What was the last download/hi-res you bought?

Helge Lien Trio - I have the CD and vinyl of this but thought I would try the hi-res version - close call. Bought from Linn Music website - too expensive IMHO at £18. I would not pay that other than in this case I was experimenting with the nDac.

Pain in the neck this download lark.

I could have driven to brighton and back by now and picked up 20 CD's. PT still downloading.

Show-off, you gonna be on your own for a while.

quote:

Originally posted by MilesSmiles:
you gonna be on your own for a while.

Someone must be buying downloads - I thought they were the way forward?

quote:

Someone must be buying downloads - I thought they were the way forward?

I'm happy to snaffle up dirt cheap CDs, while I wait for hi-res streaming services to mature (on Spotify's radar, according to the latest issue of Hi Fi Choice).

quote:

Originally posted by droodzilla:

quote:

Someone must be buying downloads - I thought they were the way forward?

I'm happy to snaffle up dirt cheap CDs, while I wait for hi-res streaming services to mature (on Spotify's radar, according to the latest issue of Hi Fi Choice).

I am just playing at the moment. I have been borrowing an nDac and quite enjoying it now - I like the flexibility of it. I have even been streaming spotify on my iphone into the dac and it is ok.

I will be waiting for it all to sort itself out and I hope that a decent selection of hi-res music will become available soon - if not, then maybe it will not be a journey worth taking.

I'll help you a bit:














If they keep offering true 96/24 or better recordings on sufficient artists it should take off.

-
aleg

Some nice stuff there Aleg. I have the two Mozarts on CD. I might try a download to compare.

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:
Some nice stuff there Aleg. I have the two Mozarts on CD. I might try a download to compare.

I'm especially very fond of the two albums from Stile Antico, though one of them is no longer available as High-Res download.

Pizarro's Ravel albums are also very beautiful recordings.

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aleg

A bunch of stuff from Naim and Linn, and then the B&W music club

The Dunedin choral stuff from Linn is very good

I haven't indulged in any shameless self-promotion lately, so this thread provides the perfect excuse.

I unabashedly recommend my own album, Since Forever, right on this here Naim label, as a hi-res download ... it was recorded 96/24, and hearing it on recording engineer's Ken Christianson's home system was a profound revelation for my ears and emotions, even if I had made the music myself.

Fred

Heck I'll probably give it a go since I just registered with the Naim label and downloaded William Fitzsimmons' The Sparrow And the Crow. Very good it is too.

Bruce

Is that in hi-res? Excellent album, although when SWMBO first saw the cover, she said 'oh no, not more depressing music'
Changed her view since though..

My recent downloads have been...



Rebecka Törnqvist - The Cherry Blossom And The Skyline Rising From The Street

Rebecka & Sara Isaksson created the wonderful Fire In The Hole, for those that remember.

Also...



Thomas Dolby - The Amerikana EP (purchase details here)

This is the first of 3 download EP's, before the full release of the album A Map of the Floating City.

Denis

quote:

Originally posted by Nero:
Is that in hi-res? Excellent album, although when SWMBO first saw the cover, she said 'oh no, not more depressing music'
Changed her view since though..

No it was CD-quality 'only', although it sounds good as a FLAC from a USB drive in the HDX. I bought it and started playing it to my wife and then realised the subject matter was not ideal for our 20th wedding anniversary!

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:

Fred

Heck I'll probably give it a go since I just registered with the Naim label ...

Thanks, Bruce! Hope you dig it. Play it loud!

All best,
Fred

Porcupine Tree XM

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:

Someone must be buying downloads - I thought they were the way forward?

They are - everyone's still trying to get their hardware to work properly..

I do think it is questionable at the moment as to whether audiophile downloading is really going to take off. Record companies do not seem too interested and labels that do seem interested want to charge a lot more than the CD version. I would have thought the fact that they do not need to manufacture a physical product would encourage them to offer hi-res at like prices.

Anyway, I gave my support to this chap and his fine album available from here http://music.stevelawson.net/

From Linn Records:

Maeve O'Boyle, All My Sins
Sarah Moule, A Lazy Kind of Love
Sarah Moule, It's a Nice Thought
Claire Martin, A Modern Art
Claire Martin, He never mentioned love

From Naim Label:

Gwyneth Herbert, All The Ghosts

From HD Tracks:

Diana Krall, From This Moment On
Diana Krall, Quiet Nights

B&W Society of Sound:

Gwyneth Herbert, Ten Lives
Julianna Raye, Dominoes

They're all great, but Maeve O'Boyle's "All My Sins" is my favourite.

-- Daniel

..was my last download purchase: not hi-res.

Hi-res availability is still so patchy, so I purposely avoid visiting hires online stores because I find myself drawn to music simply because it's hires, not because it's what I think will interest me artistically. I acknowledge that if hires is ever going to become widely available, it'll require lots of people like me to start spending money on it, but my slope is slippery--I dispair at myself for frequently choosing to listen to music because it sounds good, not because it is good.

For me its a catch 22 situation, I don't have the ability to play Hi-Res files but its the one thing that would get me to buy downloads so if there were sufficient Hi-Res music to buy of artists I like I would invest in a good sound card and Dac but there's the rub, one needs to buy Hi-Res downloads to make companies see there is a market. I wonder how many others are in the same boat, the mainstream does not care simply because there is very little difference between MP3, WAV & Hi-Res on a set of small ear buds or a cheap midi system so I wonder if we will ever get a good source of Hi-Res music someone with a lot of money needs to take a gamble and set up a Hi-Res music site and what a gamble that would be.



Dean...

Not quite sure where I heard it, but one of the record company executives thought that sharing hi-rez downloads was a bad idea because they are master tape quality, and they thought that it made bootlegging of albums easy. They lost control of the high quality source.

Nice to see the usual attitude of these people when it comes to making the best quality product available to their audience.

The one thing that might change, is if they see it as a way to sell the same big selling albums to people yet again in a different format once they have exhausted 'remasters' and 25-40th anniversary editions, etc.

Just in contrast Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor bit torrented for free three full concerts from the 2008 tour at 24bit/96Khz quality, as well as lower resolutions. I think he did the same for some download releases after that too.

Autechre - Oversteps
24/44 download from Bleep.com

The Naim DAC seems like it was specifically was made for music like this. Insane timing.