HD downloads quality

I buy a lot of 24 bit music, please do share the results

This is the graphical report. I still don't understand all the info contained in it, but clearly this is an up sampled file, not 96/24.

Creedence Clearwater Revival ▸ Chronicle_ 20 Greatest Hits: Susie Q.

I will not publish the site where I bought this album in particular, but from the list I gave in a previous post is ease to deduct.

Regards.

Erich

If you see a certain new hi-res album in the French website, you will often see the same album offered by the U.S. website under the newly added section. If each of these companies do their own up sampling, it is too much of a coincidence. If the "hi-res" albums are indeed upsampled, I suspect they are done by the record companies, then distributed to different HD music sites?

+1, the big sites have too much to loose, to try scams and it's too easy to proof.

From a couple of separate well-informed sources, I believe that (at least in some cases) tracks are supplied by the label to the download distributor.

I'm sure that these files are what the industry supplies to the Hi Res music sites, and that the files will be the same regardless of where they are bought from.

I was going to purchase that software Erich, but as I don't have a Mac, and my home PC is still running on XP, I am not able to run it. maybe it's a good thing!

I am very wary of which Hi-Res I buy these days. I even saw recently Red Hot Chilli Peppers available as Hi Res, surely a contradiction in itself in light of what has been written about the compressed nature of Californication...

Unless of course it has been completely re recorded/ remastered from the original analog tapes?! 

Probably not....

I do trust the provenance of Hi Res recordings from Naim label though as I have requested and received statement of confirmation in the past.

Originally Posted by Erich:

 

This is the graphical report. I still don't understand all the info contained in it, but clearly this is an up sampled file, not 96/24.

Creedence Clearwater Revival ▸ Chronicle_ 20 Greatest Hits: Susie Q.

I will not publish the site where I bought this album in particular, but from the list I gave in a previous post is ease to deduct.

 

Regards.

Erich

 

To me this chart shows a potentially valid hidef file, in fact it's one where I suspect 48kHz sample rate sources have been remixed or mastered using a high quality native 96kHz DAW... I think other than for extreme examples, one has to use such tools with care, and know what you are looking for if you are to clearly derive any conclusion from them. 

If I was mixing or mastering 48/24 I would want my output stored as 96/24 if possible.

Simon

Hi Simon,

Not knowing how modern recording takes place, I would have thought that mixing and mastering at 24/48 but then Outputting at 24/96 is upsampling isn't it?

So the provenance is 24/48 and then 48 => 96 is interpolated to fill in the missing detail, right?

And what Erich's screenshot is showing is exactly that.

Wouldn't the engineers start with 24/96 and then output at 24/96 for HiRes, or 'downsample' (if there is such a thing?!) to 24/48 for CD?

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm always keen to learn though

In the end, if it sounds good, we are happy, so the technical part is in the end not so relevant.

But I think the industry needs to do a lot more to explain to non-techies what is behind the Hi Res files to enable people to make informed choices.

If people understand incorrectly and come to the wrong conclusions, the industry will lose its momentum with Hi-Res.

Chris, not neccessarily. If I am providing eq or some sort of effect then there is benefit in doing that after having oversampled the source track sample frequencies   ( similar to why Naim oversampled before filtering). i would want to work at the highest bandwidth possible if I was mixing or mastering. It looks like the the original tracks were in 48/24 which is / was a common recording standard.

Now in this example we see base information upto 24 kHz... so if I was wanting to present this on CD, I would have to down sample. Now if I was presenting on 48/24, I could half my sampling rate (96/24) with minimal or effectively no loss. At 96/24 I might be presenting at my native DAW output or working bandwidth.

So if 48/24 was not available, then 96/24 is my next natural choice. I would not expect to pay for any difference between a 48/24 and 96/24 however unless perhaps I was wanting to remaster.

Simon

The 21kHz filter is clearly evident, the dB line above 21kHz is just oscillation noise not a music signal.  The stereo block indicator looks like mono. 

I think I understand , thanks Simon!

(I did mean 44/16 for CD, not 48/24, so as you say, 48/24 would need to be downsampled for CD output )

Do you think modern recording techniques will move towards a higher starting point now that CD is in decline and it no longer needs to be focused around 44/16?

Or am I just dreaming of / hoping for better recordings to be made in the future?

