Anyone who’s ever bought any B&W product will have received a 3M membership to their Society of Sound (curated by folks like Peter Gabriel) where you can download two new albums every month in HD (FLAC or AIFF) free of charge. If you have speakers from the 800 (series D3) speaker range, the membership is ‘for life’.
I received the following email from B&W that I thought might be of interest to anyone who’s not yet received this info;
Important Announcement about Society of Sound program
It has been ten years since the formation of Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound - a monthly destination to listen to, discover and discuss music delivered in beautiful high-resolution quality. We’re proud to have shared over 120 releases with subscribers who appreciate great sound.
From the beginning, John Bowers dreamed of bringing the experience and emotion of a live symphony to homes. To this day, we deliver products and services that bring people closer to the original musical performance. While our ambition will never change, the methods and means to access and enjoy music have changed greatly over the last decade. It is with this in mind and after much consideration that we have decided to end the Society of Sound program, effective [March 31, 2019]. The February edition will arrive tomorrow, followed by a final edition in March.
Please download all albums included in your subscription by [March 31] as they will no longer be available past that date.
For those with subscriptions that continue past [March 31], we will include details in the March delivery of how we will service these Society of Sound members.
We are dedicated to continue creating new ways to deepen the joyful experience of music.
Almost joined up in an attempt to find this recording but it somehow evapourated before I could get my hands on it. I mentioned it to Mr. Johns after a concert a few years ago but I think he was too busy with other things to get round to re-releasing it.
Yes @AndyP, the albums are available for download for up to 12 months, and are then replaced by the rolling replacements. The Elton John one looks good - sorry to have missed that. Here’s two good albums that I downloaded back in 2012;
As well as many LSO albums with top conductors (Simon Rattle, Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, etc.) and quite a bit of new world eclectic music as well.
Have to be grateful that in the 7 years that I’ve had access to SoS, I’ve collected some stunning music.
Also very sad to see this service go. I’ve had access for the last 4 years approximately (could not renew in Jan as the service was being turned off) and enjoyed access to some great music in that time all in cd or higher resolution.
Well that’s interesting. It was actually this service that got me looking at high resolution digital audio files… and that eventually got me looking into decent quality DAC’s… which ultimately led me to Naim and my first Naim purchase (Superuniti).
My apologies @AndyP, I’ve just had a browse of my Uniti Core, and realise that I do indeed have this album - listening to it now - it’s a superb recording. Apologies - realise this news just makes it worse!
You need to leave a package under the seat in Costa Coffee in Canterbury containing a rippped silver disc and i’ll leave a brown paper bag full of fivers!
Funny I was in Canterbury today in HMV looking for the new Tedeschi Trucks album hoping that the CD would be cheaper than the extortionate download prices but alas they didn’t have it.
