Neil Young's new iPod killer!
Reply #29 – 2014-03-11 02:43:27
... In a recording studio, someone creates a 24/96 version. That's the master format. They will let me download this for, say, £25. Then they take this master format, ruin it with over-use of dynamic range compression, convert it down to 16/44.1, create a CD master, press some CDs, and will post one of these to my door for £5. What do I "gain" from paying 5x as much? I'm paying them to deliver extra data that I don't want or need. I'm paying them to not deliver a physical item. I'm paying them to not do things. The only useful thing, though it's perverse, is I'm paying them not to ruin the sound with excessive dynamic range compression. It's like paying a chef extra not to sh1t in your food. Forgive me if I don't feel like this is a fantastic deal. If you could buy a decent downconversion at the same price as a normal CD, that would be fine. Whether that would hurt their business model, or not, I don't know. In a rational world it would kill it, but I don't think the target audience is rational, so maybe it'll happen. Cheers, David. The only album I"ve thus far bought from HDtracks was $17.99 USD. Still much less than the vinyl (which was probably cut from it anyway.) It was only a few dollars more than the Best Buy special edition CD (which had one less bonus track) @15 and change. I don't care about the "hi-res" thing so much even though I have a SACD/DVD-A player...this album was 24/44.1 anyway. I didn't mind paying a few dollars more because the HDtracks version was DR10 to the CD and Mastered for iTunes DR4-5. You can hear it too without the measurements. Not that the album is a flawless production without the added compression* CDs haven't even gone up with inflation since the eighties that I've seen; they've always been around fifteen bucks. If they charge more that a few dollars more than the CD than I would agree that it's not worth it for me either. I'm in agreement with what Porcus said earlier in the thread: if it takes audiophoolery to get the music industry to back off on the loudness war I will happily take it. But you're right, David; there's little use for the claims of such a player if I'm going to resample it or run it through the Mastered for iTunes droplet anyway. The amount of space (128Gb) is interesting but one can honestly just use an Android phone/player with SD cards or an iPod Classic if they need that much space. I know the Touch and the iPhone support up to 24/48 for those who think they hear bat-frequencies...I'm guessing the Classic does as well. *Edit: I don't mean to imply that the stuff you get off HDtracks will normally be a different master or less dynamically compressed than the CD. I doubt that's a norm based on looking at a few in the DR database.