What Is High Resolution Audio Worth?

and the notion of "thread crapping" is allowed if it supports the status quo

 

Your bias is glaring. No point in even reading your link or this thread. We know where it's going to go. Same old steaming pile.

 

I am one of the complainers about expensive downloads. And no - I would not drop $40 for a SACD from Japan.

 

I am not of the faith. And you did not use the word "Apologetics", you used the word "apologist". Intentions are all well and good--I could even bring things around in an interesting way and point out that intentions often serve in the matter of a weak apology. As in, "I had no intention to offend you."

But the thing here is that the presence of a blog can be taken to indicate you wish to be considered a writer to some degree. Should a writer be aware of the cultural audience? Do you have awareness of what you write and its potential impact upon each member of your reading public? Do you have awareness of the connotations of words as well as of their denotations?

Let me suggest that one who is concerned with writing should evidence some discipline, and that there are many ways to say things...each way with its own common enough shading. Among readers, a writer can only be defined by the writer's choices of expression. If you did not intend the common enough connotation of "apologist", then you did not make a wise choice. Work on your craft.

And if you did intend the common enough connotation of "apologist", you come across to me as a self-styled objectivist. Let me go further and point out that to me you would come across as more of a "single issue" objectivist. Actually, much of your writing pushes my perception of you in that direction.

 

You need to ratchet up your awareness a bit. Each album on the Pono sales site has an area set aside for commenting...though often enough the comments can be something like, "How come I can't purchase this in Britain?"

Now, do you consider me a "Pono apologist"? An, um, "Pono apologetics" practitioner? Nope, I suggest you consider me a general purpose "objectivist" (albeit in my own fashion--that is, I am fully aware each of us is a complex system...and that Shakespeare had it right in his first folio with: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy") who delights in pointing out the error of your ways as they seemingly reflect your thought processes.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that I consider myself an "objectivist" as it seems to be too often understood around here. And please re-read Grant's comment in #52, Grant knows his stuff.

 

I think it's worth discussing, however, only listening yourself can answer the question.

 

I have no problem paying 10 to 15 dollars more for a well reviewed/great sounding high resolution file as apposed to the crappy MP3 file. And well if you can't hear the difference between 128kbps or 256kbs MP3 and 24/176 high resolution file, well that's your problem and might I suggest a decent audiologist.

 

Agreed.

 

Here's my take on the in car high-res Pono demo Neil did. And how he was able to get the results he did. And how everyone who took that car ride Pono demo probably really did hear a difference.

This isn't based on any inside knowledge. Just my guesses and assumptions. And my owning a PonoPlayer and knowing how it sounds and how its sound is different and special.

My guess is that the comparitor device in Neil's car was something like a big switch box that could switch between MP3, lossless CD quality, and Pono all while playing the same song. The MP3 output was the line-out output from the guts of an iPod. The lossless quality player was the guts of a standard stock car head unit playing a lossless file. The Pono output was the guts of a prototype PonoPlayer playing high-res.

The "trick" is that the obvious sound quality differences are due to the electronics of the player doing the playback. An iPod line out won't sound as good as a car head unit. The car head unit won't sound as good as the PonoPlayer. And there you have the difference.

The PonoPlayer does have a unique and special sound. It is set-back, open, easy to listen to, the speaker positions will disappear, the sound will seem to wash over you. That is very different than the sort of sound you get from an iPod or a car head unit. That difference in sound will be obvious. Especially if Neil is in the car with you saying things like "now notice how the sound has more space" "it's as if the speakers have disappeared" "the sound just washes over you" "listen now as I turn it up loud and how easy it is to listen to at that volume" etc.

And there you have it. Everyone comes out of the car saying the Pono sounds awesome. And they're telling the honest truth. The PonoPlayer really does sound like that.

 

Depends very much on program but for classical I've been enjoying Chandos HD downloads and the cheaper Naxos titles which at Presto go for about £7.80 a pop with PDF booklets are well worth it as it's struggle to get completely quiet surfaces for classical vinyl as much as I love it and some recordings from the late 80's onward just doesn't have vinyl editions.

 

I owned EMM SACD player about 10 years ago for a while. I could hear the obvious difference between CD and SACD when simple music with only a few microphone are used, such as piano solo, string quartet, guitar and vocal etc. are played.

 

I'm curious comparison between PONO and head unit when the same mp3 played back. I guess the difference is still huge.

 

I mainly listen to vinyl at home, and I can't recall the last time I actually read through liner notes beyond a cursory glance, or spent any substantial time studying an album cover.

 

Can I ask why you sold it? (You are talking about emmLabs, right?)

http://www.emmlabs.com/

 

At its best, nothing compares to great hi-res content. So perhaps $2.50 per song, $25 per album is where I place max fair value. Happily, it can often be had for less. As with Doug, I happily pay that because the listening experience is so rewarding.

At its worst, with squashed poorly mastered source material, hi-res is not worth a plug nickel.

I think the labels are missing an opportunity to leverage economies of scale. My sense is that sub $1 prices for quality song files would cause them to fly off the shelves. Who would bother to rip and resell CDs at those prices?

