Passionato

[mathias broucek]

What happened to Passionato?

They seem not to do downloads anymore. I got some good 50% off boxed-set bargains from them but ultimately drifted away due to poor customer service*, a failure to get to grip with gapless playback**, poor search functionality, and a nagging feeling that the sound quality (theoretically 320kbps) wasn't that great.


Does anyone know the story?


* For example poor metadata meant I had to manually edit track names in the Beaux Arts Haydn set!
** Haitink's DSCH set was runined by this - altho I did get a refund

[Pabmusic]

...poor customer service, a failure to get to grip with gapless playback, poor search functionality, and a nagging feeling that the sound quality (theoretically 320kbps) wasn't that great...

And you're wondering why they folded? Now, let me see...?

[DublinJimbo]

It's certainly very strange to implement such a change without any warning. It seems that Passionato has been subsumed into something called ClassicalStore.com.

I have to say that Passionato's review quote "Classical music downloads done right" (or words to that effect) was always a bit of a joke. Any time I've visited over the past year or so all I saw was a load of n/a's where the download links should have been.

No great loss, in my opinion.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ha, Passionato still owe me £8 or so which they promised as refund for a lossless FLAC of Holmboe which... had gaps where it should have had attaccas. Long since written off both the money and the supplier.

[mathias broucek]

Ha, Passionato still owe me £8 or so which they promised as refund for a lossless FLAC of Holmboe which... had gaps where it should have had attaccas. Long since written off both the money and the supplier.

They were truly terrible at gapless but I did (eventually) get my refunds.

Is the Homboe from Chandos? Chandos also seem to supply non-gapless files to download sites.

[Bryn]

Ha, Passionato still owe me £8 or so which they promised as refund for a lossless FLAC of Holmboe which... had gaps where it should have had attaccas. Long since written off both the money and the supplier.

Somewhat annoying, yes, but how long would it really take you to resolve the FLACs to WAV, edit out the 'gaps' and recode to FLAC again? 15 minutes or so (during much of which you could get on with other things while your computer does its stuff)?

[mathias broucek]

Somewhat annoying, yes, but how long would it really take you to resolve the FLACs to WAV, edit out the 'gaps' and recode to FLAC again? 15 minutes or so (during much of which you could get on with other things while your computer does its stuff)?

Ironic, right?

[Bryn]

Ironic, right?

Well I did forget to mention that the editing would also involve pasting the sections together after editing out the 'gaps'. It would be easier still if there was a program for FLACs that edited them without decoding and recoding. Something that did what mp3DirectCut does for mp3s and mp2s.

[jayne lee wilson]

This was the BIS recording of Symphonic Metamorphosis No. 4 (Aalborg/Hughes). I already had the CD of the four and wanted to compare it. Once the comparison had been made (honours even - Krell transport via coax cooler/more precise, Macbook via Optical warmer/fuller) I lost interest in going to the trouble of conversion and just enjoyed the disc...