HDTracks.... Is it a scam?

PolkieMan

CD's are a lot cheaper too so the purchase would be pointless then besides you can always rip a cd.

zingo

^ Spam

JoJoCamel

I say "scam" in some instances.

I downloaded Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping.

I wrote HD Tracks the following:

This evening I downloaded Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping, order number xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

This is one of the worst recordings I've ever heard. I have quite a few other downloads from HD Tracks and am satisfied with everything else. My equipment (Anthem, Coda, Thiel) performs beautifully with other tracks. Second Helping is disappointingly flat, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I'd love to get a credit toward something else.

Thank you.


Their reply:

Hi Joe,

We would not be able to refund an order when there is nothing inherently wrong with the album. We're sorry you don't like the way it is recorded. But this is the way the album is recorded and mastered by the record label. We do not record or master anything at HDTracks. Sometimes the clarity of the high res mastering may present qualities that were unnoticeable in previous formats or versions. We do hope our label partners take not of that.


Sincerely,
HDTracks Support Team


My final response:

Thanks for responding.

Understood. I guess it was simply a terrible recording from the get-go, which begs the question, “Why offer poorly recorded information at high-res’?” Just a rhetorical question; I’m not really looking for a response. If you listen the album I’m pretty sure you’ll hear (or actually not hear) what I’m writing about. Thanks again for responding.

Warm regards,
Joe

nspindel

Yeah, that's their M.O. They don't argue that something sounds like junk. They just say "sorry, not our fault, that's what the labels give us." Buying from HDTracks is a crapshoot, period.

JoJoCamel

I say "scam" in some instances.

I downloaded Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping.

I wrote HD Tracks the following:

This evening I downloaded Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping, order number xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

This is one of the worst recordings I've ever heard. I have quite a few other downloads from HD Tracks and am satisfied with everything else. My equipment (Anthem, Coda, Thiel) performs beautifully with other tracks. Second Helping is disappointingly flat, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I'd love to get a credit toward something else.

Thank you.


Their reply:

Hi Joe,

We would not be able to refund an order when there is nothing inherently wrong with the album. We're sorry you don't like the way it is recorded. But this is the way the album is recorded and mastered by the record label. We do not record or master anything at HDTracks. Sometimes the clarity of the high res mastering may present qualities that were unnoticeable in previous formats or versions. We do hope our label partners take not of that.


Sincerely,
HDTracks Support Team


My final response:

Thanks for responding.

Understood. I guess it was simply a terrible recording from the get-go, which begs the question, “Why offer poorly recorded information at high-res’?” Just a rhetorical question; I’m not really looking for a response. If you listen to the album I’m pretty sure you’ll hear (or actually not hear) what I’m writing about. Thanks again for responding.

Warm regards,
Joe

Face

Do your research before purchasing. Some of their titles are worth buying, some aren't...simple as that.

JoJoCamel

My apologies for posting twice. I'm brand new and thought I was editing a typo. Do your research? So HD Tracks has no culpability? My bad for assuming they'd be diligent re. providing the best of the best. But I get you, Face and can't disagree. Thank you.

pitdogg2

well it is a simple as the old statement on CD's.." This CD was recorded on analog equipment you may hear the limitations of the source equipment"....or something like that....On old stuff like that it reminds me of up-converting video. You can't add what is not there to get HD but you can add what is there....like more noise in this case.

nonobaddog

I recently purchased their 2014 sampler and then discovered it was identical to their 2013 sampler. I emailed them and they refunded my purchase price. They could have said it was my mistake, too bad, but they didn't. I think that says something positive about their business practices.

tonyb

JoJoCamel wrote: »

My apologies for posting twice. I'm brand new and thought I was editing a typo. Do your research? So HD Tracks has no culpability? My bad for assuming they'd be diligent re. providing the best of the best. But I get you, Face and can't disagree. Thank you.

Culpability ? Maybe for a defective product, but as I see it they gave you what you ordered. Your culpable for doing your own due diligence and research recordings before you purchase them.

