Hi-Res Download News (HDTracks, ProStudioMasters, Pono, etc.) & Software/Mastering Part 12**

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Gary, May 9, 2015.

  1. Soundslave

    Soundslave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tomsk,Russia
    I was mistaken on that since I have 24-96 haha) Looks like HDtracks changed it to 24-44 at some point.
     
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  2. robertawillisjr

    robertawillisjr Music Lover

    Location:
    Hampton, VA
    HiRes downloads had promise when I first started this thread 12 iterations ago but it feels as though it is dying now. A few gems here and then but mostly poorly mastered issues now.
     
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  3. kippyy

    kippyy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oakland,CA,USA
    I agree. Why would I spend twice as much to purchase a new album in hi-res when I can get the same or better mastering buying the CD. I was an early adopter of hi Rez downloads and many of the initial offerings such as Stevie Wonder,Elton John, Fleetwood Mac were significant improvements over Redbook.
    If the companies were confident in the quality of their product, why not allow customers to download one song prior to purchasing an entire album, as was done when HD tracks first opened for business?
     
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  4. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    I'm buying a few new recording releases in hi-res now because some 0f them come out simultaneously with the discs. In these cases they have the same mastering, but at higher resolution. They sound a little better than corresponding CDs and don't take up more physical space, which I'm running out of anyway. Miss the booklets, though. Archive releases that offer any improvement are slowing to a trickle, unfortunately, but hey, I have my library of LPs and CDs. If I buy less stuff nowadays, that's OK with me.
     
  5. Terry

    Terry Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee
    I believe I am the thread starter, all those 12 parts ago, and must admit that I have not downloaded anything from HDTracks for close to a year.
     
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  6. Bytor Snowdog

    Bytor Snowdog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    I think its hard to be precise unless we narrow what we are talking about. Lumping all hi-res downloads into one discussion makes it hard to get to the real reasons behind the scenes because they differ in different cases.

    For instance, a hi-res remaster of a 70's classic rock release and a brand newly recorded release may have far different reasons for sounding bad.

    Another point is its easier to be critical of a mastering that has had 3-4 versions already released in hi-res than a case where its the first hi-res release.

    But in the grand scheme of things, it has always seemed that audio quality varied considerably, especially across formats. In the vinyl days, there was good and bad sounding releases. In the CD days, ditto. In the hi-res era, ditto. While audiophiles (and others) had the built in expectation that the hi-res format would be and should be for definitive version releases of said material only, for the industry, it wasn't much different than when cassette starting replacing 8-track. Sure, cassette was the superior format. Sure everything that preexisted on 8-track should sound better on its cassette format counterpart, but did it? It seemed to me some cassettes sounded pretty good, and others terrible. Just like before.

    To me, hi-res does, and probably always will fall into this same result. Good ones, bad ones. Periods where the product seems to improve or regress. And the same formula exists now as before in finding the better re-masterings/re-mixed versions. Find out who the mastering engineer was.

    There has been some write ups asking the question whether hi-res will even survive as a format. But there might be hope. As portable digital storage gets bigger and bigger and cheaper and cheaper, the size of hi-res files stays the same. The day will come when its cheap to carry around 50TB. My entire audio library would fit on 10TB in hi-res probably. When you can carry around your entire listening library in hi-res, what will be the point of mp3 or 16/44? At that point, why would anything be released on anything else? (except of course collectors and such). And then maybe imagine a day where everything audio is released on the same format (hi-res). Wouldn't that be novel?

    At the end of the day, I share many of your sentiments. While I had early hopes of it being something special, I have come not to expect it to be.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2017
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  7. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    It's too digital sounding because a) It's an old 44/16 transfer and b) the digital reverb they bathed it in. I don't recall ever hearing an explanation for why they didn't retransfer the tapes at hi-res instead of using the decades old 44/16 transfer. So I don't know if the tapes were lost, damaged, no longer in their possession or they just didn't feel like it.

    I got my download from before they changed it to 44/24. This is one of those times where they should've just left the 96/24 download even if it was sourced from 44/16. That's because even though the only info above 20khz is from newly added reverb, it was mixed and mastered in hi-res. So to offer it at 44/24 means an extra processing step. I don't like this practice. If the thing is mastered (and in this case mixed) in hi-res, then I'd like it offered in hi-res instead of with further processing. Of course, a note clearly pointing out the linage should be included (and in the case of this recording, it was).
     
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  8. NYMets41

    NYMets41 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Anyone have an opinion on Bob Dylan's "Oh Mercy" on DSD?

    I love the album and I am wondering if there is a noticeable difference going from the FLAC download to the DSD 64 that Acoustic offers....

    thanks.
     
  9. DR.J

    DR.J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago Suburb
    I saw Dee Dee Bridgewater's new CD, "Memphis...Yes, I'm Ready" on the HDTracks new release list. Figured why wast $17 when I can get the CD for $10. The CD is a DR of 7 for a JAZZ release. Ahhhh!!! Glade I didn't wast my money, like I wold have in the past, buying the HDtracks version! Why oh why?
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  10. NYMets41

    NYMets41 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    as someone new to hi res, is DSD 64 preferable to 24 bit 96?
     
