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

Most likely no. It means that the album tracked and mixed in 48kHz but the mastering engineer ran the tracks through his analog gear and recaptured it at 96kHz through his converters. It’s a pretty common thing to do actually.

Upsampled would imply that the tracks are simply sample rate converted in a computer.

 

FYI only:

Florida 2019: MQA Makes More Progress

 

Possibly but one should always explore conflicting opinions.

 

I thought so too but it doesn't seem to be going away.

 

Has anyone tried the John Denver's greatest hits from HdTracks? Lots of guilty pleasure tracks on there for me and was wondering if it was worth an HDdrop?

 

Unfortunately, there is silence added at many track breaks, whereas most (if not all) of the tracks on this album should run seamlessly together. This requires the use of an audio editing program to fix.

 

Thanks!

 

I need to go home and check this out. I don’t remember this.

I hace both the cd and the HD Tracks. Do you know if they both do that?

 

CD is good, IIRC.

 

THIS WEEK on HDtracks...

Steve Miller Band - Living In The 20th Century
Neil Young - Dead Man (Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture)
Buckcherry - Warpaint
Various Artists - Joni 75: A Joni Mitchell Birthday Celebration

plus much much more...

Whitesnake
SMB - Born 2B Blue

 

I'm not a slave to DR numbers, but these are not encouraging; lots of DR4. Ugh. The vinyl sounds nice though.

DR4 5:42 01-This Land
DR4 4:30 02-What About Us
DR4 5:11 03-I Got My Eyes on You (Locked & Loaded)
DR5 3:44 04-I Walk Alone
DR5 3:34 05-Feelin' Like a Million
DR5 3:04 06-Gotta Get Into Something
DR8 Got to Get Up
DR5 4:46 08-Feed the Babies
DR5 5:06 09-Pearl Cadillac
DR4 3:49 10-When I'm Gone
DR6 4:27 11-The Guitar Man
DR4 4:18 12-Low Down Rolling Stone
DR8 2:21 13-The Governor
DR4 4:06 14-Don't Wait Til Tomorrow
DR8 5:04 15-Dirty Dishes Blues
DR6 3:32 16-Highway 71 (Bonus Track)
DR9 6:42 17-Did Dat (Bonus Track)

 

That looks really bad

 

THIS WEEK on HDtracks...

Steve Miller Band - 2 albums (Bingo! & Wide River)
Snarky Puppy - Immigrance
Hans Zimmer - The World of Hans Zimmer - A Symphonic Celebration (Live)

plus much much more....

 

ProStudioMasters has many of Chaka Khan's solo albums.

 

Are there any current codes?

 

Hdtracks:

20% OFF NEW RELEASES
HDMARCH15

==============================

U2
Van Morrison
Enya
Hozier
Damien Rice
Flogging Molly
Dropkick Murphys


20% OFF IRISH MUSIC AND ARTISTS WITH CODE
HDMARCH15

Irish Music sale | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads


============================

20% off all Isabelle Faust catalog**
No code Needed.


**Expires 03/31/2019 11:59PM EST
† Offer precludes Isabelle Faust newest release, " J.S. Bach: Violin Concertos"
Discount cannot be applied to prior orders. Code can be used multiple time-

===================================
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Prostudiomasters:

ENJOY 15% OFF

ENTER CODE FOREVER  AT CHECKOUT

* Applies to regularly priced albums site-wide.
Expires Monday, March 18, 2019 at 11:59 PM Pacific


30% OFF
CHAKA KHAN
Select albums with Chaka Khan are discounted for a limited time.
No promo code necessary at checkout.

30% OFF
DAVID BOWIE
Select albums by David Bowie are discounted for a limited time.
No promo code necessary at checkout.

 

where is Damian Rice on HDTracks? I cannot find anything from him via the site's search function.

 

Maybe try DamiEn Rice: My Favourite Faded Fantasy

 

HDtracks:


25% OFF STOREWIDE* FOR TWO OR MORE ALBUMS WITH CODE
BIRTHDAY11


*Expires 03/21/2019 11:59PM EST
Discount cannot be applied to prior orders. Code can be used multiple times.

 

Now is a great time to grab those titles you know you want.

 

Any opinions regarding Disturbed's albums (Ten Thousand Fists, Indestructible, etc) on HDtracks? The vinyl releases appear to be consistently more dynamic than the CDs, but I don't do vinyl, so I was wondering if that carried over into the high-res releases.

 

I'm interested in purchasing Thriller by Michael Jackson on HDtracks before the sale ends tomorrow (March 21), and I'm trying to figure out which format makes the most sense. I usually purchase 96/24 FLAC downloads with a handful of exceptions where I purchased 192/24 FLAC for all-time favorite albums (which I probably consider Thriller to be for me).

For Thriller, the download options for the FLAC format are 88/24, 176/24, and DSD 2.8MHz. Can someone explain the considerations to make when choosing between these formats? I assume 176/24 is superior to 88/24 (at least in theory), but what about the DSD 2.8MHz? I think I heard that if one's DAC can decode DSD then DSD would sound better, but if the DAC cannot and needs to convert DSD to PCM, then the PCM is the way to go. Is it as simple as that? Anything else I need to consider when choosing between these formats?

 

I would say yes, it's that simple. Since you say PCM formats are 176/24 and 88/24 it usually refers to them being obtained by conversion from DSD. If you have DSD support in your device then it's the best way to get it. Otherwise as you mentioned DSD will be converted to PCM and here we have a little question - does your DAC convert it great on hardware level or you'd better just use studio converted 24 bit variants?

 

I'd recommend getting either PCM version, since PCM is more widely-supported by a broader array of devices, and I'm not entirely certain DSD support will still be around in a decade. If you're running thru a receiver, it's likely converting DSD to PCM anyhow in order to run any signal processing.

These are obvious DSD conversions given those sample rates. Presumably version of Thriller comes from the original SACD master made quite a few years ago, which is highly-regarded.

 

I’d suggest getting the DSD if your DAC supports it. It is simple to convert the DSD to PCM in Foobar 2000 with the SACD plugin to 176 and/or 88. Then you have however you want.