Pristine Audio Digital Music Collection

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overviewfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f Every Pristine release in one collection More than 1250 albums on one portable USB drive. A complete Pristine library to own, explore and e njoy whenever you wish. Beautifully organised, ready to play, and yours to keep. Choose from the three editions above. Keep your collection up to date with our DMC update subscriptions. For setup help, see the FAQ and User Guide tabs below. 578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9review_titlefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fGramophone Magazine review578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9review_quotefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f"The stuff of dreams ... Given the quality – and quantity – of what’s on offer, it has to be one of the record bargains of the century"578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9review_bodyfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f Pristine Audio’s ‘Digital Music Collection’ (PADMC) – containing all the company’s recordings on a single USB drive – is the stuff of dreams, certainly for those of us who love to roam the vast terrain of historical recordings or are running out of storage space. There are two ports on the neat, solidly constructed drive provided, a traditional USB-A and a newer USB-C, one on either end of the unit. Both are super-high-speed USB 3.2 ports, capable of fast transfers when connected to suitable equipment. To put it simply, I use an iMac desktop computer kitted out with the usual rear-placed USB ports. You’ll need a media player to facilitate hearing groups of tracks at a single stretch – whether a symphony, a concerto, quartet, sonata or a complete opera. If you don’t have one installed, fear not: you can very easily download a media player free from the internet (mine is VLC – looks like a traffic cone). Then, basically, you’re all set to go. You can purchase the Collection (some 1175 full albums, stretching across nearly 18,000 tracks) either as an MP3 or a FLAC USB. The former denotes compression and is compatible with just about any player, and it takes up less file space. FLAC is a lossless audio compression system that retains full quality from the original master file. Some readers may draw the reasonable conclusion that FLAC is wasted on old recordings, which in some cases is true, though beam up violinist Bronisπaw Huberman’s 1929 Columbia recording of Zarzycki’s flamboyant Mazurka – which sounds via this FLAC PADMC as if it was recorded yesterday (or as near as) – and you have the answer. Purchasers also have the option to subscribe to an updates service, which means either regularly downloading or receiving a monthly update on DVD-R disc. The curated collection is broken down into the categories Blues, Chamber Music, Compilations, Jazz, Keyboard Music, Orchestral Music and Vocal Music, with cover-artwork jpg files also provided. Transfers have been effected either by Pristine’s chief Andrew Rose or, for many of the 78rpm-based issues, Mark Obert-Thorn. The refurbishments that I’ve heard (over the years) are of a minimum high quality, but there were quite a few that I hadn’t encountered before my experience with PADMC. Toscanini’s broadcast recording of Roy Harris’s Yosemite-style Third Symphony, for example, which for a sense of scenic realism quite dwarfs previous transfers that I’ve sampled. Also his rare 1943 broadcast version of the Overture and Venusberg Music from Wagner’s Tannhäuser, which strikes lightning like none other in my experience, even though the radio announcer doesn’t make his exit quite soon enough (there’s a second or two overlap with the beginning of the Overture). Elgar’s Piano Quintet with Ethel Hobday and the Spencer Dyke Quartet, a National Gramophone Society recording, is also available online but turn to Pristine’s transfer – one of a number of NGS recordings included – and there’s no comparison. It’s quieter and warmer, with no loss of definition. Among recordings new to me were Otto Klemperer’s 1962 broadcasts with the Philadelphia Orchestra that include a Mozart G minor (No 40) which for clarity, strength, directness and orchestral polish is fairly unique. Also from Philadelphia in the same year, exceptional Klemperer performances of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7, Brahms’s Third Symphony and Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto. And there are numerous commercial recordings that haven’t otherwise been reissued on CD – or if they have, only from obscure sources. Selmar Meyrowitz’s wildfire 1935 Paris Philharmonic recording of Liszt’s Faust Symphony (the first ever made) is well worth hearing, as are a whole host of Scarlatti keyboard sonatas played on the harpsichord by Fernando Valenti – the most Landowska-like Scarlatti since her 78s from the 1930s and ’40s. True, there are more of them, many more, than Pristine has so far given us (the Westminster LPs, which gravitated from mono to stereo as technology advanced, exceeded the 20 mark). Numerous complete operas are available on the stick, including a complete Met Ring from 1961/62 under Erich Leinsdorf with Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, George London and Hans Hopf. Add ‘extras and lucky dips’ – or, as Pristine puts it, ‘a mish-mash of recordings which never made it on to the label officially but could well be of interest to those willing to trawl through and try them out’ – and you have the basis of, with respect, a nerd’s paradise (I count myself a proud member of the nerd community), but without the risks involved when relying on fragile discs, whether black or silver, or of falling offline. A quick online read-through of Pristine’s catalogue at pristineclassical.com will tell you what you’ll be getting for your money. As to the cost itself, it depends where you’re coming from. Calculated at a rate ‘per album’ or ‘per track’, a price of around £1000 is obscenely inexpensive. Yes, it’s a sizeable sum to lay out at one shot, but given the quality – and quantity – of what’s on offer, it has to be one of the record bargains of the century. Might other labels follow suit? Could the notion of a single one-off payment for a tiny gizmo