'HD Download debacle' investigation published on HFN&RR June 2011

I agree. I've compared a few DVD-A and SACD releases with their downloads and they sound identical. Also, they are selling some downloads which are no doubt ripped from Classic Records HDADs... the pdf files they include are right from Classic Records, with mention of the disc making process. Nothing wrong with this, except maybe that they charge more for the digital download than you can buy the HDAD for..

 

I also have no problem with this, other than that I don't want to buy something I already have.

The other factor in this for me is that my Transporter sounds better than my SACD/DVD-A player, so I'd much prefer to listen to the files than the discs.

 

The title is Damn the Torpedoes

 

Hmm! Must be a different record.

 

It has been documented that many HD Tracks albums are indeed sourced from SACD at Puget Sounds.
Interesting read here.

 

Ye's

 

That's interesting. I wonder if they went back and *fixed* the 176 D->A->D transfers from Reference Recordings. I guess if they were done with a high-enough quality DAC then they would sound at least as good as the Stones/Beatles remasters.

 

Hi-res is not necessarily better

This is really a credibility issue as many others have pointed out.
Before I knew any better(that is, spent time on this forum), I thought "remastered" meant "sounded better"....WRONG!
Now years later, we're told that Hi-Res is better than redbook....and what do we find....WRONG!
I presently am so distrusting of HD Tracks at this time(having recently confirmed that Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd sounds bad compared to the MFSL version), that if I purchase anything, it will be one track/song, to screen prior to album purchase.
This is not the way to earn customer loyalty for a start-up business of any kind.
Why would I want to upgrade my equipment to be Hi-Res compatible with this degree of doubt and skepticism?
Maybe MFSL or AF will do Hi-Res properly

 

I agree with you on some HR downloads being a crapshoot, but in the case of GYBR it's a mastering issue rather than an issue with the format in general or even HDTracks. Hi-Res has the potential (and the history) of being as susceptible to bad mastering choices as Redbook and Vinyl.

 

Mark Waldrep really knows the technical aspects of recording music for audiophile listeners and how to create pristine-sounding audio. I only have one DVD-Audio from his AIX Records (found on the Internet at http://www.aixrecords.com/), but it sounds phenomenal.

 

I re-read the article and realized that the original article isn't entirely bashing tape -> hi-res and/or HDTracks so much as it is:

1. Questioning tape's ability to really show off the capabilities of hi-res digital compared to modern recordings.

2. Bringing to light the fact that there are still up-sampled recordings present on HDTracks without clear labeling.

3. Questioning the use of higher sample rates (176, 192) for material with little if any information above 30k and charging a premium for it to boot.

Question: not having the original article, what did HD Tape Transfers do to their recordings that Hi-Fi news found so objectionable? Did they just goose the hell out of the treble?

 

You know, I bet it would be theoretically possible to digitally generate some ultrasonic information using an "exciter" or some other process, to artificially create some kind of harmonic information well above 25K-30K. You could do this from a regular 44.1 Red Book CD, and it would measure like it was a true high-res recording.

Hell, you could probably convert it to 24-bit and use some downward-expansion processing to create the illusion of greater dynamic range.

At this point, I'm not sure I'd believe a download was truly "HD" unless I saw photographs of the mastering session and a sworn statement by the people involved.

This is some scandal that HFN&RR has uncovered. I salute them for having the integrity to expose this. This is as big a bombshell as that review exposing Lexicon selling a rebadged Oppo Blu-ray player awhile back.

 

Because much of this stuff sounds phenominal. Doubt and skepticism will go out the window once you hear this stuff on a discriminating system.

 

And so far we have Mark's analysis of an article we've not seen yet. And we're on page 2. Right.

I suspect the number of 'rogue' HD items is outnumbered by the genuine ones.

I also suspect that many of these, rogue or not, don't sound a lot different from the regular res versions because there really isn't any 'there' there to hear. Not so much a resolution issue as a fundamental quality issue.