Oh, and the ability to purchase single songs would also be key. I am not ever going to pay $17 or more to purchase an entire album just to get one song I really want. I've done that in the past, but I won't do it any more. Just because the label's business model has been "get the consumer to pay for a bunch of dog sh!t to get one good song" for 40 years, doesn't meant that it's either ethical or viable. IMO, it's dealing in bad faith.

 

Yes, it was a Phillips SACD player modified by EMM. I also had an EMM DA converter at the same time, but I felt their cost performance is low and I was very afraid of devaluation of the expensive digital gears. SACD library was very limited also. The sound was incredibly smooth for digital, though. I use Macbook as a digital source now, and happy enough.

 

Thanks. The Philips turned out to be a bad choice because of optical pickup problems. A bit odd, considering Philips invented the optical reading mechanism for CD.

 

Oh, that's true. I had forgot about it. I was also afraid of the pick up issue. Someone told me it would die sooner or later.

 

They pretty much all did. Alex Peychev (APL) was able to fix them for a while but even he eventually gave up.

 

I'm with you. I rarely read liner notes or appreciate the cover artwork. Yet, some people enjoy these things and I say more power to them. It takes all kinds to keep this vinyl thing alive.

 

Suit yourself but every time I put on hunky dory I gaze long and lovingly into David's eyes. Deep into his beautiful dark pools and his flowing Golden hair.... Wait what sorry?

No I hear what you're saying every time I listen to in search of space I keep telling myself I'm gonna make it through that whole booklet that comes with the album. Still has not happened. But I sleep better at night knowing it's there in the album jacket just waiting for me when i have the inclination.

 

Shhhh! A lot of them are $1. 79 and $1.99. Don't give 'em any ideas!

 

My take is you'll never move anyone to high rez as long as you charge any premium.

Look--you can steal mp3s....hell--you can steal high rez....people who just want to steal can steal. You won't compete with that price. So, now....my entire adult life, albums have cost between $6-14 (if we leave out the silly DVDA/SACD pricing ever brief as it was--learn from it)....so, I think that's the range the market will bare--it has nothing to do with how many audio samples are there or not. Super sale LPs and cassettes were $6....and some super sale mp3/AAC are now....full line "we're proud of it" big buget label stuff might've cost $14 on CD....and is currently $11-13 on iTunes. I would say CD sales hit their peak when big box took over and lowered the asking to $9-12 fairly universally. Horrible long term move by the industry--but, that's an aside to the response to that price drop by the consumers.

Point being--you have this range to work with if you want to have success selling albums. Period. If you need to make people choose....like $7 for AAC and $25 for HD....nearly no one (but me) will buy the HD. If you're thinking you can tack on a dollar....maybe. But, I'd argue long term--it's going to be better for business to make it all the same price. For all the people who will "never in a million years pay more for snake oil HD" (sic)....if you give it to them, they magically will not often CHOOSE to pay the same but only get the AAC files. Do they enjoy that more? Maybe. Do they turn around and go "this is huge and stupid" and make AAC out of it? Who knows? Who cares? Point is--they gave it a shot. Ask them to pay some premium for it--they will decline. I think there are plenty of people who will decline over as little as a dollar premium.

The fact is, we make 24bit 44/48/88/96khz recordings. That's not going to change any time soon. Maybe never. I still have never understood the idea that somehow mastering it for some dumbed down delivery is somehow....worth less money....than doing NOTHING and presenting it as is at it's best as it was made in the studio.

The only cost differential is host/server bandwidth and space. But, there's a cost to doing business. I am spitballing this, but even if it means it cost you 15 cent more to sell a high rez download....I'm thinking in charging $6-13, you can find that. At least until you see how many choose the high rez versus the compressed file to see how to best allocate that. There's no need to jump out with "you have to pay an additional dollar for HD"....let alone the current weirdness with the magical $25 price point.

That's actually funny to me because when SACD and DVD-A came out, they were almost universally $18-25....and they failed miserably. The whole "let's charge more cuz it's premium" is just....not....gonna....work.

 

Not only that, but arguably, when you purchase a digital download, you are purchasing recorded music in its purest form. You aren't purchasing a physical abstraction of the music, you are purchasing the recording itself, only.

 

Well, I like classical music, and I already have a pretty good library (~2500 discs), so now I am buying to expand my tastes and explore new performers. I am willing to pay about 20% more to get HR than a CD would cost me from the cheapest source. I tend to get a lot of stuff from eClassical on their daily 50%-off specials or less frequent "HR for same price as FLAC" sales on new 24-bit releases. I've discovered a lot of wonderful music and fine performances that way.

I doubt such tests will be able to detect recordings converted to analog before upsampling. More to the point, I don't think HD Tracks thinks that's important to their business model.

Jamie, I think you have a point! Anyone who wants to build a sizable library will not do so at high prices.

Finally: Though a higher proportion of my 24/96 purchases have good sound than 44/16, my impression is, it's more in the recording and mastering techniques used than the resolution.

Mike