A crappy recording in 16/44....still sounds like crap, even more so, in higher rez . If you bought a cd from a big box store and it sounded like crap....do you blame BestBuy...or yourself ?

nonobaddog

It is easy for me to agree with the idea of - why offer high res of a poor recording? It seems that a high res offering implies the recording is worth doing in high res. But that probably only happens in an ideal world. One step further would be - the process of recording the music in the first place should imply that it is worth recording and recording well. But we all know that isn't true either. And then there is the whole can of worms of different tastes in music. I can see where it would be difficult to only offer stuff that I would be guaranteed to like. But still, a bad recording is a bad recording and probably should not be offered in high res.

gce

You get bad recorded CD's, bad SACD's and bad pressings. Its all in how the recording is mastered. HD can only give you what they get. Its your job to do the research.

nonobaddog

gce wrote: »

You get bad recorded CD's, bad SACD's and bad pressings. Its all in how the recording is mastered. HD can only give you what they get. Its your job to do the research.

True enough. However if it were me. If I sold high res I would do some research myself in deciding what to offer. Just a little screening would be pretty easy and it would be better for business to avoid some of the real clinkers out there.

AsSiMiLaTeD

HD Tracks would win me back as a customer if they just added a review section to their website, until they do that I'm out. They don't control the recording process, but they can at least provide a review mechanism. Hell, even Apple gets this right with iTunes and they sell crap to begin with...

If you're not going to stand behind the product that you offer you should at least provide the community a way to do that for you.

CoolJazz

I don't get some of you guys outlook on this.

Do you really want some guy setting somewhere, listening to a system of his choice, deciding what you're going to get offered? His judgement as to what constitutes worth buying...with the ability to show more of what the studio side decided was music and wanted to release?

It's real simple. Higher quality offers a deeper look at the product coming out. That will normally show you a deeper depth snapshot picture of what come out of the production side. You may hear the clipped sound more, someone else may not. You may not hear a greater dynamic, someone else may. Higher resolution may offer you a better product or it may simply let you hear more abuses of the sonics as part of the "music making" but some may want that and value it.

Why would you want someone else passing judgement on what constitutes a good quality product?

CJ

Devlon

nonobaddog wrote: »

True enough. However if it were me. If I sold high res I would do some research myself in deciding what to offer. Just a little screening would be pretty easy and it would be better for business to avoid some of the real clinkers out there.

This is a good suggestion. If HD would preview, and then turn down poor recordings. a message would be sent to the record companies that would be saying "don't even bother to pitch us crap recordings. We'll just turn them down." Better quality recordings then might start becoming more the norm, and more consistent.

BTW, I subscribed to Qobuz. I French company that offers downloads, and streaming at 16/44.1. It really sounds awesome. They are up to 17 million songs so far.

tonyb

Devlon wrote: »

This is a good suggestion. If HD would preview, and then turn down poor recordings. a message would be sent to the record companies that would be saying "don't even bother to pitch us crap recordings. We'll just turn them down." Better quality recordings then might start becoming more the norm, and more consistent.
.

You guys going to continue to cry because you bought something you didn't like ? Should Walmart preview every product to make sure it's up to snuff ? If companies limit inventory...then the consumer buys from the guy with the most....hows that business model going to work out for their bottom line and longevity ?

Ever stop to think that a crappy recording to you may just be good enough for someone else ? It's about money kids....reviews on their website will curtail people spending money on not so well reviewed songs/albums. They are in business to sell, as much as they can, regardless if it's crap or gold, that's not their concern anyway. How many people bought MP3 files again ?

There's lots of gray area in whether or not a Hi-rez file is for real, and it's kept that way for a purpose...money. I would only buy a higher rez file from known audiophile sites that at least give details to how that recording came to be. If you notice however, true hi-rez files from master tapes cost more coin. Again...about the money.

Until they can come up with some standard, anything to erase the gray areas, I'll keep my money in my pocket thank you.

PSOVLSK

JoJoCamel wrote: »

My apologies for posting twice. I'm brand new and thought I was editing a typo. Do your research? So HD Tracks has no culpability? My bad for assuming they'd be diligent re. providing the best of the best. But I get you, Face and can't disagree. Thank you.

IMO Pretty good couple of first posts Camel. Stick around.

marvda1

sometimes it's not about the quality of the recording but the quality of the performance.

tonyb

Would it not be safe to say that all digital files regardless, start out in the analog world ? Unless they are digital copies of other digital copies. A good recording is a good recording regardless of the analog or hi-rez tag...no ? In other words, you can't magically produce sound not there. You can make the treble or bass hot, boost certain frequencies, but is that really hi-rez ? Or just a manipulation of whats already there ? Or is that simply what hi-rez really is ? A manipulation of frequencies ?