Chris - almost certainly there will be pressure on higher def recordings - certainly if hidef downloads become a lot more popular. However for much commercial music I suspect one would be hard pushed to tell much benefit above 44.1kHz. I wonder if we might see more 24 bit material; 24 bit tracks do often seem to 'breath' better on the various systems I have tried when compared to 16 bit... and so it will be interesting to see if 44.1/24 and 48/24 become more popular. 

Simon

Surely pressure to "cheat" to provide more "hi-def" recordings too?

Past experience is that the main driver is profit not sound quality, and obviously if you can claim a higher resolution you can also charge a premium price.

Can't disagree with that..

For those interested in MusicScope there is an in depth review a recent edition of the magazine Hi-Fi  World. 

The point is that 24/48 is priced around $15, 24/96 $18 and 24/192 $24.

So in some cases you are paying a premium just for an up sampling process and not for more music info.

If the vendor gives the correct information, buyer can decide to pay or not to pay the premium. But telling just 24/96 is not enough.

Regards.

Erich

I quote the way the site sells their files:

"For comparison, our 88.1kHz/24-bit FLAC files gives you profoundly more musical information, twice the amount found on a CD.

Our 176.4kHz/24-bit FLAC files are virtual clones of the original master recordings, delivering the experience of sitting in the control room of the recording studio."

So, why expect less?

Regards.

Erich

The Linden Tree, Balalaika Favorites, Mercury Living Presence.

In this case the source recording may be was a DSD 64, the hump after 22khz is product of the quantization process.

The quality is good, but even if the file is sold as 24/176.4, the information in it is not what promised.

I would have paid very happy the price for the DSD file.  For sure, I prefer the DSD to the PCMicized audio file.

May be the DSD file is product of the process to "save" some old master tapes from the 50's and 60's. If that were the case the DSD has a value per se for people that had no opportunity to buy the LP but this replica of the saved master.

I have another album from this series. I will check it,  in a few days, to see if it follows the same pattern.  I'm traveling, so I have only part of my library with me.

Regards.

Erich

I think I am correct in saying the Mercury Living Presence tracks were remastered for CD from analogue tape by Mrs Wilma Fine.

Simon

Interesting - I have analyzed Meet Me In London released by Naim in 192/24 and it shows an output that was a little different to that I was expecting  - highlighted in red... i am not suggesting there is anything underhand what so ever, but the tool is quite an eye opener. The spectrum graph showed some unexpected frequency concentrations as well that appeared not related to the music.

Report generated by the MusicScope 1.3.9 - www.xivero.com

File: 02 - Take Five.wav

Audio format: PCM
Bit depth: 24 bit
Sample rate: 192.0 kHz

File Errors:
Chunk Inconsistency: 240280030 / 240280264 Byte

Cut-Off Frequency: 60.7 kHz

TPL Left: -0.5 dB
TPL Right: -0.3 dB
TPL Mid: -0.5 dB
TPL Side: -4.4 dB
RMS Left: -18.5 dB
RMS Right: -17.3 dB
RMS Mid: -19.1 dB
RMS Side: -23.9 dB
CREST Avg.: 9.5 dB
IS L/M: 0
IS R/S: 0

Max. M-Loudness: -8.8 dB
Max. S-Loudness: -10.5 dB
Integrated Loudness: -14.9 dB
Loudness Range: 11.5 dB
PLR Avg.: 7.5 dB

Simon,

Two of those concentrations are periodical: 22.4 - 44.8 and 23.6 - 47.2 also curiously an important concentration around  48k. The MusicScope manual describe those concentrations as distortions.

Introduced by the recording devices?

Other tracks in the same album contain the same concentrations plus others. Note the track Caruso. A strong concentration close to 28k but not in the beginning of the track.  I'm not with my best equipment right now, but I don't remember anything "strange" listening to this album. On the contrary, I remember it as a good quality one.

Regards.

Erich

This is ????   I get full signal data stream up to 96kHz

Something to delve into - in the morning

There is a good 5 years worth of posts, and literally thousands of them, on the well-known music forum sponsored by Steve Hoffman, dealing with these exact issues.  If anyone is THAT interested, it might be worth trying to slog through it there. 

I am loosing the point here. Isn't it all about good sounding recordings and enjoyable music. Regardless of the fact if it high res, normal or super high res, some albums sound very good others not so good. In general I would say that the high res albums have more smoothness while there also great red book albums. 

So as the chance of better sounding is higher with high res I buy high res if available. I am afterwards not interested to proof it's good or not so good - I just like it or not that's what counts.