Classical Music - Where do you look to find the best recordings?

[JohnK]

I am far from a Classical expert, but I enjoyed a subscription to BBC music magazine several years ago. I picked up a recent copy, seems to have a lot more ads than I recall, but they still review new releases. Still around, and the online site is at:

http://www.classical-music.com/

And what about the old standby, Gramophone ?

gramophone.co.uk | The world's authority on classical music since 1923

[GaryProtein]

Try New York Sound and Vision's website for music listings.
New York Sound & Vision/Best Music Recordings/Classical/2011

In the center of the page you will see "Audiophile, Classical, Jazz, Popular, In Heavy Rotation".

Each of those boxes is a link. Immediately under them are years 2003-2011, and for each year you click, they have their picks.

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by GaryProtein

Try New York Sound and Vision's website for music listings.
New York Sound & Vision/Best Music Recordings/Classical/2011

In the center of the page you will see "Audiophile, Classical, Jazz, Popular, In Heavy Rotation".

Each of those boxes is a link. Immediately under them are years 2003-2011, and for each year you click, they have their picks.

Too much Gergiev.

[SCAudiophile]

Waking this thread up just to compare notes; are you all finding anything different in terms of sites to pickup the best current and past CD, XRCD and SACD classical releases?

- ArkivMusic.com; still a go-to site for me over the years for many current and older recordings. The 'Arkiv Disc' offerings for no longer in print/able to found discs has allowed me to pick up several recordings over the years that I had looked for quite a while....

***Note: Today an ad went out stating they will open ArkivJazz.com that will have a similar depth of coverage for Jazz releases old and new; very excited about this!

- abruckner.com: Thanks to another member here I was recently jumped on this site and got to know the gentleman who runs it....being a big Bruckner fan I found many discs and copies off master tapes that were not available anywhere and in a few cases, I did not even know existed. This is a GREAT asset with its > 8,300 recording archive database for any serious Bruckner fan!!!

- Amazon.com (US): over the last year or two I've been able to find a surprisingly increasing number of current, past and collectible items here but not everything shows up here in the US

- Amazon.co.uk: regularly order from here as there are releases that pop up here much earlier than their US counterparts, the pool of Amazon Sellers for Used and Like-New collectibles seems to be different and some releases that never come out in the US do show up as orderable here....

- Amazon.de: The UK site seems to be federating alot more listings so I use this one less but in the recent past I would find more than a few discs here that were not able to be located anywhere else

- Amazon.co.jp: I used to spend more time here but less in the last 1-2 years but there are items that show up in Japan that are not available anywhere else....I have a large amount of Japanese pressings on the shelves; I find them 99% of the time to be the best packaged, pressed, etc...

- LAWO (Norway), Exton SACD Gold (Japan), Naxos and other recording-label direct sites: I do order a few a year direct from labels in various countries as they often take a much longer to hit the various other sites and sometimes are never offered in the US...

- eBay: From selected sellers I've come to know over the years, I do have limited trust for eBay and pick up certain hard to find releases and collectibles here. Certain sellers 'internationalrecords' out of Hong Kong is a go-to for hard to find releases of all types on top, sometimes Japan-only or Japan-first labels in various genres though I do mostly pickup on Jazz from him, he does have early grabs on many things from Esoteric SACD and Top Music/others which release classical works...

- ClassicsOnline: good resource for a long time but announced they are discontinuing service as of January 31st, 2017. They are pointing users towards Naxos Library and ArkivMusic....

Where else do you guys go to pickup your much desired classical?

[cma29]

Presto Classical out of the UK is one of my favorite classical music retailers. Their selection is excellent and better yet their US pricing is very fair. On top of that the website is cross-referenced in an outstanding manner. Top marks for those guys.

I wrote about them here

[Antonmb]

I tend to either buy vinyl or download first, and silver discs only if not otherwise available.

For discs, as mentioned by others, Amazon, Naxos, Presto, Arkiv, and occasionally used on eBay.

For vinyl, Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct, eBay (but carefully) for used, and a couple of local used record shops in my area. There's still nothing like browsing the racks of a record shop and discovering hidden gems.

I do find myself downloading more hi res files these days and use Channel Classics, Linn, Presto, and Qobuz. Qobuz has far and away the best selection of classical downloads, and the best prices as well if you subscribe to their prime service.