  11. Simon A

    Simon A Arrr!

    If your set-up allows you to play DSD 64, yes as the resolution is much higher. I have purchased DSD64 downloads from NativeDSD and the sound is on par with SACD quality. They also have great prices and excellent customer service. You can also purchase individual tracks if you do not wish to purchase the complete album, which is what we wish all other digital vendors would offer.

    Here is a little information.
     
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  12. 16/44.1

    16/44.1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Nope!!!
    The resolution is less than 24/96.
    The noiseshaping starts around 20kHz and you can see the noiseshaping around 35kHz when there's music.
    At around 40kHz the level is around -90dBFS and rising.
    For playback i prefere 24/88.2 or 96kHz.
    Recording is case by case.
     
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  13. 16/44.1

    16/44.1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2017
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  14. Bytor Snowdog

    Bytor Snowdog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    DSD vs. PCM: Myth vs. Truth
     
  15. Simon A

    Simon A Arrr!

    My most sincere apologies for having been wrong in my assumption. In the future, I will refrain from offering opinions based on shameful lies.
     
    Jaap74 likes this.
  16. Bytor Snowdog

    Bytor Snowdog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    What's better 24 bit 96 kHz or DSD 2.8 Mhz? (from here)

    As mentioned, they are so different it is almost pointless to compare. PCM with its lower sampling rates can at least formulate any sample irrespective of the last sample. DSD's sampling rate is a bit of marketing blurring of the truth. Yes it may be 2.8MHz but each sample can only go up or down by 1 bit. So it takes many samples to "travel" to a different place where PCM takes just 1. That means DSD needs quantizing to formulate a variable curve pitch sine wave. However even with that in place, the effective resolution is still higher than PCM but some considerable work is required on the part of the DAC and how good the quantizing is done dictates whether this introduces audible noise or not.

    I have some music that is on both 192/24 and DSD64 and, using a non Naim streamer (Denon DBT-3313UD) that has native DSD support (since Naim uses DSP to transcode DSD as PCM), I can definately hear a difference. But I cannot tell which is better. At least on the streamer I used for the test, DSD appeared more sparkly and detailed but PCM sounded more like music.

    I think a more important question is, which format is easiest to play on all your devices? Since my UQ2 doesn't handle DSD, nor the streamer in the bedroom, I am not likely to go for a format that is restricted to the main system in the lounge or start building dual streams of music collection. Though it is possible I suppose to setup 2 UPnP servers like Asset with different names where one transcodes DSD and the other doesn't; seems like a lot of kerfuffle rendering the topic moot.

    This describes about what I hear when I compare the two also.
     
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  17. 16/44.1

    16/44.1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
  18. Bytor Snowdog

    Bytor Snowdog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    I am not sure what the truth is. But I wanted to point out that opinions vary on the subject. But how each sounds on your particular setup should be the litmus test.
     
  19. Soundslave

    Soundslave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tomsk,Russia
    Yeah, I mean as a Doors fan I still like the recording and I'd read Botnick's notes for the release. and I saw that most of those higher resolution came more from the ambience and audience. Just a bit too clean sounding to what I was expecting from a live recording but the performance itself still has that Doors magic to it, that's good for me. And that's why I found it strange that they at some point decided to downsample the original offer, totally agree on that.
     
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  20. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    Do you recall if his notes explain why they used the 80s digital transfer of the multis?
     
  21. Soundslave

    Soundslave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tomsk,Russia
    The info I'm referring to is still available at HDtracks:
    So from what I can evaluate Bruce or management decided to digitally edit Digital Multitrack to make a final audio product for the video. That's why probably they didn't consider to make another digital transfer from the original tape.
     
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  22. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    His explanation doesn't make sense to me as to explain why they didn't re-transfer from the original tape. Other than it would've been more work. The overdubs weren't used in this mix, so that shouldn't have played any part in the decision. Plenty of projects like this have returned to the original tapes and required re-syncing to the film (and patching from other sources, if needed). If the tape wasn't damaged or lost, it's a real shame they didn't retransfer it. His last statement about it being "truly a HD 96k mix" is simply not accurate. Anything can be mixed at any resolution, but it doesn't make the recording truly that resolution.
     
    Soundslave likes this.
  23. robertawillisjr

    robertawillisjr Music Lover

    Location:
    Hampton, VA
    Sorry, but I started this one. I think you are thinking about the one discussing the quality of the downloads. We can look it up just in case.
     
  24. robertawillisjr

    robertawillisjr Music Lover

    Location:
    Hampton, VA
    HDTracks News
     
  25. NYMets41

    NYMets41 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I am using Chord Hugo 2 DAC. My opinion is subjective...

    I found that the 24 bit 96 was fantastic but the DSD seemed more "open" and even greater in detail, but again, it is so subjective that I have sought the opinion of others.
     

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