HDTracks.... Is it a scam?

Face

Here's a nice comparison between the Deftones new release on CD and hi res.

http://www.sharinglungs.com/index.php?topic=19943.0

nspindel

Boy that site is definitely a gathering of audio junkies who can't spell of speak English

mantis

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Given the choice between a blu ray audio disc which I can not (legally anyway) rip and a digital download that I can copy to any of my devices and play in any room in my house at, say, $15 and $20 respectively I'll fladly pay the extra $5 for the digital download.

I would do the same for a CD. If iTunes would sell lossless CD quality versions of their music I'd be all over that, and would gladly pay an extra couple bucks per CD for that convenience. As it stands, they sell compressed garbage and haven't seen a dime of my money.

Thats something I was hoping they would do years ago when they where talking about Itunes Plus. When I learned it was only 256k , I was very disappointed. They could easily offer High rez files of all their music if available. They are the online Giants of music and should off this. I feel they are missing out on the pennies spent on others sites like HD Tracks.
Yeah I know they have over 100 Billion in the bank cash on hand but why not add to it with something many of us would buy? Also Charge for a Itunes upgrade to a Auto Switching out over the Midi controls , this is something Automator could do pretty easily. I could write it.

nwohlford

nspindel wrote: »

Ripping a BluRay that you've purchased for your own use is not legal? Why not? I thought Congress passed a law that says you can rip anything as long as you're not distributing it?

This is kind of a murky area, but from my understanding you likely have the right to rip a blu ray for your own use. Congress has said very little on the issue except that it is illegal to make and distribute software that defeats the copyright protections.

Face

nspindel wrote: »

Boy that site is definitely a gathering of audio junkies who can't spell of speak English

Maybe because it's not their first language.

sagasa

So it is better to bu CD.

AsSiMiLaTeD

mantis wrote: »

Thats something I was hoping they would do years ago when they where talking about Itunes Plus. When I learned it was only 256k , I was very disappointed. They could easily offer High rez files of all their music if available. They are the online Giants of music and should off this. I feel they are missing out on the pennies spent on others sites like HD Tracks.
Yeah I know they have over 100 Billion in the bank cash on hand but why not add to it with something many of us would buy? Also Charge for a Itunes upgrade to a Auto Switching out over the Midi controls , this is something Automator could do pretty easily. I could write it.

Agreed on all, I've never spent a dime in iTunes, and I'm an apple guy these days. Forget about hi Rez, if they just gave me lossless cd quality I'd very likely buy all my music there.

Tbone289

sagasa wrote: »

So it is better to bu CD.

Not necessarily. The example above that Face posted (#63), would be a case where you would not want to buy the CD.

bikezappa

Tbone289 wrote: »

Not necessarily. The example above that Face posted (#63), would be a case where you would not want to buy the CD.

The issue is, how do make the decision?

erniejade

As you can see from below, the HDtracks 96/24 version of Hotel California is inferior (imho) to my old CD.

so no the cd version would be better

ram222

Hello!
Sorry for my poor english but i'm not french.

For information a good vinyl rip can't exceed 20 000 Herz because the bandwith of vinyl and even CD is between 20 and 20 000 Herz !

More info :
http://www.bhmag.fr/tests-dossiers/scandale-fichiers-audios-haute-definition-13193

ram222

sorry : i'm french

nonobaddog

The music industry is parasitic in nature, similarly politics is parasitic in nature. Apparently it is too much to expect honor and integrity from parasites.

Kal-El

I personally haven't fallen for the hype as I am perfectly happy with my 192kbps or 320kbps bitrate files.

Face

You're missing out on a lot if that's your preference.

pretzelfisch

nspindel wrote: »

Ripping a BluRay that you've purchased for your own use is not legal? Why not? I thought Congress passed a law that says you can rip anything as long as you're not distributing it?

My understanding is the ripping is not illegal, its the breaking of the encryption you must do first in order to rip and play the data on the BluRay that is illegal.

Righteye

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

We should start compiling a list of poor recordings over at HDTracks. I've bought several good albums from them, but have bought a couple poor recordings as well. I'll start the crap list with the following 2, both are 24/96 and both are (still) very poor recordings.

Nirvana - Nevermind
Metallica - Metallica

Firstly iam very pleased to have discovered this article by "nspindel" i had been troubled by the quality of much of the music i have been listening too and having spent a fair few quid on a half decent desktop system was wondering what was going wrong.
the more detail you can reveal just increases the problem of shoddy recordings.
Coming to Metallica - Metallica i iam shocked you find this to be a poor recording, i believe this to be one of the best i have.
After reading nspindel's post i went and downloaded Audacity to start analysing my own music files reassuring was the fact the waveform/clipping and frequency chart all backed up what my ears were telling me, lots of recordings (or at least what is available to download is poor)
Below is the graphics from Audacity and by what i have understood this meets the criteria for a good and in my opinion a very good file.