crammed full of music and/or performers we’re itching to explore, that we can take with us anywhere we go, prove too attractive to resist? Chances are it will. - Rob Cowan, Gramophone magazine, Awards Issue 2024 578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9main_samplefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_labelfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fDigital Music Collection578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_typefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fcontent578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_contentfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f Pristine Audio Own the completePristine archive More than 1250 albums, fully tagged, carefully organised and permanently yours on a solid-state USB drive. The Digital Music Collection brings together every Pristine release in one curated library: ready to own, ready to explore, and ready to play. No special app. No DRM. No temporary access. Just the archive. 2TB option shown with phone, speaker and CD for scale. Phone, speaker and CD are not included. "The stuff of dreams ... Given the quality - and quantity - of what’s on offer, it has to be one of the record bargains of the century" Gramophone, 2024 Complete Every Pristine release in one curated archive, supplied as a single music library rather than a piecemeal download hunt. Permanent DRM-free ownership, not rental, streaming-only access or a locked platform. Searchable Files are tagged for browsing by album, artist, composer, work, genre and release number in suitable music software. A record collection, not just a USB stick Building a large digital library release by release takes time, patience and storage space. The Digital Music Collection gives you the whole Pristine catalogue in one go, already prepared for real listening rather than left as a maze of anonymous files. Plug the drive into a suitable computer, streamer or mobile device, point your chosen music player to the MP3 or FLAC folder, and let the software build a searchable library from the embedded tags and artwork. Once scanned, the collection can be explored by album, composer, performer, work, genre or release number. A lifetime’s historical recordings, prepared as one coherent digital collection. Choose the collection that suits you MP3 Collection Best for maximum compatibility, car systems, phones, tablets, smaller storage needs and portable listening. Supplied as high-quality 320kbps MP3 files. FLAC Collection Best for lossless listening, hi-fi systems, DACs, streamers, music servers and long-term archiving. Combined FLAC & MP3 Best if you want both a hi-fi archive and a portable version for everyday convenience. Curated for quality Where multiple download formats are available, we select what we believe to be the finest realisation of each release for the FLAC Collection, usually our 24-bit Ambient Stereo FLAC edition. These curated FLAC masters are then used to create the highest-quality 320kbps MP3 files for the MP3 Collection. Flexible by design The drive is entirely DRM-free, allowing you to copy all or part of the contents quickly and easily to any storage device you wish using super-fast USB 3.2 class USB-A and USB-C connections. NB. The drive does not connect directly to older Apple Lightning or micro-USB sockets. What is included Solid-state USB drive Your choice of 1TB or 2TB, depending on the selected collection. Complete Pristine catalogue Supplied in FLAC, MP3, or combined FLAC & MP3 form. Artwork and documentation Printable PDF artwork, sleevenotes and JPG cover images. Scores and libretti Included with much of the FLAC Collection, where appropriate. Lucky Dip extras A substantial Treasure Trove folder of additional Pristine material. Ready for music players Files are tagged for browsing by album, artist, composer and work. NB. Scores are not included in the MP3-only Collection. Keep the collection complete Purchasers of the Digital Music Collection are eligible for our DMC Updates Service, designed to keep your collection permanently up to date as the catalogue continues to grow. For a modest monthly fee, you will receive a DVD by post each month containing all our latest releases, together with free unlimited download access to our entire site and full access to Pristine Streaming. A lower-cost digital-only subscription option is also available, offering unlimited downloading without the monthly DVD delivery. These special subscription update options are available from the My Subscriptions section of your account once your Digital Music Collection purchase has been linked to it. Use it your way Some listeners plug the drive into a computer and start listening straight away. Others copy the collection to a larger internal drive, external SSD, NAS or music server. A hi-fi listener may prefer FLAC through a DAC or streamer; a car or phone listener may find MP3 more practical. The collection is designed to be flexible. It is simply a carefully prepared music archive, not a closed system. Need setup help? The User Guide tab includes an illustrated PDF guide with quick-start instructions, setup advice for Windows, Mac, mobile devices, streamers and NAS systems, plus equipment suggestions and troubleshooting notes. 578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_cover_thumbnail1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_cover_thumbnail2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_cover_download_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_sample1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_sample2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_sample3_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_sample4_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_sample5_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab1_sample6_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_labelfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fFAQ for New Owners578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_typefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fcontent578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_contentfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f FAQ for New Owners We recently took part in a magazine Q&A about the Pristine Audio Digital Music Collection. Two of the questions concerned the best way to use the USB drive once it arrives, so we have reproduced and expanded those answers here. The short version is this: the Digital Music Collection is not a locked app or a special playback system. It is a large, carefully organised, DRM-free music library. To get the best from it, use suitable music-player software and let that software scan the embedded tags, artwork and album information. 