Inspired by the Film Scores thread, Across the Stars: John Williams conducts and Anne-Sophie Mutter plays violin in a selection of reimagined versions of some of Williams’ themes (thankfully, not ‘just the usual ones):
I gritted my teeth and went to the River for the deluxe edition with several extra tracks. I’ve only watched the bonus DVD so far, where Mutter and Williams have a quite sweet chat about how much they like and admire each other) but I have high hopes for the CD tomorrow, both in terms of performance and recording quality (the great Shawn Murphy is credited as engineer).
Indeed - I’m agog to know what’s on the running order for the VPO disc. I can’t watch the concert online in the UK unfortunately.
Listening to Across the Stars now, and it’s quite excellent. The recording is nuanced and layered in just the right way; my new NAPSC is allowing me to hear all all sorts of details (even one or two, dare I say it, mistakes).
Oh, very good! I think I’ve read that the VPO brass section requested the Imperial March and Williams said it was the best rendition he’d ever heard. If anyone had made that story up, it’d probably be considered offensive.
I’ve owned an NDS since 2013 and replaced that with an ND555 late in 2018. However, I’ve used both mostly as a replacement for CD player. The NDS certainly outperformed the CDS2, which I had before that (although some of that could have been due to the power supply - 555PS vs XPS) and the ND555 outperforms the NDS, now by quite a margin, although I do now use two 555PSs on the ND555.
Although I tried the Tidal streaming service on the NDS, I found too many problems, many of which could have been down to my lousy broadband. I do now have access to Qobuz, which I can stream at 16/44.1 and often at 24/96. Even at the higher resolution I’d say that Qobuz is outperformed by streaming 16/44.1 from my home server. And the downside of Qobuz is that it’s so easy to sample new albums that I probably buy more CDs now than I did before - music still sounds better from the server and as @seakayaker says, it’s nice to own the CD just in case…
This question is a “how short is a piece of string” question.
I have only thought about streaming in the last few months after joining the forum. I think I can start with listening to internet radio and a streaming service using a Naim streamer as a source but I have already overspent this year.
What’s the cheapest sensible box? An early ND5 XS would be around £1k but is this just going to put me off?
It’s the receipt from when I bought it in 1995, along with Brandenburgs 1-3 (Boston Baroque/Pearlman, 1995, also Telarc.
I’m astounded I paid over £14 for each of them as a student! Good investment, perhaps, since I’m still listening to them (with an Eulenberg study score which was £2 from Oxford Oxfam).
Ha! It was actually a debit card but the till system clearly didn’t care.
I did have a CC in my student days, but never used it (tight-fisted northerner). I did buy a telly with it, years later, just to get the points which I used to get…, something. Can’t have been that great!
Oh, very good! I think I’ve read that the VPO brass section requested the Imperial March and Williams said it was the best rendition he’d ever heard. If anyone had made that story up, it’d probably be considered offensive.
