Hi Res or Mid Res Digital Downloads?

[bikemig]

Interesting article on why you might be better off downloading an MP3 from Amazon or Itunes than trying to get a hi res file and then figuring out a way to play it through your system. Sometimes mid-fi really is better than hi-fi, :

Is high-resolution audio really as good as it sounds? | TechHive

 

[Pyrrho]

I think it is better to just buy a CD, though I prefer multichannel hybrid SACDs when I can get them.

Here are a couple of more things to read:

Boston Audio Society - ABX Testing article

24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed

And for the benefit of those who imagine LPs are better, see:

Vinyl vs. CD - A Running Commentary - Parts 1 - 5 - Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

Vinyl vs. CD - A Running Commentary - Parts 6 - 9 - Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

One should pay particular attention to parts 4 and 7.

 

[bikemig]

I think it is better to just buy a CD, though I prefer multichannel hybrid SACDs when I can get them.

Here are a couple of more things to read:

Boston Audio Society - ABX Testing article

24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed

And for the benefit of those who imagine LPs are better, see:

Vinyl vs. CD - A Running Commentary - Parts 1 - 5 - Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

Vinyl vs. CD - A Running Commentary - Parts 6 - 9 - Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

One should pay particular attention to parts 4 and 7.

Good stuff; I'm looking forward to reading the articles you posted. I agree about buying CDs btw; I prefer to buy them and rip them myself in lossless format. I do buy music from Amazon and iTunes from time to time, though, and find the sound quality to be very good.

 

[rojo]

I like to get FLAC / ALAC whenever I can. But I'm perfectly fine with MP3 really, as long as the MP3 I have is the only lossy compression the sound file has gone through. Lossless formats are less susceptible to loss of quality when converting to other formats, which makes them perfect for archiving in long-term storage; whereas MP3 is perfect for here and now at a low cost of disk space. After all, Fraunhofer developed MP3 to throw out bits you'll never hear and never realize are missing. A lot of money and a lot of science went into achieving this I'm sure. Where MP3 loses its benefits is when converting to other formats. If I convert MP3 to CD audio then back to MP3, the end result will have lost some audible quality.

To me, as long as it's at least 256kbit/s 44kHz 16-bit, an MP3 that's only been through one round of compression between the studio and my player is indistinguishable from lossless. Most 192kbit/s MP3s are indistinguishable as well, but not all. And 160kbit/s Internet radio streams still sound damn good to me. But I'm sure if I recorded an Internet radio stream and put it through another conversion, there would be an unpleasant difference.

By the way, for you guys who have read the O.P.'s linked article, did you read Pono as Porno over and over as I did?

"Porno, however, may have an advantage over previous attempts, thanks to the star power of Neil Young and the Porno ecosystem that replicates the early iTunes-iPod experience."

“We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people of all ages listen to music on Porno...”

The article really takes on a whole new meaning that way.

 

[sterling shoote]

I cannot hear any difference between iTunes downloads and the same material at 24/96. I no longer need to pursue a quest for equipment. It seems CD is as perfect as it was claimed to be, at least for stereo. And stereo may be as good as we can appreciate too. The thing I do notice is complex orchestra pieces and choir music still sound muddy. Perhaps, this can be solved with work in the multi channel, multi transducer arena.

 

[rojo]

Sterling, I googled as many of the model numbers in your sig as I could stand, but didn't come up with a subwoofer. Are you running a sub? I think even with your floorstanding JBL L100T3s, adding a sub and diverting some of the workload from your midbass drivers would probably un-muddy the sound some. Just sayin'. The Boston Pops Orchestra performing "Duel of the Fates" sounds pretty damn clean over here.

 

[IanU]

Studio Master Wav vs Mp3

I just like the idea of having the same file as the one the musicians/engineers are listening to when they finished the mix of an album.
And with the Studio Master Hi-res files on sale now from HD tracks and other companies I have that possibility. And it is not that much more expensive,

One of my favorites is this Doug MacLeod album,: There's a Time. HD tracks sells the 24/176 Wav file for 29$.
The 44/16 Flac goes for 12$.There's A Time | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads

Or you have this one which in my opinion is very similar or maybe even better in Sound Quality;
Thousand Shades of Blue with Carmen Gomes, the Studio Master waw file which they sell for 15€ - 20$.
the 24/96 flac version goes for; 12€ - 15$.
Thousand Shades of Blue (WAV)

I have converted both files to mp3 256 for playback on my smartphone.
When I compare the Hi-res files with the Mp3 on my Sennheiser HD 800 I do hear a difference,
wider sound stage, more depth, longer decay.

or why not try this, download the 2 free 24/96 wav files from the Sound Liaison site, convert them to mp3, and see if you can hear the difference.Link:Free Tracks (WAV)
Do play the mp3 file first and then move up in quality. If you start with the hi-res and then move down your brain tends to remember the sound and then fill in the blanks.

 

[sterling shoote]

Sterling, I googled as many of the model numbers in your sig as I could stand, but didn't come up with a subwoofer. Are you running a sub? I think even with your floorstanding JBL L100T3s, adding a sub and diverting some of the workload from your midbass drivers would probably un-muddy the sound some. Just sayin'. The Boston Pops Orchestra performing "Duel of the Fates" sounds pretty damn clean over here.