1. Can the files play continuously from track to track, or from folder to folder? ``` Yes, but this is handled by your music-player software rather than by the USB drive itself. What we supply is, in effect, a very large record collection: each release is labelled, organised and supplied with embedded information, but the drive is not the record player. You choose the music-player app that suits your computer, streamer, phone, tablet or hi-fi system. When you first plug in your Digital Music Collection drive, ask your player app to scan it for music. On Windows this usually means pointing the player to the drive letter. On a Mac it means selecting the mounted USB drive or a copied music folder. On Android it may appear as attached USB storage, depending on the device and app. Each sound file includes embedded tags: track number, track title, album title, artist, album artist, composer, year, genre and other useful details. Many files also include artwork. Your music software reads these tags and builds its own searchable catalogue, allowing you to browse the collection by album, composer, performer, work, genre or search term. Why we do not supply a universal player database Every music player stores its library database differently. There is no single standard database file that would work in VLC, MusicBee, Roon, Audirvana, foobar2000, JRiver, a NAS streamer app and every other possible player. The reliable method is for your chosen player to scan the audio files and create its own index. Once the scan is complete, the player will normally play an album from start to finish in the correct track order. Depending on the player, you may also be able to choose whether it stops at the end of the album, repeats, continues to another album, plays randomly or follows playlists and other rules. In other words, once your player has indexed the collection, you should not need to think in terms of folders and files. You will be browsing albums, works, composers and performers, which is by far the easiest way to navigate a collection of this size. ``` 2. Is there a single file listing all release titles? ``` Yes. We provide a fully indexed catalogue of Pristine releases in PDF format, available to download from this product page. In day-to-day listening, however, the most practical answer is again to use your music-player software. You should not have to open and close hundreds of folders in order to find a particular recording. For example, if you are looking for Dvořák's Piano Concerto, a properly scanned music library should allow you to type Dvořák into the search box and see the Dvořák-related albums in the collection. This includes Rudolf Firkušný's 1954 recording of the Piano Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell, released by Pristine as PASC 045. The catalogue PDF is useful as a reference document and can of course be printed if you wish. We used to include a printed catalogue with the Digital Music Collection, but it now runs to well over 500 pages, so it is supplied digitally instead. This is more practical, easier to update and considerably kinder to paper and ink. Best practical approach Use the catalogue PDF when you want a complete reference list. Use your music-player app when you want to find, browse and play the music. ``` Need step-by-step setup help? Our illustrated User Guide explains how to begin listening, how the collection is organised, how to choose between MP3 and FLAC, and how to set up the collection on Windows, Mac, mobile devices, streamers, NAS systems and whole-house audio installations. Download the User Guide PDF Choosing a player The best player is the one that works well with your equipment and makes sense to you visually. Suitable options may include VLC for simple playback, MusicBee or foobar2000 on Windows, Audirvana, Swinsian or Colibri on Mac, Roon for larger hi-fi systems, or the library software supplied with your streamer or NAS. If helping a customer or setting up the collection for someone else, first prove that the files play correctly on a computer. If they do, most remaining problems are likely to involve library indexing, network sharing, permissions or the chosen player app rather than the music files themselves. 578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_cover_thumbnail1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_cover_thumbnail2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_cover_download_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_sample1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_sample2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_sample3_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_sample4_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_sample5_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab2_sample6_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_labelfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fFanfare Magazine Feature Review578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_typefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fcontent578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_contentfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fMany readers of these pages will know that I frequently review releases of historical recordings by Pristine Audio, and on a few occasions have written liner notes for its releases. A bit over six months ago, at the end of June 2024, Andrew Rose, Pristine’s proprietor and factotum—he is Pristine Audio, with assistance from his wife Rose and monthly guest contributions from remastering wizard Mark Obert-Thorn—sent me an unsolicited email with an astounding offer: Would I like to review Pristine’s entire digital music collection provided on a USB (universal serial bus) flash drive? Would I?? Beam me up, Scotty!! And so, a couple of weeks later, a padded envelope from southern France