Hey all!
I've been on a kick lately looking for some high quality downloads to test some stuff...I've been looking for 24 bit/96 kHz and some higher rate stuff as well.
I thought it might be nice to have a thread with various links people know of where we can download hi-res music for free. I am not going to post direct DL links, only provide the sites for you to review yourself.
Not all of these are great sources for free music, some are just sampler snippets, but I thought I'd include them because they are good sources to purchase from if interested.
Some require registration, which you'll see at the page I've linked.
I'll start with the few I know of:
96/24 album from HDTracks:
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=login&redirectto=samplealbumdownload&ialbum_id=6446
HDTracks album in collaboration with MediaMonkey:
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=login&redirectto=samplealbumdownload&ialbum_id=8871
2L 192 kHz/24 bit - large number of files to compare:
http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html
Lessloss high resolution tracks:
http://www.lessloss.com/high-resolution-audiophile-recordings-c-68.html
iTrax sample files in different formats:
http://www.itrax.com/Pages/HelpFAQs.php#1
Linn records sample files:
http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-downloads-testfiles.aspx
Design w Sound - Jazz demo cd:
http://www.designwsound.com/dwsblog/?page_id=318
Internet Archive - A different kind of offering, many concerts:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=(format
24Bit FLAC) OR (flac24) OR (24-bit) OR 24bit) AND collection:etree&sort=-avg_rating;-num_reviews
I think that's all I know, please add to the list if you have additional legal sources!
Edit: You should check out B&W Society of Sound's trial membership...I tried it for a few months and really enjoyed some of the music:
http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/display.aspx?infid=3550
[ADMIN] Edited to add relevant topic info:
When downloading high-res music, beware that some tracks are simply upsampled low-res tracks, and that software like iTunes won't play many of the files formats high-res music is offered in. We offer some suggestions for free programs to analyze the quality of your digital music in our article about software audiophiles should download.
If you're looking for a program to playback your high-res music, you might find our comparison of playback software article useful, which includes programs like Foobar 2000 and JRiver Media Center.
