News : HD Tracks to open for UK April 2014

I was really pleased to read about this. 

This really is excellent news, this is just what is needed, it will certainly make my life easier when telling my customers how great Naim streamers are, especially when playing some well mastered 24 bit, then you get the question, where can I get 24 bit from? Doh, then the whole thing falls a part due to lack of available content in the UK, sounds like this is all about to change, excellent news.

Surely must be great News for Naim also as it has got to help sell more streamers.

Great news indeed!

Hopefully another player in the market will create some competition and bring prices down a bit. 

Very good news indeed. My only concern is provenance. There's all kinds of stories floating around regarding HD Tracks, which makes me slightly cautious.

There's also a lot of talk regarding the condition of some well-loved recordings, some so neglected, others misplaced. Let's hope too much hasn't been lost and we can finally start to enjoy them in much higher quality once available.

Of course then there's the mastering...

I'm hoping, like others, that this opens the door to other competitors who will be a little more transparent about the recordings.

Then comes the argument about PCM and DSD.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't jumped in to protect their precious eco-system. ALAC downloads would of been a good start. I'm sure somebody in Cupertino is thinking about this stuff, but seems like they're sleeping a little.

Either way it's all sounding very promising.

Is this marketing over fact? I guess it remains to be seen and we’ll know soon enough. I hope it will offer more scope to us and not be a kind of optical illusion.

Why the cynicism?

HDT do not make some titles available for some regions because the labels have imposed regional restrictions. Will HDT with a co.uk domain automatically be able to make these albums available, or will the UK catalogue simply reflect the limited availability of titles in the UK?

What will they charge? I predict a purchase price which does not mirror the equivalent dollar price. We might be into a situation where you can buy something for either $15 or £15.

Rolling out a UK version of a .com website, where the latter already has access restrictions for non UK available material strikes me as incongruous. But I don’t know the full facts. So let’s keep fingers crossed.

Page under construction notice when I last tried to visit.

Come on, HD Tracks UK.

Having missed the first quarter of 2014 launch date it all seems to have gone very quiet.

Dave

It probably will be something like that.

i noticed that ECM album cost US$ 21 on HDTracks whereas in european webstores they are €21.

So it will probably be a change of currency symbol only (which makes it worthwhile to keep buying in the USA)

Indeed it does. Assuming they do something so lazy and cynical. Which of course they will.

So far I have seen that it does make a lot of sense to shop around between the different options for download HD content and also normal content. Per album the picture can change. So I very often scan between the sites to ensure that I select the right one - price differences can go up to sometimes over 5 euros per album.

The 3 HDTracks albums I downloaded recently were priced $US17.98 each, about £GB11.20, which I thought pretty good value for 96/24 downloads. What chance it will continue when the rest of the store becomes available in the UK.

Dave

Too true, dave4jazz and Aleg. Pound, Dollar, Euro, conspiracy, maybe, HD Tracks is too complicated for me. I will review past entries, on this subject. In the meantime, can anyone get me into HD Tracks real quick. I grow tiered of waiting, and I am despairing re the music industry.

JeremyB explained it here 

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...95#35920103514800295

Thanks, Aleg, love your avatar, ? cat lover, like us, or do you just want to look sinister.

A true cat lover Dave. Burmilla is my breed.

Dave

i don't go into the nitty gritty details of legality.

you are doing something they don't want you to do.

i see it like buying something in the US, have it delivered to a US address and then have it forwarded to my address. Just like using forwarding services as BorderLinx for physical products. Producers don't want it but these companies offer it and it is allowed/condoned.

Your finger tapping Bumilla? Is superb. Nearest  I ever had was a lovelyt toe eating British Blue.

We've got cats and rats in this neighbourhood, now.

It is legal so far as copyright and artists rights go. It's the labels who want us to think that distribution deals somehow bind punters, who are actually entitled to buy any material they want, anywhere in the world. The area downloads miss is buyer's import tax, local duty etc. For people who bring music across borders or buy via post there is no option I am aware of to volunteer to pay UK purchase tax due, so HM Revenue and Customs dip in and surcharge at random. So for the UK, HDT will be collecting the VAT. Which is fair enough. If I buy something while abroad or from overseas by post, I may or may not get taxed. I'm not evading tax if HMRC don't ask me for it. Downloads exploit this loophole 100% and HDT UK will address it 100%. If I can buy something cheaper from the US I will continue to do, until there is legislation which says it is illegal for me to do so. Record distribution deals, rather like DVD and BD regional coding don't count. They're not statute law for end users.

Thanks Harry. I hate Vatman, maybe that's why, my DAC V1, is on my old  50's walnut inland revenue desk?

The fingertapper is not a Burmilla.

this is one of my two burmillas