arrived via international post with the flash drive enclosed. Now, I am not a computer techie, and still prefer to have my music on CDs rather than via download or streaming, so using this was a step forward for me. Actually, the basics proved to be a pretty small step forward; anyone who has ever used any sort of thumb drive or flash drive to read or transfer any sort of computer file (I’ll rashly assume that includes most people who have a computer nowadays) will have no problem using this. The flash drive provided by Pristine has two plug-in options at opposite ends, for the traditional USB-A and the newer USB-C ports; both are high-speed USB 3.2 ports for rapid transfers of files. (This drive cannot be used with Lightning or micro-USB sockets.) You can choose either 320kbps MP3 or higher-fidelity 16/24 bit FLAC (free lossless audio codec) formats (one terabyte of data each—that’s one trillion bytes) or both (two terabytes). All of Pristine’s official MP3 releases are derived from the higher-fidelity FLAC versions. The files are not DRM (digital rights management) restricted, so they may be copied to your computer, another storage device, or to “the cloud” for your convenience, or burnt to a CD. (Note that the 16-bit FLAC format is CD quality; the 24-bit format exceeds that and is not suitable for burning to CDs.) The contents of the USB drive are sorted as follows. There are three initial folders. “Covers” contains images of all the tray cards for each release. These are printable, if you want to burn your own CDs of particular items for personal convenience. “Extras and Lucky Dips” contains a miscellany of items that, for various reasons, did not make it into official Pristine releases. This contains three sub-folders: NGS (National Gramophone Society) FLACs; PADA (Pristine Audio Direct Access) Exclusive MP3s, with streaming exclusives prepared by various remastering engineers; and “Shorts.” “Pristine Curated Collection – FLACs” contains all of Pristine’s official releases up to the time a purchaser is sent the USB drive. (Yes, you can update the contents; see below.) When you click on this folder to open it, seven sub-folders appear for genres of music: Blues (BL), Chamber Music (CM), Compilations (MX, for Mixture), Jazz (JZ), Keyboard Music (KM), Orchestral Music (SC, for Symphonic and Concerto), and Vocal Music (CO, for Choral and Opera). There are now also 45 PABX box set collections that combine sets of individual releases (e.g., complete Beethoven piano sonatas by Backhaus, Kempff, or Schnabel, or the complete Ring cycles by Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, or Leinsdorf) into single sets at a discounted price. This also brings us to Pristine’s method for designating its releases. Each release number begins with a four-letter alpha prefix, the first two letters of which are PA (for Pristine Audio) and the latter two of which signify the musical genre. The number following the alpha prefix is simply the next sequential release within that series; hence different releases bear catalog numbers PACM 001, PASC 001, and PACO 001. Within each genre folder are separate folders for the individual releases within that genre, labeled by Pristine’s catalog release number. Inside each individual folder are the sound tracks for that release, of course already sorted in proper order for consecutive playing. Each track includes labelling information such as Name, Title (sometimes these two are the same), Contributing Artists, and Album name. Also included are separate sub-folders with artwork (i.e., tray cards with recording information and brief liner notes, likewise collectively found for all releases in the initial “Covers” folder) and if available from the public domain a musical score (a terrific bonus you don’t get with a CD, but included only in the FLAC collection). The goodly majority of Pristine Audio’s releases, almost 2/3, fall into Orchestral Music (720 releases as of the date of my USB flash drive). Bringing up the rear are Vocal Music (215 releases) Chamber Music (124 releases), Keyboard Music (93 releases), Jazz (13 releases), Blues, (10 releases), and Compilations (1 release). That balance is somewhat misleading, however, because most of the Vocal Music releases are of complete operas, with each one being the length of two to four Orchestral Music releases, so in terms of total amounts of music the two categories are virtually equal. In addition, Pristine’s initial offerings were digital transfers of individual LPs or even pieces of music rather than CD-length releases (again, see below), so as a result they were significantly shorter in length.So, to summarize, a typical drill-down sequence in the flash drive is: Curated Collection – desired collection – desired album/release – tracks for desired works(s). At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering: “Okay, so I buy this flash drive. But what do I do about future releases I’d like to add to it?” Fear not; you have two options. For a modest monthly fee you can either pay for ongoing ability to download digitally new releases from Pristine’s website (in MP3 or FLAC format, as you prefer), or for a slightly higher cost you can also have a monthly DVD with the files on it shipped to you. In addition, Pristine’s web site also has at its bottom a number of informative and helpful extras, including a complete catalog of its listings (see “Catalogue and Order Form”), and instructions on how to burn seamless transfers of the digital audio files to CDs (see both “MP3s and Cue Files” and “Downloading for Beginners”).So much for background; what of the music itself? Simply put, this is extraordinary—the motherlode of historical recording collections. Naturally enough, the most prominent representation goes to the greatest composers—Beethoven (present on 267 releases), Brahms (145), Mozart (120), Wagner (110), Tchaikovsky (94), Schubert (78), Bach (65), Mendelssohn (56), Richard Strauss (52), Schumann (49), Haydn (48), Debussy (46), Dvořák (45), Sibelius (42), Ravel (37), Verdi (37), Johann Strauss II (32), Stravinsky (32), Chopin (30), Liszt (29), Mahler (26), Bruckner (25), Elgar (25), and Weber (25)—and the most renowned performers, mostly conductors—Arturo Tosca­nini (89), Leopold Stokowski (56), Wilhelm Furtwängler (51), Thomas Bee­cham (46), Jascha