I know Mapleshades analog recordings are simply stellar, and all in 16/44 cd. The bit rate wars imho simply drive the industry and give you a somewhat manipulated sense of a good recording. I'm starting to wonder if they just take a 16/44 file and boost certain frequencies to give you the impression of a good recording....for more coin too.

I think Ken said it best...in order to enjoy digital, never listen to good analog. Digital has made leaps and bounds in that direction in the last 10 years....not quit there yet, but getting closer.

BTW...Linn has some fantastic recordings on their website. Mostly classical stuff, but great none the less.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Should Walmart preview every product to make sure it's up to snuff?

That's not a fair comparison. If I go buy a shirt at Macy's and it turns out the sizing is completely off I can return it. I don't expect Macy's to inspect every shred of clothing to make sure the sizing info is correct because I know I can return it if it is defective. HD Tracks does not offer that option, so not a fair comparison.

Ever stop to think that a crappy recording to you may just be good enough for someone else

We're not talking about subjective things like like the performance or the mixing, we're talking about recordings that have been upsampled and squashed. The latter is not an opinion, it is fact that can easily be seen with analog waveform charts. You could argue that some people LIKE those attributes with about as much reason you could argue that some people prefer mold on

It's about money kids....reviews on their website will curtail people spending money on not so well reviewed songs/albums

Ever visited www.amazon.com? They have a review section on every product they sell and they seem to be doing just fine. I'm actually more in support of them doing a review section than doing the research themselves on albums, let the user community decide.

Would it not be safe to say that all digital files regardless, start out in the analog world

I believe DSD are all fully in the digital domain and they're some of the best recordings I've heard, too bad the music doesn't interest more.

douglaskeene

Howdy
I was interested in purchasing music from this site (www.hdtracks.com). At first I saw claims of high resolution music etc. Then on reading the FAQ's, I understand that the music is equal to the quality of CD's. My intuition tells me that record companies would not release their high resolution master recordings to this website for sale to the public, just as I could not ask for access to the master film archive of The Wizard of OZ. If so, how do we go from exact quality of store-purchased CD's to the claimed ultra-high quality? There may be some high resolution original master recordings of classical music out there, but not for led zepplin and not for most famous recording artists. Of course I may be wrong, if this website has worked out a special licensing agreement with these recording companies. Any thoughts?
Douglas

epepin

I downloaded the sampler from HD tracks (tracks all in 24 bit but ranging from 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz) and the test files from Linn Records (44.1/16, 96/24, and 196/24) and plotted their spectra in Audacity. There is considerable variation in the high frequencies of each file, but since I used a tiny bin size what you're actually seeing is that there is simply no energy at the higher frequencies even if that audio is captured in the track. This does not mean bad mastering or bad file, it simply means those frequencies not appreciably represented in the music. With some tracks, the appreciable frequencies cap around 15 kHz, which would be captured by even 44.1 sampling, so it's not terribly fair to state that missing frequencies above 30 means the recording was simply upsampled. One file is represented twice below, a classical recording, once with small bins and once with large bins, with larger bins, you can see that the higher frequencies are still present, but just at much lower energies. You see the exact same things in the Linn samples.

EDIT: the first plot is a pop song, so it is very likely that the cliff at 22 kHz is straight from the studio.

dragon1952

If you go to the steve hoffman forum you can usually get a few opinions on new releases,and it never hurts to check there before you buy anything from HDTracks.

BlueFox

Scam or not, I don't know, but last night I bought my first downloads (Led Zeppelin I, II, and II), and was impressed with the ease of setting up a new account, and getting my files.

dragon1952

BlueFox wrote: »

Scam or not, I don't know, but last night I bought my first downloads (Led Zeppelin I, II, and II), and was impressed with the ease of setting up a new account, and getting my files.

Yeah, personally I love HDTracks. I've probably downloaded close to 25-30 so far and all have been excellent.

BlueFox

LOL. That is my fear. Now I am going on a buying binge.

dragon1952

BlueFox wrote: »

LOL. That is my fear. Now I am going on a buying binge.

Just wait for the 10% and 15% off ads. They come out pretty often.

BlueFox

Okay. I will do that. Thanks.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I still refuse to hand them my money until they either build a user review section or explain to me why they can't, other than the obvious reason that they don't want people to know something is crap before they buy it...