My sub is the 15 inch passive JBL B380. It is powered by a Sony TA-N80ES, operating in mono at 560 watts. I am going to listen to your suggestion tonight. Thanks.

 

[j_garcia]

I like Amazon with AutoRIP, even though it is 256. I can listen to the digital versions everywhere and then have the CD for when I want to listen in the main rigs. I pull down the songs to the phone via the app and can listen in the car that way and it sounds fine. I can definitely hear the difference when listening to streamed 256K and the CD versions of the albums I own, but only on the main rig.

 

[Stanton]

I agree with many posters who say that ripping CDs is their first/best choice. If for some reason I could NOT obtain/buy the CD, I would consider downloading a hi-rez version, but would most likely down-convert to CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) in order to play through most systems. There is a free utility called "SoX (Sound eXchange)" to do this (and many other digital manipulations. I'm really not sold on hi-rez downloads, but I wouldn't want my only copy of something to an MP3 (even at best quality). Checkout my post in the "Grover Washington Winelight CD" review thread for more info.

 

[Maudio]

compare formats

I just like the idea of having the same file as the one the musicians/engineers are listening to when they finished the mix of an album.
And with the Studio Master Hi-res files on sale now from HD tracks and other companies I have that possibility. And it is not that much more expensive,

One of my favorites is this Doug MacLeod album,: There's a Time. HD tracks sells the 24/176 Wav file for 29$.
The 44/16 Flac goes for 12$.There's A Time | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads

Or you have this one which in my opinion is very similar or maybe even better in Sound Quality;
Thousand Shades of Blue with Carmen Gomes, the Studio Master waw file which they sell for 15€ - 20$.
the 24/96 flac version goes for; 12€ - 15$.
Thousand Shades of Blue (WAV)

I have converted both files to mp3 256 for playback on my smartphone.
When I compare the Hi-res files with the Mp3 on my Sennheiser HD 800 I do hear a difference,
wider sound stage, more depth, longer decay.

or why not try this, download the 2 free 24/96 wav files from the Sound Liaison site, convert them to mp3, and see if you can hear the difference.Link:Free Tracks (WAV)
Do play the mp3 file first and then move up in quality. If you start with the hi-res and then move down your brain tends to remember the sound and then fill in the blanks.

You don't have to do that they have a comparison download where you can compare the same song in mp3, flac. or 24/96 wav. I would have like there to be a DSD file as well but these are very good sounding files. and I personally find it difficult to hear the difference.

Compare Formats

 

[Nestor]

You don't have to do that they have a comparison download where you can compare the same song in mp3, flac. or 24/96 wav. I would have like there to be a DSD file as well but these are very good sounding files. and I personally find it difficult to hear the difference.

Compare Formats

Did you do an ABX comparison with a program such as Foobar?

 

[rnatalli]

I generally rip CDs to FLAC, but do download 24/96 files as well which are the upper limit of my ability to hear differences. IMO the bit rate matters more than the Hz, at least to my ears.

 

[djreef]

I know my goal was to create a Hi-rez music server with my Macbook and a 4TB hard drive, but playing the music back has been a constant struggle. Channel D Pure Music is a buggy PIA to deal with, constantly decoupling with iTunes and silencing tracks. If the industry wants Hi-rez downloads to succeed then they need to address these types of issues ASAP.

 

[Paudio]

PCM-Wav-Flac-Mp3

I just like the idea of having the same file as the one the musicians/engineers are listening to when they finished the mix of an album.
And with the Studio Master Hi-res files on sale now from HD tracks and other companies I have that possibility. And it is not that much more expensive,

One of my favorites is this Doug MacLeod album,: There's a Time. HD tracks sells the 24/176 Wav file for 29$.
The 44/16 Flac goes for 12$.There's A Time | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads

Or you have this one which in my opinion is very similar or maybe even better in Sound Quality;
Thousand Shades of Blue with Carmen Gomes, the Studio Master waw file which they sell for 15€ - 20$.
the 24/96 flac version goes for; 12€ - 15$.
Thousand Shades of Blue (WAV)

I have converted both files to mp3 256 for playback on my smartphone.
When I compare the Hi-res files with the Mp3 on my Sennheiser HD 800 I do hear a difference,
wider sound stage, more depth, longer decay.

or why not try this, download the 2 free 24/96 wav files from the Sound Liaison site, convert them to mp3, and see if you can hear the difference.Link:Free Tracks (WAV)
Do play the mp3 file first and then move up in quality. If you start with the hi-res and then move down your brain tends to remember the sound and then fill in the blanks.

You do not have to go through that whole process, as I was going to download the Free sample I saw that they have this comparison download;

Sound Liaison Music Shop

Free Tracks Format Comparison

Here is a zip file containing samples of 2 tracks in 4 different formats.

A: 96/24 WAV
B: 96/24 FLAC
C: 16/44 WAV (CD)
D: 320kbps MP3

All the different formats have the same source file 96/24 WAV (Studio Master).

We used WAVELAB for the conversion.

When you compare the files start with the lowest resolution: D (MP3 320 kbps) and move on up through example C and B ending with A.

Be careful: If you start with A, and move down through B and C ending with D, your mind will remember the ''Blueprint'' of the higher resolution file, making it difficult to hear the difference even when finally listening to the MP3 file. Don't be frustrated if you can't hear a difference at first. Hearing is as individual as taste but hearing is also something which can be acquired, like the taste of good wine.