Horenstein (43), Bruno Walter (36), Eugene Ormandy (32), Adrian Boult (31), Willem Mengelberg (26), Guido Cantelli (25), and Serge Koussevitzky (22). The only non-conductor artist to break through a ceiling of representation on 25 or more releases is Maria Callas (26). Leading ensembles (all orchestras, some with choruses) are the NBC Symphony (121), London Symphony (68), Berlin Philharmonic (62), Philadelphia Orchestra (58), New York Philharmonic [under “Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York”] (57), London Philharmonic (56), Vienna Philharmonic (50), La Scala [divided under several different listings] (46), Philharmonia Orchestra (44), Boston Symphony (42), Royal Philharmonic (40), Concertgebouw (33), and Metro­politan Opera (26). But one need only go to Pristine’s website (www.pris­tineclassical.com) and search the indices at the end of its catalog to discover the wide representation of great singers, instrumentalists, and chamber ensembles also represented in its catalog.As for the sound quality, I join many other critics in finding Rose’s XR remastering process to be a major game-changer in rejuvenating historic live performances and studio recordings. (Note that, with a few exceptions, Rose has not gone back to releases prior to his employment of XR software and remastered those.) And, as he indicates below in answering a question from me, both the sophistication of the software, and his skill and imagination in utilizing it, have increased over time. While I did not have time to listen to every single one of almost 1,200 releases, comprising almost 18,000 separate digital audio files, from stem to stern, I did listen to at least one track from every release (except for the jazz and blues items—not my cup of musical Earl Grey—and the extras, which I sampled selectively). I could hear definite improvements in the remasterings over time; for example, to my ears XR was initially applied more successfully to orchestral recordings than to operas, though Rose has now found a particularly fine sweet spot for remastering the EMI recordings of Callas. In the last few years his results have been uniformly excellent. (Mark Obert-Thorn uses different remastering software to produce his own, likewise excellent results for his monthly releases in the Pristine Audio roster. He works primarily with 78s, whereas Rose concentrates mostly on live performances and early LP recordings.)Every listener who comes to this collection will encounter his or her own delightful set of surprises. To list just a few of my own, perhaps at the top of the list is a rediscovery of Arturo Toscanini. While I have never doubted the Italian maestro’s greatness, until now my liking for him was generally limited to his opera performances, while his conducting of the standard German orchestral repertoire in particular left me unmoved, seeming brusque and rigid. Listening to Rose’s remasterings of his NBC and BBC broadcasts, I finally realized the true extent to which my indifference and even dislike were due to the notoriously arid Studio 8-H acoustics. Suddenly, with the application of XR software, the orchestra gained warmth and color, and previously muted inner voices appeared and blossomed. Toscanini’s tempos and phrasing gained in flexibility and expressiveness as well. While I have not warmed to all of his interpretations (his Beethoven Ninths all remain outside the pale for me), I am grateful to add his Beethoven and Brahms in particular to my listening repertoire. Among unexpected discoveries, among lesser-known names, are the concerto recordings of the tragically short-lived English pianist Noel Mewton-Wood.But many special items here are ones that I would now call “old friends,” because I acquired them when Rose first issued them. These range from Paul Paray’s astounding performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture and Capriccio espagnol, to Casals’s live performance of the Dvořák B-Minor Cello Concerto with Alexander Schneider as the excellent conductor, and the six Russian piano concertos played by Sviatoslav Richter. And virtually anything with Walter, Furtwängler, Mengelberg, Koussevitzky, Fritz Busch, and Albert Coates is of inherent interest to me; ditto for Adolf Busch and Artur Schnabel among instrumentalists. Among chamber music and keyboard recordings, the complete Wohltemperierte Klavier with pianist Samuil Feinberg remains absolutely riveting. In the vocal/choral/opera category, the 1958 Leeds Festival performance of Beetho­ven’s Missa solemnis under Jascha Horenstein is a searing, titanic rendition, while Rose’s remastering of the fabled 1951 Bayreuth Parsifal under Knappertsbusch may be for me his most enduring achievement. Among releases remastered by Obert-Thorn, I will cite Bruno Walter’s rare acoustics and collected 1930s Mozart recordings, and the complete Beethoven quartet cycle by the Léner Quartet, as items of special merit. Finally, don’t overlook the “Extras and Lucky Dips”—for example, it features superb remasterings of Bruno Walter’s studio recordings of Schumann’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4.Admittedly, the price for this USB flash drive is not cheap; it ranges from 1,100 to 1,500 Euros, depending on whether you choose MP3, FLAC, or both. (On the day I type this, one dollar equals 0.95 Euros. Alas, Pristine does not have a monthly payments over time option.) In addition, if you want to play this through your regular stereo system instead of your computer speakers, you will need either to be able to connect your computer to your stereo receivers with HDMI cables, or else invest in a wireless transmitter to perform the same task. Likewise, as explained below, to play tracks without interruption on your computer you will need to download and install in your computer whichever one of several available free music player apps strikes your fancy. On the other hand, this is a ridiculously cheap bargain for what you get—roughly $1.00 to $1.40 per release, depending on the format you choose. Where else can you buy an entire Ring cycle for less than six dollars? (The price from Pristine for the same item on physical CDs is $150 to $200.) Even if only half of the releases are of interest, you’re still paying only $2.00 to $2.80 apiece for each release that you want. I’m not making