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May 22, 2008 6:51 AM PDT

Peter Gabriel's new audiophile subscription site

Posted by Steve Guttenberg
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Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios has launched a download service with high-end British speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins.

The downloads are all recorded here, live.

(Credit: Real World)

It's called the B&W Music Club, and it offers exclusive monthly albums to members, recorded at Gabriel's Real World Studios in southwestern England and downloadable in a "loss-less" file format with CD-quality sound. Subscribers pay just under $67 for a year (that's about $5.60 per recording), or about $47 for a six-month run. Subscribers can download one album per month.

Recordings are dedicated live sessions and they're DRM-free. Two months after the music is offered to Music Club members, B&W will return the album rights to the artists. Right now, you'll find Skip McDonald's Little Axe album on the B&W site. B&W is also offering free trial memberships. Check the site for more details.

Gabriel commented, "This collaboration with B&W is unique as far as I know. It's going to allow a lot of interesting projects to happen. For artists, Music Club is a dream proposition because they get some great time in the studio, access to really good recording facilities, and can experiment without being committed to anything or anyone beyond a month with B&W."

Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Topics:

Audio/MP3

Tags:

Peter Gabriel,

Real World Studios,

Bowers & Wilkins

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 10 comments
by kneeyogi May 22, 2008 9:19 AM PDT
Seems silly to go through all that effort for "audiophile" quality, and offer nothing better than CD quality.
Reply to this comment
by cardes May 22, 2008 3:18 PM PDT
^ I disagree. I am always happy to see people dedicated to SQ offering downloads. I think that the CD format has tremendous potential given a talented audio production team. Chesky is another good example. SACD/DVDa is nice but it is a huge hassle to convert to a portable media format or find non-home audio systems that play them.
Reply to this comment
by minimalist May 22, 2008 5:56 PM PDT
I appreciate the gesture but I would be hesitant to pay a subscription not knowing what artists I will have access to. Even at 6 bucks an album if its someone I don't care about then its not exactly a deal.

Offering high quality downloads is a great idea however and I feel it will become more common as hard drives and flash drive inevitably get bigger. Daniel Lanois offers it as an option through his online label Red Floor Records and both the 320 Kbps mp3's and the uncompressed wave files are the same price. Nine Inch Nails offered HIGHER than CD quality (24/96 wave) as an option on their new download album The Slip... and the price was even better: free.
Reply to this comment
by helroth May 22, 2008 11:19 PM PDT
Two other sites with AIFF (uncompressed) or FLAC (lossless) music downloads:
www.hdtracks.com and www.musicishere.com.
Music from independent labels (some well-known artists, especially on hdtracks). No DRM.
Reply to this comment
by v1m May 23, 2008 5:16 AM PDT
It's a neat innovation, and good luck to them. For me, though, subscription pricing is a no-no. A la carte or nothing, thank you -- that's pretty much the whole point of the download era, isn't it? It's also sad to see the Apple mafia file format being used when the hardware and software-agnostic FLAC format is free and more portable. A greater weakness is the line-up mystery, and I second Minimalist's point above. Much as Gabriel et al. might have fun doing so, I don't actually need anyone to pick my music for me. All I need is for them to deliver what I want in the format I want at the time I want and at the right price! It's 2008; how much longer must we wait?
Reply to this comment
by minimalist May 25, 2008 7:28 AM PDT
Well given the niche market these guys are going for... audiophile quality subscription music whereby you never know what you are going to get... I can totally understand why they chose a file format that worked with the a player that dominates the market. It still doesn't make it a compelling service for me but if they choose FLAC or a another format that iTunes and Ipods don't support they are just further narrowing the possibility that anybody will actually pay for their service.

I wish them well for being creative but I wonder how long before this service closes its doo
by jazzbase May 24, 2008 8:43 AM PDT
I love music, but it's over. No one cares about the quality of sound anymore ( just us )
This new site will never work, again it's over Now move on to something else to improve the delivery system. Please!
Reply to this comment
by minimalist May 25, 2008 7:35 AM PDT
Lets tone down the cynicism and try maintaining a little hope. This will all work itself out in the marketplace. When CD's first came out lots of audiophiles claimed the sky was falling and that it was the "end of musicality".... but it wasn't. Recording quality eventually got better, CD players got better. As bandwidth and hard drives grow offering higher quality tracks will be the equivalent of adding a few pennies to your operating costs. So it will be a no brainer to offer music at a higher quality if for nothing else than to differentiate your store from the pack of iTunes wannabees. I have faith that as the digital download market explodes there will be a nice niche for audiophiles.
by cardes May 24, 2008 12:55 PM PDT
Reactionist comment fueled by anecdotal evidence x2
Reply to this comment
by gopsuxDOTcom June 14, 2008 1:26 PM PDT
I don't see the point. It's a marketing gimmick. If you have the money for a HiFi system then you have the money to buy the super audio cd or vinyl version. Of course if this is just to get independent music out there are cheaper ways.
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About The Audiophiliac

Ex movie theater projectionist Steve Guttenberg has more or less successfully hitched his future to home theater, but he still pines for the clickity-clack of 35 MM projectors and all the stale popcorn he could eat. Between projectionist gigs he worked as a high-end audio salesman for sixteen years, and produced records for an audiophile label. Oh, and one more thing, nothing annoys Steve more than being confused with the other Steve Guttenberg, the washed-up Police Academy actor. The wordsmith Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and websites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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