 

But what would be the point of going to all that trouble when the hi-res discs are out there? There is no reason why HD-Tracks couldn't rip the data from existing product as long as they're licensed. If we can do it, why can't they?

I don't think of them as content creators as much as content distributors.

These hd-discs and their formats run the whole gamut as far as sampling rates are concerned. What they all have in common though is that they're all 24 bit. There is little doubt that higher sampling rates are important, but I believe the bit depth can be more significant.

As for the 192k and 176k downloads, they often offer these in 96k or 88k as well. If you don't think they are valid, or doubt they'd offer any improvement, then don't buy them.

If you

 

Thanks for the link. If I read this correctly, these posts were from almost 2 years ago. Can anyone state if this is still the norm?

 

I do feel that at this time it is very hard to understand the lineage of downloads. If all providers of downloadable music would provide information on the lineage of the files we as consumers can at least make a better informed decision on the value (price vs performance) of that download.

When I tag my digitized music, I always include a reference to the physical media (catalog number/matrix number etc) which I can then use to lookup whatever information I need (either from the media itself or perhaps online through Discogs or similar) - with a digital download that connection is often gone.

 

I've got about 10 AIX DVD-A's and agree they are stellar. I've seen and talked to him at audio shows and think highly of him but there is a lot of "the sky is falling" in the article he has chosen as a cause celebre here...
First off he is a somewhat competitor with his own Itrax to HDTracks. Second he is wrong in tarring HDTracks entirely. I too have downloaded and compared several of their offerings to the SACD or DVDA's and find them equivalent sonically. Third, his statement about master tapes lacking dynamic range and of standard definition is just not true. HDTT (also a potential competitor) has some nice sounding music too.

Waldrep should do his own analysis, not the cut the and paste job here.

 

Well, I'm not so sure of the value of the extra bits. No master tape from the 1970s will have more than 80 dB of dynamic range, and that's quite a ways from the 96 dB of 16 bit much less the theoretical 144 of 24 bit.

On the other hand, the sample rate at least changes the filtering, which is more plausibly audible.

 

It's not so much the dynamic range as it is the lower level linearity that I think makes such a big difference.

I hear it in the ambience and reverbs which are present on all recordings to some degree. To me those are critical factors which add a lot of authenticity and enjoyment to the recordings, but that's just me.

 

It was also documented that HDTracks erased many albums from their catalogue when it was discovered that some of the sources were not real hires. Their background check on their sources revealed an amazing amount of non-legit hires, something in the order of 50%.

They did that a while ago, and I expect them to be quite cautious now about the sources they receive from labels.

They did not hide the fact, so I respect them for that.

http://fredhammersmith.blogspot.com/2010/07/hires-or-not-hires-ou-comment.html

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Love-Supreme-2496-really

 

Despite the fact that it's correct. People will always try to argue with fact or science

 

It's not that having a sample rate which agrees with Nyquist's theroem will make a file sound "better." Sampling at >2x the audio bandwidth merely prevents aliasing(in lamens terms, overlapping of mirror image signals). The higher the sample rate, the less chance of aliasing to occur. If the sampling rate is lower than 2x, then you will have problems. 44.1kHz is enough to accurately sample and reconstruct a signal that is identical to original in terms of human hearing, every time. You will not hear a difference between 96 or 192kHz because the nature of the reconstructed analog signal will the SAME as the one reconstructed from the 44.1kHz rate.

 

Very commendable. Did they offer those that purchased a full refund? I think that is the only solution to such a debacle. I figure I'm not unique in how I feel about high res downloads: if I wanted CD quality, I'd buy the CD. If I'm taking a chance on a high res album, I expect it to be high res, particularly given the price.

If HD Tracks can't verify the source, then we as the consumers can't reliably make a decision whether to buy or not, based on what is being advertised. It means HD Tracks falls out of favour as an outlet. Not their fault some may argue, but they, before selling, should have ensured that what they advertise to folks is exactly what they will own.

 

Just to be clear, I agree with you. My post was a joke about how regardless if what I said people would argue the benefits of going higher than redbook.