light of the cost—much too easy for a reviewer to do when he gets such an item for free. But if it is within your means, and a sufficient number of the performances are of interest, then by all means get this. It will become the keystone of your historic recordings collection. As a postscript, here are some questions I posed by email to Andrew Rose about Pristine Audio, with his answers. Pristine Audio has been active for 20 years now. What was the exact date of your very first release?We launched PA in February 2005, the precise date of which is lost to time. I do recall that it took us five weeks to make our first sale, from an initial offering of 12 recordings. At the time we offered MP3 downloads only—and in 2005, MP3s were still primarily associated with music piracy. It seemed clear to me, however, that given the difficulties being faced by the music industry in general, and the classical side in particular, the merits of making music available to purchase online could offer a significant way forward for everyone. Back in February 2005 iTunes, a very new offering (so new I wasn’t actually aware of it) by a relatively small American computer company called Apple, was the only other legal way to acquire music online, and even then only in a handful of countries. So I guess we were possibly the first truly global legal music download service and the first online label, for whatever that might have been worth at the time. Nobody seemed too sure about that Apple thing either; weren’t they supposed to be a computer company? Did you always issue weekly releases? If not, what was your original release schedule, and when did you adopt your current Friday weekly release schedule? We began with a monthly schedule of eight releases, which later morphed into two releases a week. Ultimately this was too much for me to cope with and we dropped back to one release a week, with a couple of short breaks during the year. I knew from day one that the crucial thing for us would be to build a large and varied catalog, so that whatever you had in mind, we might hope to have something of interest to offer. What might have started as a bit of a scattergun approach to content slowly evolved as we began to get a feel for what our audience wanted, and we started to fill obvious gaps both in repertoire and artists; but ultimately we operate in a very small, specialized market where individual sales figures per release are small. With a catalog numbering about 1,200 releases, this is less of a problem than it was when we had only 12, and after a very slow start our business is reasonably healthy. I think there’s something for almost everyone to find in our catalog today. What was the first release (number and date) for which you used your patented XR remastering processing system? What are the key improvements you have made to XR over the years?What was to become Pristine’s XR remastering system began to take shape in January 2007, during a frustrating effort to see if anything could be done with one of the first releases on Pristine, Artur Schnabel’s 1932 recording of the Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto. I had found a new analysis and re-equalization software program that I was trying out, and try as I might I seemed to be getting nowhere with this exceptionally problematic recording. Finally, I decided to break all the “rules” and use it in a way specifically warned against by the manufacturer of said software—and could barely believe my ears when I heard the results. That horrible, sonically squashed and terribly unrealistic recording suddenly came out of my speakers with a natural sound I could barely believe. I could hear right away that this was the start of something special.For the next four months we remastered and issued recordings under the moniker “Pristine Audio Natural Sound.” During this time I was working with the software authors to tweak their software for ever greater accuracy and resolution, to the point where we were trying to extract upper frequencies from 78rpm discs which previously would have been buried in the surface noise, and getting much closer to an ideal sound across the musical spectrum than back in January. At this stage, and with these advances (and with an eye on a name that is a little easier to write and recall), I renamed the system XR, which stood both for Extended Resolution and Extended Range—ER didn’t quite have the same ring to it! Over the years up to today, the power and accuracy of all the digital tools available to me have improved no end. We can now work on resolving problems that were impossible to address in 2007—fixing pitch instability, working on real-world hall acoustics, and launching our Ambient Stereo treatment for mono recordings (originally to a degree of hostility from anyone who’d not actually heard it or understood what it meant), all of which continue my ever-evolving efforts to get as close as possible to hearing historic performances that sound as they might had they been recorded today. Each technological advance seems to get us a small step closer. Some of your early releases (e.g., PASC023, only 15:28) were on the short side. What accounted for that? (It looks as if what were some single releases are divided between two catalog numbers.) When we began we were offering primarily individual recordings of pieces of music for download, rather than an album of recordings packaged according to the duration of a CD, which is something that can be quite tricky for me when the recordings I’m dealing with have already been made, their durations fixed, and their performers normally long gone and unavailable to record extras! Over time, and as we were increasingly having our output reviewed—by reviewers who still today, by and large, stick to CDs—it became obvious that, to avoid bad review comments referring to the length of content, we would have to start conforming to the duration set by a technology first mooted back in the 1970s: the compact disc. The frustrations of, for example, having to cut a 90-minute broadcast to fit onto an 80-minute disc, or to find something to add to a 50-minute symphony by a composer whose other works are generally even longer, or from an artist whose recorded output is especially thin on the ground, are perhaps obvious when you think about them. But I