Vote

But with rare exceptions, only SACDs.

Most of what I like I already have on vinyl—so I'm mainly filling in the blanks.

The future is in the download, possibly 24-bit/96kHz.

Just got a bunch of second-hand classical discs tonight. I no longer buy new releases because the present crop of performers leaves me cold. Give me Furtwangler, Karajan, and Bohm any day. Until a new breed appears, classical sales will plummet.

I don't buy much music of any genre, but I do enjoy listening to a wide variety of classical music. For those who answered "What is classical music," I would refer them to this example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0diDwHtATw&feature=related

Classical music is virtually my only music interest. I buy about 10 discs a month. If they are SACDs, all the better.

I love what 2L is doing today, as well as some of the great vinyl reissues of those most classic of classical titles!

Yawn...

With the decline of music education in schools, are we surprised? The additional problem of those under the age of 30 having the attention span of a gnat doesn't help in appreciating music running longer than three minutes, 42 seconds.

Over 90% of my music purchases are classical music discs.

Some of the hi-rez labels have produced some outstanding discs that sound better than anything I've heard before.

New releases of classical music don't provide new classical music. They provide the same old music with new "geniuses" with a "totally new interpretation" of the old music I already have on the shelf. The most important thing in the classical business of today isn't about music, but about new and sexy-looking stars. Even on posters for live performances, you find big letters for the stars and small letters for the musical content of the evening. So I prefer to buy jazz CDs and go to jazz performances with new and fresh music. (This all from the German viewpoint, but I assume it is the same in the US.)

I thought sales of all music discs in the Internet age were lackluster or worse.

Classical music is nice for background, but I can't say that I've ever listened to it—I mean, really listened to it. Having said that, I certainly understand how so many audiophiles like it. (Wish there was more rock music used for equipment reviews.)

Why just single out classical music? Aren't all genres of music suffering? In fact, I'll bet that popular music has seen a bigger percentage decline than classical— not that it would surprise me seeing as how most of it is such absolute garbage.

I went through a massive classical buying phase about eight or so years ago. These days I have almost no time to listen—I have two boys aged three and one—so my music buying has also almost stopped completely. Maybe when they're out of the house?

Yup, two to four discs per month. Will continue to do so until the choice of hi-rez downloads improves and the prices come down a bit.

For classical music I prefer DSD-recorded SACDs. However, I also like high-resolution music files. I never could tolerate the strident sound of strings (which are so important to classical music) on CDs. I wonder if the sound of CD, which is more problematic with classical music than other types could be the real reason for the lackluster sales of classical music? Perhaps if listeners discovered SACD or rediscovered LP they would buy classical music more?

But consider which labels really produce new, exciting, vibrant records: The likes of Alpha, CPO, Naïve/Opus111, Hyperion, Dabringhaus+Grimm, ECM, Linn. See a pattern? Whatever happened to record labels controlled by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Sony? The quarterly bottom line megalomania has fatally stifled the spirit of discovery and adventure which is vital if classical music is to survive and thrive. The big record companies are just milking their stale Karajans and Pavarottis and Netrebkos to death, killing the industry in the process. HD direct distribution via the Internet is the only hope of escaping their death grip. We need hungry, curious, tech-savvy upstarts to keep this part of our culture alive.

At the beginning of CD era, I used to buy several discs per month. Now I have a quite good library of classic classics and the number of new CDs which are worth buying looks quite limited—and also boring.

It's the music, on my Thorens/Lavardin/Harbeth 40.1 system. What is better? The concert hall, of course...

Many, many CDs and SACDs.

I buy a lot of classical music. Although I still like indie rock and downtempo, a Beethoven or Bruckner symphony makes everything else sound pathetic. Classical music, along with jazz, is about musicianship and emotions—deep, not shallow emotions.

Mostly Studio Master FLAC downloads from Linn Records.

This is a more interesting and professional article about the sales of classical music albums. I am a die-hard hard-core classical music lover, and I buy classical music albums every month, 95% of them are from my very beloved Deutsche Grammophon & Decca. A few others are from the more conservative and less creative EMI Classics, the cute Naïve and the dying Telarc. Sony Masterworks is useless and it is more like a audio-division of Sony Pictures, which loves producing heaps of movie albums as well as the awful "classical" crossovers (with such "talents" as Yo-Yo Ma). I haven't bought any albums from Sony Classical for a long long time.

Yes, I enjoy the true high-fidelity of SACD multichannel playback of excellent acoustic recordings that are mostly classical music.

Yes. Nearly 80% of my records are classical music. And nearly 95% of my LP (vinyl) is now.

Let's face it, can any of us name three contemporary classical music composers? Unless the industry keeps re-packaging the same music over and over, store shelves would probably have very few classical titles.

I started buying classical titles back in 1970—there used to be cut-out LPs at drug stores and department stores. No more—new issues come out unannounced and you have to hunt for new titles online. No one listens to classical music anymore.

I spend about $100 a month on classical music, virtually all of it in physical Red-Book CD format. I prefer to buy from brick-and-mortar establishments, although that is getting harder and harder to do. Yes, I'm a dinosaur.