

[Sharkkb8]

Not to pile on, but.....

I recently placed a substantial order with a large French distributor of classical music, but one of the cd's I received was defective, the last 4-5 tracks didn't play.  (I tried in 4 different players).  I wrote the company and apprised them, they wrote back immediately and told me they were sending me another copy -  I was favorably impressed, and I told them so.  But when the second copy arrived, it had the identical problem, so I wrote back again, suggesting the obvious possibility of a larger batch problem, rather than just my 2 specific discs.  Here is their response, in its entirety:

Hello,
We are sorry to read that the second copy has the same problem.
We are afraid indeed that the problem occurs on the whole series and we can not do anything about it...
We remain at your disposal for any further information.

Sincerely,
Customer Service

Seems to me any company which sells a defective product has 3 options - fix the item, replace it, or refund the buyer's money.  Since options 1 & 2 were impossible, I wrote them back and said that, "gosh, I've racked my brain, and I think I know something you could do about it."  (I said it without the snark).  After a bit of back and forth, they refunded the money, but certainly not willingly.  Worse yet, the item is still available on their site for sale, so one might well wonder.  I understand that a distributor can only distribute what material it is given, but if they are correct in their assumption that the "problem occurs on the whole series", one would think that leaving it on sale is highly questionable.  (On the one in a million chance that someone reading this is thinking of buying the Acte Prealable Julian Fontana piano music vol. 1 cd.....well, caveat emptor)

2)  Concurrently, I placed a large-ish order with a German company, which included about 8-9 cd's, one of which was a pre-order.  When I received nothing for nearly a month, my inquiry produced the response that they were waiting (another) 6 weeks until the one pre-order disc was available, and then would send all together.  I protested but was told there was nothing that could be done.  So I went online, cancelled the pre-order disc from my larger order, and requested the others to be sent to me immediately.  When advised they had been sent, I went back online and pre-ordered the last album again.  It makes sense for them to want to save on postage, but to hold up a substantial order for a very long period of time, and to refuse to even entertain the possibility that the secondary postage could be otherwise handled, well....

These are isolated incidents of course, and we are all grateful that all stops along the way of the classical cd pipeline eventually do provide us with the products we crave.  However, as has been noted by others, for an industry that frequently (and rightly) worries about the size of its clientele base, all these stories suggest that a little too often they make poor decisions regarding accommodating the customers they do have.

[TerraEpon]

My info is 2nd-4th hand, so I shouldn't insist on it.
For those who have heard Boyle's Pastoral, does it rate all this letter writing or is it just a matter of principle?

It might not be so bad if there were a way to play SACDs on a computer, or at least rip them -- as far as I know you need an OG Playstation 3 (and maybe even hack it) to do it.

And I too certainly have plenty of 80+ minute CDs, including one that lasts 82:27....in fact I think BIS released one over 85(!).

And there's also the Elgar disc I mentioned which also has it.

I for one won't buy a disc that has music I can't play. Not unless they offer the extra for download, at least.

[Gareth Vaughan]

No reply from Oliver to my response to his email. I wonder if I will get one. Has anyone else who wrote back received a reply - satisfactory or otherwise?

[JeremyMHolmes]

Not yet...... 

[Alan Howe]

No reply yet either...

Eric: this is a matter of principle - and possibly misselling (nearly misspelling too!)

[Gareth Vaughan]

I'm not holding my breath.

[Alan Howe]

Don't worry: I'll be following this up with a stiff phone call if there's no reply within another 24 hours.

[JeremyMHolmes]

Have you had the 'pleasure' of speaking to Offensive Oliver before, Alan?

[Alan Howe]

Nope, but he won't get the better of me...

[Alan Howe]

..and it would help if others did the same thing. May I suggest that the most effective line of attack would be to question the accuracy of the details on the rear inlay, i.e:

1. The rear inlay says: 'This Hybrid CD can be played on any standard CD player'. This is clearly FALSE.
2. While it is perfectly in order to include a 'SACD bonus track' (as per the rear inlay), what it should read is: 'SACD-ONLY bonus track' (so that customers know that the track in question cannot be played on a standard CD player).

It could also be pointed out that the vast majority of SACDs produced these days can be played on any standard CD player!

[TerraEpon]

It could also be pointed out that the vast majority of SACDs produced these days can be played on any standard CD player!

I haven't heard of any non-hybrid SACDs in many many years. And even then it was those BIS releases that had a few hours of CD-quality audio rather than high resolution audio.

[raffite33]

A fair number of single layer SACDs still appear regularly in Japan, though I only buy hybrids for fear that SACD players will cease being made.  As for the viable playing time of a regular CD, my experience over the decades has been that the ones with over 73 minutes are a little more likely to have tracking problems, especially near the end of the last selection.  In fact, I threw a Dutton CD (Julius Harrison, "Bredon Hill") in the trash last week after discovering the sound vanished when it got 30 seconds from the end of the program, and the disc only contained 68'26" of music.  Also, I can't help but wonder if there may be differences between a regular CD and the hybrid layer on a SACD that might shorten the reliable space on the latter.

I guess I can sympathize with your frustrations at not being able to play the "bonus" track, but I'm trying to imagine what the discussion on this will be like in the comments on HRAudio.net when this disc is listed there.  I suspect some will praise it as a factor that might even help SACDs stay on the market a bit longer, and others as a reward for those who've stayed the course with the format. 

Then, there is the matter that SACDs are more expensive to produce.  Besides what the technical production involves, I believe there is a fee that must be paid to Sony or somebody for using the format & logo.  While I agree that making the bonus track available as a download for folks without SACD capability would be a nice thing to do, I can also imagine that a specialist label like Dutton has a relatively small profit margin compared to a lot of other labels and could be justified in not doing so.  As far as I know, their website doesn't have sample clips for any of their releases, so how likely are they to want to set themselves up with one more technical thing to look after just for the odd bonus track.

At any rate, I've already ordered the Boyle disc.  Those who want to boycott it can probably rest assured that we'll be seeing more releases of her music before long on other labels like Chandos, Hyperion and Naxos. 

[JeremyMHolmes]

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?

[Alan Howe]

No idea, but the chances are he's got the equipment to do so. Anyway, I have written again to Dutton, so I'm hoping to get some sort of reply. If not, the screw will be tightened...