eClassical

I thought I would share a bit of feedback about the eClassical website with the world. As you may already know this website specialises in the download of high resolution classical music files, either maximal resolution MP3 or FLAC files.

A couple of days ago I downloaded some music which was only advertised as being Melchior singing Wagner. I downloaded an Act I of die Walküre. Though I looked and looked, I couldn't for all the world find out who the conductor and orchestra were. However, listed amongst several conductors featured in the album was Bruno Walter and Erich Leinsdorf. A quick sampling of the Leinsdorf Boston recording of die Walküre suggested that the recording I downloaded was obviously a quite different interpretation.

Eventually, I compared the Bruno Walter 1935 Vienna Philharmonic die Walküre with the download. Bingo!  Unfortunately, this download, even in 16 bit FLAC format, sounded poor compared to MP3 samples off iTunes. It was obvious that someone had digitised the 1935 Bruno Walter performance off either 78 rpm discs or some LP pressing. The discs were not in good condition as I could hear a lot of surface hiss, pops and crackles not evident on EMI releases of this recording. Good quality digital transfer also use lasers to read off old records, to minimise hiss and to extract maximal information. This obviously hadn't been done - that is the digitisation was far from state-of-the-art.

So, with that I approached eClassical to see if they were true to their word:

If you don't like the music you purchase, just let us know and we will send you the money back. No questions asked. Our guarantee covers all downloadable music at eClassical.com.


It turns out that they were serious with that. Overnight I got a reply from the manager along with a full refund. They even went as far as to pull the album from their website.

It's not often you get this sort of old fashioned, decent customer service.

They certainly get my thumbs up for it.