When HD is a bit pointless

There is a lot of bad quality stuff out there which doesn't give you something. So as with everything, just be careful with what you buy. While I have a lot of pleasant surprises with high res music which enhances the listening experience.

The other time it's pointless is when it's simply up-scaled redbook data.

Like virtually everything is in the Pono store

Unfortunatly, this is happening a lot. I have fallen for such a scam when buying Donny Hathatways album 'In Performance' from HD Tracks.

I buy almost all albums now at Qobuz. I study the information supplied with an album to see if it is a genuine conversion from the master to a 24 bit file. Noel Gallaghers new album sounds really nice in 24 bit, the soundstage is so much clearer and the separation of instruments is much better when compared to a down sampled 16 bit 44.1khz of that same file (I have done so to find out if my ears are not hearing something they like to hear since the 24 bit version is 50% more expensive than the cd quality file).

Some labels you can trust, like Channel Classics. The Mahler cycle of Iván Fischer and The Budapest Festival Orchestra is turning out to be delightful and with quite a different sound than what we are used to with western orchestras. And the recordings are examplarary.

Any tips on how & where to find the info on this,  ????

I do the same but have yet to find one place that has all the info

You say you buy mostly from Qobuz,  have you tried HighResAudio in both Germany & Japan ??   They are price competitive & have a growing selection of DSD - which I sort of trust more to be high res masters

I buy quite a bit of my HR stuff from HiRes Audio, based in Germany.  They have a statement on the site guaranteeing that all of their files are genuine 24 bit masters; no up-sampling.

Having said that, as always, it comes down to how well the original has been mastered which remains infuriatingly difficult to tell when listening to samples.

I will say that their download of 'Rumours' is utterly captivating and should be what HR is all about - but as we all know, often isn't.

Cheers,

Ian

Perhaps this thread is intended solely for streaming downloads and I have no experience with those, but as for comparing redbook CDs to HDCDs the difference is substantial to me. I have a lot of HDCDs and in some cases can compare them to their prior redbook issues (e.g., Tom Petty, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, The Cars). I can't speak to how the mastering was done in each case, but to me the results of the HDCDs are always a considerable sonic upgrade versus the original redbook issues.

It's a shame HD downloads aren't as cut and dry. For the money they certainly should be.

I guess it's arguable whether HDCD is true HD.. The sample frequency is still 44.1kHz and tiny control signals are inserted into the non linear audio signal to low level signal compand and peak compand to provide the equivalent of a 20 bit dynamic range through processing the source non linear PCM.

i suspect more of the benefit I hear in many HDCDs is from the care produced in the master rather through the non linear PCM expansion itself. I have some HDCD tracks / CDs where there is little impact, and if you analyze the audio there are very few control signals.

With true HD, if there is care taken in the master,  I find there can be a worthwhile benefit but I tend to limit such HD recordings to classical and old jazz tape transfers where the HD version usually seems to breath a little easier and more low level information can appear in the stereo image making it sound more life like. But I agree masterings can be a lottery.

Simon

MMM is a joke/artistic statement by Lou Reed. There is no music whatsoever on the album, just endless loud mechanical noise.

Qobuz reports it as a '24 bit studio master quality guarantee'. (translated from Dutch)

And then there is the provocative question (by Goldmund - not me ):

Does High Resolution Audio Sound Better?

http://www.goldmund.com/en/tec...n-audio-sound-better

There's an interesting White Paper at the bottom of the linked page to download and read...

Discover yourself: take a high res file. Use an audio converter like XLD or dbPoweramp or anything else. Make a 320 KBPS MP3 or AAC file and a CD quality (16 bit, 44.1khz) file from it. Listen to them in different orders, let someone else do the selection for you or whatever your preferred method. Your ears will tell you if you can hear the difference or not.

Goede Dag jmtennapel, Yes I do look at the high res download stores promises of quality. I was hoping for some tips on more independent music reviews. My problem is I tend to be a bit sceptical about these promises from places like Qobuz, HDT & others, like all marketing statements they are all trying to convinced us that they & not the others are the best and/or justify their pricing.

I don't believe the statement about 24bit masters as the master was probably not made in that format anyhow, OK their in-house master file is probably 24bit, but what the history upstream from that ….... My concern is about the various versions of the same album that are on sale. Re-issues of old albums are most risky, 2003 release, 2012 anniversary release, deluxe edition, etc, Checking some of the www music & audio forums & especially those that are concerned about both the music itself as well as the recording & mastering technicalities, it is frequently found 24/?? from seller A has a different dynamic & frequency extension to seller B, and/or the re-master from seller A is not the same mix as seller B …... it all seems to be a bit of a lottery.  

Mike, the quality of the mastering process is of course key. But 24 bit remasters of original tapes is a very different ballgame than 24 bit upsampled rates.

what is more difficult though is that a lot of the masters have been wrecked by the loudness wars. Some old cd masters from the 80s and 90s sound a lot better. However, recently a lot of remasters have been made of high profile albums that restore the more natural dynamics. And of course, different people feel different about a particular master, so there is no such thing as a clear recommendation.

Indeed jmtennapel,  but I like to first get some assurance from somewhere that a 24bit is genuine & not upsampled & that it does infact extend out to something like 48kHz.  If I'm paying the price of high res audio, I expect it to be so.  That at least is my starting point.  

I have quite a few HDCDs and all of them sound considerably better than my red book CDs.

And several SACD which I have sound even better, just in a different way though.

I am always puzzled with why certain formats which are clearly superior do not cut it while inferior stuff takes over.  I am yet to hear a hi-def hi-res recording that sounds better than some of my SACDs.

Bobby

Do all the releases that you are comparing come from the same mastering?

if not or if you don't know, you are probably comparing different masterings and not different formats.

Apples and Pears.

No, not really.  But if all of my few dozen SACDs sound better than any of my few hundred hidef downloads then it tells something.

Bobby

Your SACD player is better than your streamer?

SJB

You like SACD sound better than PCM sound?

All of your high res PCM files are made of non high res source material?

They're produced from better masters?

So is the message here that with HDCDs and SACDs there is dedicated mastering to the format, whereas with HD downloads it's a crapshoot as to whether you're just getting upscaled redbook data or something better? Seems the industry is being purposely cryptic about the specifics regarding downloads.

I think it is not done specifically for the format, but I do think that those formats are geared towards more audiophile public and therefore more attention has been paid to a quality type mastering.

The same was also done with the Redbook CD's from AudioWave where they hired a very good mastering engineer (Alan Yoshida) to create exceptional releases of old jazz records. These are still 'just' redbook but better than many highres, sacd or other rbcd releases. And that is all down to the mastering engineer.

Nowadays Highres PCM is a hype and many of the labels are just dumping their old masterings (sometimes masters specifically made for vinyl ) into highres containers and sell them at a premium. I would say a relatively small proportion (and that would be the more modern releases) are true highres productions where they started with highres gear and software from the beginning of the recording sessions, trough mastering to production.

I also think that one can prefer the sound of SACD over the sound of PCM, as I feel they do sound differently. Some people prefer vinyl over digital, so why not SACD over PCM as there are technological differences between the two formats.

Having done the brief course on audio engineering offered by Futurelearn (internet based learning) makes me acutely aware of the influence the engineer has on what we consumers of music eventually hear from our audio systems, so I agree with you totally Aleg.

Some CD's sound superb (just listen to London Grammar - If You Wait) and other sound dull and lifeless and even distorted.
I imagine some HD recordings will vary as much.

Buy the music because you enjoy the music, not because you seek possibly "higher quality". Finding music you enjoy AND is well engineered, is sadly hit and miss.