A revolution underway?

Just listened to various tracks from HD Tracks (96/24 & 192/24) burned to CD (obviously at redbook resolution.

Impressions?

My CDX2 sounds better than anything the MacBook/Rega can accomplish, even limited to 44.1/16.

Carly Simon's You're So Vain sounds bright, relative to a lot of other music, but much more enjoyable than via the computer playback.

The Eagles sound amazing as always.

The sleeper here is Chicago II. Sounding better than anything I've heard before, including vinyl. The bass is tremendous.

Well done HD Tracks and Warner.

Dave

A big move in the right direction. The initial serving is indeed tasty although nothing in there for me.  My Friday evenings are likely to become more interesting in due course.

I have found (in the UK) that if I attempt to pay by CC HD Tracks will loop me and park me. But if I use my PayPal account all goes through. Not to sound snotty - I wouldn't send my best mates copies of Hi Res files or any other copyrighted music for that matter. And neither would they to me. We understand these things and whilst none of us have any time for the arrogant, greedy and stupid (in the main) music industry we won't rob the artists. It's just not the done thing. So we and I suspect many thousands like us are being punished for the sins of others. Well, I guess that's consumerism for you.

Harry, you've covered some important points.

I talk to a lot of kids, and they see nothing wrong with getting everything for free from the internet. They haven't a clue.

I pay for everything I own, it's the right thing to do, and musicians deserve to be paid every time their music is sold. Besides, I'm superstitious and believe in karma, and I think what goes around comes around.

Warner has broken the ice, to some degree, and I hope in time the other labels follow.

Hi-res isn't everything. I've purchased albums online that are redbook and they sound fantastic. In fact, I still can't figure out how Donald Fagen could make Morph The Cat sound so good even as an mp3 purchased from iTunes.

On another 'music' front, I was listening to an interesting broadcast with Chris Connaker, the founder of Computer Audiophile. He mentioned Bill Schnee, a recording engineer who studied under Doug Sax. He's been involved with the mastering/mixing some of the best (vinyl) recordings from a wide range of great artists. For example, he was the engineer on Steely Dan's Aja. Schnee says that he's always been able to differentiate between an analogue stereo mix and a recording at 96 khz whilst in his studio. He maintains that at 192 khz he can't hear the "digital edge" that he can detect at lower levels of resolution. It will be interesting what kind of recordings he'll be offering at his site.

So, although I still intend to get back into vinyl playback, I'm pretty pleased with how good digital is getting. It's encouraging where things are heading, and it's still pretty neat to be able to go shopping from home. Still, I miss flipping through albums at used record stores.

Dave

Can I assume by the response to my post that forum members think that a major label opening it's vaults to provide hi-res is not significant? I know some are skeptical about hi-res, but I'm surprised by the response. Surely there must be some opinion about this?

Perhaps this isn't the right forum to pursue this topic. I'm finding quite a bit of conversation about this on Computer Audiophile and Steve Hoffman.

Oh well. I tried. 

Sincerely,

Dave

At the risk of stating the obvious there is no skepticism in this quarter. What does concern me is that there is so much so much poorly recorded/produced material out there that it will be a minefield. No different from 16Bit then. By the same token, I have some 16Bit stuff which I would describe as "perfect" so I guess HiRes is only the be all and end all if all other things are equal. But I have some 24Bit stuff covering recordings that are good and enjoyable, and well, heck. You really don't need golden ears to enjoy the benefits. I'm delighted by Warner's move. HD Tracks is a weekly ritual of eager fingers, usually followed by a sigh. This is going to change. Whoopdiddlydoo. If interest is at a low level at least I'll get good bandwidth.

double post

Thanks Harry. I appreciate your comments and interest.

But given the general lack of interest about this here, I'm just going to continue spending time following the lively discussions about this subject on Steve Hoffman's site as well as Computer Audiophile.

Dave