suspect that the tyranny of the 80-minute CD duration will be with us for a long while yet, and we’ll continue to live with the limitations that imposes on us. When did you first begin to offer your USB drive with all of Pristine’s releases collected onto it? We began offering our full collection on external hard disc drives maybe 14 or 15 years ago—I don’t recall exactly. Until last summer these hard drives, which had gradually slimmed down to something about the size of a pack of cards, were still devices that needed a certain degree of care in handling, and required too much power to be used by tablets or phones, or indeed many other players such as you’d find in a car or built into a modern TV. The USB flash drive has gained ever more capacity over the years, from something you could use to share a few photos to something which now can hold our entire output in studio-quality sound in the palm of your hand. With this tiny revolution we were able to revamp our whole digital music collection offering, and provide it in a way people were familiar with. The USB “stick” works as well on a PC or Mac as it does on a phone or in a car—anywhere where there’s a USB socket for music, our MP3 offering is likely to work, whereas our higher-quality FLAC devices offer CD quality and higher when played on suitable music players—which includes a multitude of apps that are widely available and often free. How if at all has your remastering philosophy changed over the years? (E.g., more or less interventionist? Increased or decreased specific types and degrees of intervention, such as boosting or reducing or filtering treble or bass frequencies, balances between hi-, mid-, and lower frequency ranges, elimination of clicks, pops, etc., intervention to restore missing bits of music from other performances, etc., etc.?) The big revolution in my personal approach came in 2007 with the development of XR remastering. Before that the primary aim was to provide a clean and clear transcription of tapes or discs, with a sound that would come as close as possible to the original but without the hiss, clicks, and crackle of that original. XR rewrote my rulebook, with the aim now being to restore recordings in such a way as to try to offer not simply the often-flawed sound of the source disc, but the sound that a listener might have heard in the studio or recording hall, using incredibly detailed analysis tools that go way beyond basic ideas of low-, mid-, and hi-range frequencies, and work at a level where minute frequency imbalances in the original recording equipment can be compensated for. This begins where my original approach would have concluded: After the clean-up of the discs comes the rebalancing of the sound to tackle the inaccurate recording processes and early microphones that resulted in those original older recordings. Although this approach relies heavily on advanced digital processing and analysis, at the end of the day I still have major decisions to make about the final sound, which always depend on the recording itself, and in my opinion benefit from the years of experience I can bring to the task. There is no one-size-fits-all approach here, and the results can never be perfect. But the philosophy in a nutshell is to attempt to hear today what might have been heard 70, 80, or 90 years ago had we been there—or perhaps get to hear more closely how these long-gone musicians might sound had they been recorded much more recently and proficiently. When and how did your collaboration with Mark Obert-Thorn begin? What was his first project for you? Mark began working with Pristine in the summer of 2008, at a time when we were issuing two releases a week and I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the workload. Pristine Classical at that stage was not the only remastering work I was undertaking, and I was struggling to fit everything in. I contacted Mark in July of that year by email, outlining what we were doing and wondering if he’d like to be a part of it. My timing could not have been better. Some of his work for other labels was drying up, for various reasons (often economic or, in the case of Naxos Historical in the U.S., legal), and he jumped on board right away with enthusiasm—and a little-known recording of a work by Charles Haubiel called Karma, recorded in 1928. It was immediately apparent that Mark would find recordings and produce releases which could add a whole new dimension to our output and catalog. Since then, in more than 200 releases, he’s done just that. Somehow our output doesn’t seem to overlap, and Mark has pretty much carte blanche to devise his own projects and releases. It’s proved a very fruitful and rewarding partnership for us both! For the sound files within a folder, is there some way for me to tell a computer automatically to move to and play the next file? For that matter, could that be done from folder to folder as well, so that a person could just start playing at some point and let the flash drive run uninterrupted? I’ve been asked this before! Let me explain. What we supply is effectively a great big record collection—each item labeled and mapped out—but not the “record player” itself. What you’ll need to choose for yourself is a music player app which can scan through all those recordings and create its own catalog entry for each one, something computers can do very efficiently. Just about every music player app I know of does this thoroughly, quickly, and well! When you first plug in your USB Music Collection drive, you should ask your player app to scan it for content—you just need to point it to where your USB drive is (on Windows this would be the drive letter, on Android simply the attached USB device, for example), and then set it going. Each sound file on the drive includes a series of embedded “tags”—short bits of information which include track number, track title, album title, track and album artist(s), year of recording, composer, etc. It also includes the original album artwork for display when you listen to the track. Your software scans all of these tags and creates its own database file of contents, allowing you easily to browse or search through the titles in myriad ways. (As each player has its own systems for storing this master file, it’s not something we can include. There’s no standard way to cater for every single player, and I don’t know of any that allow you simply to upload a pre-existing database.) The player will normally play an album through from start to finish, in track order, with no stopping or gaps between tracks. It should also offer you various other playback options—stop at the end of the album; repeat the album; go on to the next album; play at random or within certain parameters, etc.