I share the widespread admiration among classical music fans for the Naxos label, and must endure none of the discomfort it inflicts on musicians by paying them only what they have to be paid, or any of the grief he has made for the other classical music labels by doing the job so much better than them.

Yes, other labels put out stuff for a fiver, but only with their teeth gritted, as it were, after they have tried it on at £16.99 and all prices in between. By the time they do deign to cut the price down to super-bargain, I generally either have it (mostly second hand) or don't want it.

Like thousands of others, I often buy Naxos discs speculatively, of music unknown or almost unknown to me. A year or two ago, having once upon a time long ago owned a gramophone record of a symphony by someone called Kraus (Joseph Martin Kraus, 1756-1792), and having liked it a lot in a Sturm und Drang sort of way, I was delighted to have the opportunity to acquire more Kraus symphonies, courtesy of Naxos, and these discs have not disappointed either in quality of music or of performance.

And now I have had a similar experience with the music of Louis Spohr (1784-1859), having recently acquired volumes 1 and 2 of the three Naxos discs of Spohr String Quintets. If you enjoy, say, the Mozart string quartets and quintets, and also the later quartets, quintets and sextets of Brahms for strings, then this music might also hit the spot for you. The music is continuously interesting, and it helps that the playing is excellent, and the recording very pleasing.

Actually, these discs don't conform to the pristine Naxos pattern of starting out as bargains. These performances were done a decade ago and put out at full price on the Marco Polo label (linking to this directly doesn't seem to work, so go to the Naxos site and click where it says "Marco Polo" at the bottom), Naxos' expensive brother label which specialised in music otherwise unrecorded. But "otherwise unrecorded" has not been a formula with the legs of the basic bargain label. The music may indeed have been otherwise unrecorded when it was first recorded, but time and again, that hasn't lasted, and Marco Polo seems to be winding down. That Marco Polo discs have been on sale in HMV Oxford Street at £2.99 a throw would certainly suggest this.

So, as I say, these Spohr quintets started out as a full-price non-bargain in the early nineties from Marco Polo. But somehow I don't resent this procedure when Naxos does this, probably because Marco Polo was off my radar at the price they were asking.

Meanwhile, although the basic white Naxos label does now put out a steady trickle of ex-Marco Polo stuff, and it has also acquired some discs from the now defunct Collins label, nevertheless, the heart of the Naxos operation is new recordings for a fiver. As far as I was concerned, the Spohr String Quintets felt like a new release, and I only later discovered that they were re-issues.

I'm looking forward very much to volume 3.