Would be great to hear from you and see what you or others think, would truly like to get a better understanding of all this.and hope that as more and more people realise that the quality of the music they are buying is not the best that can be delivered we can call for a change to be made and get to enjoy the music as it should be.
Finally i wish i had never given up on vinyl, i enjoyed music the most when i spun the black stuff.

Inspector 24

Seems if HDTracks and others had a simple user review for downloaded songs that could solve a lot of headache.

Righteye

Inspector 24 wrote: »

Seems if HDTracks and others had a simple user review for downloaded songs that could solve a lot of headache.

Would be very helpful, here are some lists out there but most are short and i rarely see music that interests me.

Sad thing is there must be some great recordings out there but its finding them and also the quality should have been there before

someone started jiggering about with it.

satguy08

Spin the 33 1/3

Inspector 24

Playing devils advocate here and a different thread but don't vinyl recordings have their own issues? Ie who and when released the album, how it was mastered, quality of the pressing etcetera??

I'm reminded of the recent Beatles re-releases where several commented on how the original vinyl sounded better.

PolkieMan

I do the same, on the average $1 a piece.

I agree they should have a quality rating system stating what it is and what to expect considering the sources that had to be used or was available. It's like copying a VHS using blue-ray the source is as good as you are going to get.

heiney9 wrote: »

I buy mostly used cd's so I'm not out that much when I am disappointed in the recording.

H9

tonyb

Inspector 24 wrote: »

Playing devils advocate here and a different thread but don't vinyl recordings have their own issues? Ie who and when released the album, how it was mastered, quality of the pressing etcetera??

I'm reminded of the recent Beatles re-releases where several commented on how the original vinyl sounded better.

Sure do, what format doesn't ? Quality of a recording in any format isn't guaranteed. Pays to pay attention to some reviews before plunking down the coin.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Yeah, but with CDs or vinyl I can at least slip it to get some of my money back, can't do that with HDTracks.

tonyb

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Yeah, but with CDs or vinyl I can at least slip it to get some of my money back, can't do that with HDTracks.

Good point....and very true which is why physical media still has it's worth.

Habanero Monk

Why can't I sell my HD Tracks. I have some albums that costs $20 for the 24/96Khz version. Nothing stopping me from selling that and simply removing it from my collection.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Habanero Monk wrote: »

Why can't I sell my HD Tracks. I have some albums that costs $20 for the 24/96Khz version. Nothing stopping me from selling that and simply removing it from my collection.

Read the EULA from HDTracks, while I haven't read it myself I'm sure it'll say something to the effect that you can't sell your copies...

Habanero Monk

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Read the EULA from HDTracks, while I haven't read it myself I'm sure it'll say something to the effect that you can't sell your copies...

HD tracks doesn't setup the sale as a license. There is nothing in their Terms and Conditions about license for use. You own the track. I generally won't enter into a license other than the obvious one of copyright that applies to any purchase anyways.

Chippy_boy

I have bought quite a few HD albums from HD Tracks, some of which sound superb, some pretty dreadful. The very idea that 24/96 should sound much better than 16/44.1 has puzzled me though. Because our ears can't hear anything over 20k (probably not much over 12k for anyone in their 50's if the truth be known). And all the word length affects is the S/N ratio, nothing more. 16 bit is good enough to achieve around 100dB of S/N with proper noise shaping. i.e. more than good enough already.

So by rights, 24/96 files should sound no better in reality than 16/44.1 But all that logic goes out of the window when you listen to Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy in 24/96 and it sounds so much better than the 16/44.1 version. Maybe the improvement was the 24/96 format? Or maybe the mix? Or just better mastering. Who knows, but it is surely better.

But recently something changed all this.

My office PC broke, so my trusty music server - a Mac Mini - was returned to office duties. That meant it was back to AppleTV1 for music serving. The problem is, AppleTV1 will not play 24/96 tracks without downsampling. So what to do with my HD Tracks?

Being an owner of Pure Music, I decided to use its EXCELLENT sample rate conversion facilities to downsample all my 24/96 material to 24/48. At 24/48 the AppleTV doesn't resample and is bit perfect.

To my enormous pleasure the 24/48 HD Tracks resamples sound IDENTICAL to the original 24/96 versions. I mean IDENTICAL. I reinstalled my Mac Mini to do some A-B comparisons and I am unable to tell the difference between them. I have a pretty decent (if not outstanding) hifi with Benchmark DAC2 feeding Wyred4Sound SX1000 monoblocks and Wilson Benech Arc speakers. So not a Bose Sounddock.

I don't know whether other people could tell the difference. Maybe some people could. But I would strongly wager the VAST majority could not. Maybe even nobody could, in double blind testing.

My next test is to try downsampling to 16/44.1 and comparing again. I would not be surprised if these versions sound identical (to their 24/96 counterparts) as well. We will see.

gingernuts

This is from their FAQ section: "Many digital music stores only offer heavily compressed MP3 files. When you purchase an HDtracks file, it is the same quality as a store-purchased CD."

What! So they are saying HDtracks is only CD quality?

I'd only buy HD music if it was from the master tapes. I listened to a few tracks and it sounded no better than the CD I have of it.