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

I'll say it again just to be clear. If it takes me more time to donwload a SACD or DVD-A quality piece of music, then that too darn long. Just my experience copying a CD for a friend with EAC was such a huge pain in the butt, I have no desire to do it again. I'm no idiot either but it took me 4 CD's before I got one copy done. Why go through the hassle of downloading music from the internet, getting out a DVD and then HOPING it copies properly and THEN putting it in a player to play when I can go buy a DVD-A, take it out of the case, plop it in and boom...its playing. To hell with downloads.

 

What does the time it takes to rip a CD have to do with downloading a file?

 

Both of them are related in my mind as bpth are a royal pain in the **** to do...at least from my perspective.

 

Oh God, not another guy thinking that higher sample rates are just good for frequency response... I bet he also thinks that higher bit-depth are only good for SNR... these guys sould be forced to hear exclusively to 12bit/32kHz resolution and lower!

Also another misinformation: "In fact, the top extends to near 37 kHz, something that is not possible to reproduce using analog tape or vinyl."
They should at least do some research before stating false things.


P.S.: his research is commendable and in certain cases could be useful, but please don't take his personal opinion as fact.

 

Whatever quality tracks they are selling, vendors like HDtracks are selling downloads of entire classic albums. Downloading doesn't only equal single tracks anymore than records only equal 45 RPM singles.

 

Why go to the hassle of downloading music from the Internet and burning it to a DVD? I downloaded the 24/96 hi-res download of George Harrison's All Thing Must Pass and played it straight from my laptop. No need to burn it to a disc to listen to it.

 

I don't get this. You only have to download the music one time. Once it's on your drive it's much quicker to play than grabbing your SACD or DVD-A disc.

Once again, that's not what makes it for me. All I really care about is sound quality and files sound significantly better than discs here.

 

Doug, sorry for hijacking the thread, but how does one rip SACDs (the high-res layer, of course)? I've ripped lots of my DVD-As, but have only managed to extract the Redbook layer from SACDs. Not too long ago, I did some web searching on the subject, and all the information I could find indicated it was impossible.

 

Ripping is the wrong expression. There are modified Oppo Player you can give out the DSD Stream. So, its not an analog Rip, its an DSD Rip.

 

I'm sure no DVD-A was ever misleadingly upsampled from 16/44.

Actually, the only reason we know about this is because the "hi rez" tracks are already on the computer to be analyzed and revealed as frauds. And actually there are "hi-rez" DVD-As that are not.

 

More details here (multichannel rip):

Digital SACD Ripping Guide using the modified Oppo PCM output board method

 

Yikes! Grab a hair shirt while you're at it. It absolutely requires XP SP2 on your computer.

 

Well, that guide was written in early 2010. Maybe there are suitable soundcard drivers for Windows 7 now.

And this driver restriction probably only concerns those who want to make a multichannel rip and therefore need to have 3 soundcards working in parallel.

 

OTOH, there is minimal time and effort involved in then burning a DVD; I've done it over 100 times now, and it only gets easier.

 

Good point. Technically these are not rips. We use an Oppo player and some adapter devices to convert the HDMI output. To be honest, my partner has been doing the transfers at his studio and transferring them to me, so I don't have all the specific details in my head, but I can surely post the info if anyone is interested. It would probably be a good topic for it's own thread.

It's a bit like doing needledrops in that you end up with one file which much be edited and labeled into individual track files. The DVD-A's are a bit easier in that he doesn't have to listen to them in real time, but apparently that is not the case with SACD's. This is a bit of an issue as I have 54 of the RCA Living Stereo Classical discs to do and he is tiring of listening to the classical music.

 

Nope. It's a PCM rip because the player converts the DSD stream to PCM before you can rip it.

 

The PS3 can be used to properly output DSD. Right now there is a clever hack, but it isn't quite ready for the mainstream yet. But soon...

What is great is that there are plenty of software options to play it back, though they cost a lot.

 

Some of those have radically different EQ from their CD counterparts. And some have dynamic range that's far more compressed than their best CD counterparts (for example, Fragile).

So to attribute your preference specifically to the use of 'hi rez' format, is really taking a leap of faith. 'Hi rez' doesn't mean audiophile mastering.

 

Hi-Fi News & RR magazine has returned to this subject on their August issue.
An opinion article by Keith Howard about the possibility to determine if a 24 bit file is just an upsampled 16 bit source by using a software which does Probability Density Function analysis, a comment from HD Tracks, and a few readers' letters.

 

Is this a follow up to the June issue? I ask because after seeing this post I went over to the book store to find this issue and all they had was the June issue which also had an article on the same topic.

I have been a bit of a defender (if a mild one) of HD Tracks but if these type of things continue to be brought to light I will discontinue buying anymore high resolution downloads from them until I can be certain that I am getting what I have been paying for.

 

Yes, the articles and letters I mention in my previous post are follow-ups to the investigation published in the June issue.

 

I have a bit of sympathy for your view, but face it, listening to a lot of albums it is obvious they only put real effort into one or two songs. It really would be better for all concerned if those who are only capable of writing occasional worthwhile singles to be able to sell them in the most convenient way possible -- and in the best resolution possible.

I suppose I will make enemies for saying this, but jazz is a genre with one of the worst signal/noise ratios. Many jazz players somehow get this delusion that they can write songs, and they put out albums full of tuneless crap melodies which they improvise against in an even more aimless and off-putting manner. But occasionally even a blind squirrel finds a nut, and these artists do record good tracks sometimes -- it may be their own compositions or one of the standard classics. I don't prefer downloads, but for the numerous jazz albums with one good track and four or five duds, I certainly would like to have the option to buy that single track in optimal quality.

Why can't we have the best of both worlds? Physical media for good albums, and downloads for albums full of filler that we can cherry pick. Of course, if the high resolution download stores are going to treat consumers with the same contempt that big record companies have done, then a pox on both their houses.

 

Yes, this is a fact. I have DVD-As of Ryan Adams - Rock and Roll and Flaming Lips - Yoshimi. Both are labelled 24 bit, 96khz. Spectral analysis in Sound Forge shows a brick wall filter at 22kHz. Impossible to tell, but i wouldn't mind betting that orignal was also 16 bit. I hesitate to buy any more DVD-A as a result.

I also downloaded 2 Rolling Stomes albums in 176kHz froom HD Tracks. Spectral analyis shows a brick wall at 44kHz. I'm not happy given that I paid an extra $10 for each file, when I could have bought the 88kHz files and still got a brick wall at 44kHz. I hesitate to buy any more HD Tracks as a result.

I bought John lennon/ Plastic Ono Band on Mo Fi vinyl recently. The cover proudly proclaims "from the original master tapes" as does every MoFi release. On the inner sleeve, it states that the the vonyl was cut from a 24 bit/96kHz digital remaster. The only difference here is that at least they admit to what they've done - but only once you get the record home and break the seal!! My record shop owner doesn't like me opening the seal on his MoFi records. I hesitate to buy any more MoFi vinyl as a result.

Doesn't leave a lot to buy, does it.

 

The Lennon's albums done by MoFi are all digital remixes, so in fact the "original master tapes" are the Hi-Res digital files.

 

When iTunes increased their mp3 bitrate from 128 kbps to 256 kbps, did they upsample their data as well or did they demand every independent artist to hand over their songs in a higher bitrate? From a commercial perspective, it's rather less likely that the latter happened. What do you think?