—all of which you get to choose from yourself. All of this cataloging and playback is a function of your music player app, and it’s important to choose one that suits you, both visually and functionally. You’ll find many different music players in the Microsoft Store (for PC), the Apple Store (for Mac and iOS) and the Google Play Store (for Android); I suggest you try out a few until you find the one that works best for you. Once you’ve got your player set up with our USB drive, you’ll not be thinking in terms of folders and files, just albums, performers, and composers! It really is the only way to find your way around such a massive collection. Do you have, or could you produce and supply, a separate file that lists just the titles of all your releases? (It’s cumbersome to go back and try to find, e.g., Dvořák’s Piano Concerto with the collapsed file listings that appear when the flash drive contents are first opened.) Again, this comes down to the music player app: We provide the music and all the information that’s embedded in each of the music tracks, but you need to find a player that’s right for you. At no point do you need to be struggling through files and folders; your player will do all of this heavy lifting for you, allowing you to get straight to the music you want to hear. You should be able to type in (or scroll down a list to) Dvořák and instantly find a list of everything Dvořák-related in the whole collection—all 45 albums in this composer’s case, including Firkušný’s 1954 recording of the Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell (PASC 045).We do include, and make available on our website for download, a fully indexed catalog of our releases in PDF format. We used to print this out and include it with our Digital Music Collections, but it now runs to well over 500 pages and we offer it as a digital file—which of course you always can print if you wish, though it’s a lot of paper and ink! James A. Altena This article originally appeared in Issue 48:4 (Mar/Apr 2025) of Fanfare Magazine578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_cover_thumbnail1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_cover_thumbnail2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_cover_download_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_sample1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_sample2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_sample3_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_sample4_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_sample5_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab3_sample6_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_labelfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fUser Guide578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_typefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fcontent578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_contentfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f Help and setup Digital Music Collection User Guide Our illustrated guide helps you start listening, understand what is on the drive, choose the right playback method, copy the collection safely, and solve the most common setup problems. The guide includes full sections in six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese (English, français, Deutsch, italiano, español & 日本語). Download the PDF Opens in a new window. Save or print it for reference. What the guide covers Quick start Plug in the drive, open a suitable music player, scan the music folder and begin listening. Computer setup Notes for Windows and Mac, including quick playback and library setup. Streamers and NAS Guidance for Roon, NAS libraries, music servers, DACs and whole-house audio. MP3 or FLAC? Clear guidance on which format to use, and when the combined collection is most useful. Tags, artwork and browsing Why music-player software is better than browsing thousands of folders by hand. Troubleshooting Common problems, likely causes and practical fixes before contacting support. First use: the simple rule The Digital Music Collection is not locked to a special Pristine app. It is a carefully prepared music archive on a USB drive. The guide shows how to point suitable music software to the collection, let it scan the music, then browse by composer, artist, album, work or genre. For regular listening, we recommend copying the collection to a computer, external SSD or NAS, then asking your music player to scan that copy. This is usually faster, safer and more reliable than constantly playing directly from the original USB stick. Who should read it? New owners setting up the collection for the first time, prospective buyers who want to understand how the USB drive works, and existing owners moving the collection to a new computer or music-player system. Dealers and installers The guide is also useful for anyone helping a customer add the collection to a streamer, NAS, music server or whole-house audio system. Need help? Please read the troubleshooting and support checklist sections of the guide before contacting us. They explain the most common causes of playback, scanning and streamer problems, and list the details we need in order to help quickly. 578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_cover_thumbnail1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_cover_thumbnail2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_cover_download_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_sample1_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_sample2_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_sample3_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_sample4_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_sample5_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9tab4_sample6_s3_locationfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f Show more