[HDtracks]

We are very happy to have Rhino Records as our Label of the Week.  Get 20% off artists like the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, The Doors and more for ONE week only!
 
Then next week JUNE 3rd SAVE THE DATE, Led Zeppelin will be available in high-resolution on HDtracks!!!!!
 
Label of the Week.

 

[John John the leprachaun]

I like buying cds and having a physical copy of the music I buy and then rip it to my computer, but are these downloads higher-fi than listening to the cd?, Would I even notice a difference?

 

[Opethian10]

Possibly. Whether you notice a difference or not largely hinges on how resolving your gear is, and also how well your hearing is.

I am stoked to hear the new Zeppelin remasters in hi res!!

 

[spaark]

  I like buying cds and having a physical copy of the music I buy and then rip it to my computer, but are these downloads higher-fi than listening to the cd?, Would I even notice a difference?

Personally, I don't believe a higher resolution or sampling rate is going to make a noticeable difference (I'll believe it when I hear it), but it isn't just about that. HDtracks also remasters a lot of the titles they release (but not always). In this case, there is going to be a difference to some extent. In some cases, the difference is like night and day. So resolution and sampling rate aside, you might prefer the masters HDtracks offer.

 

[daerron]

It depends how they've gotten to the recording, whether it was directly from the master or perhaps from another source. You can look up a lot of records on the dynamic range database and see the recording quality. Have to say I've been mostly happy with all the records I've downloaded from them, some records really sound fantastic. Just a tiny bit annoyed now as I bought most of Joni Mitchell's records on HD Tracks last month....

 

[Papiro2]

Question for HD Tracks!! When are you planning to launch Queen, Supertramp remastered and in Hi Def?
 
Thank you

 

[roamling]

  Question for HD Tracks!! When are you planning to launch Queen, Supertramp remastered and in Hi Def?
 
Thank you

 
plus the Beatles, Led Zeppelin  and Pink Floyd...

 

[jkstraw79]

If you pick up The Dead's American Beauty You'll notice for SURE.....granted, you have to have decent audio equipment! Im running mine off my macbook pro->PreampParasound P5 w/DAC->Balanced Audio TechnologyVK55 tube amp-->NAD1050-> Audeze LCD XC and/or out to my Magnepan 1.6 w/o NAD or headphones.
 
Sounds sooooooo sweet!!!!!
 
 
 
Best

 

[jkstraw79]

PaPiro----  I second that for some really high quality Supertramp maybe Crime & Breakfast and Floyd with some Zeppelin all, A MUST!!
 
I like spinning vinyl and CD but the quality from the HD Tracks is wonderful. Try Rumors Fleetwood Mac. It's a good one too.

 

[spaark]

   
plus the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd...

Not sure what you mean, but it's mentioned in the original post that Led Zeppelin's albums are coming out on the 3rd, though bear in mind it's only the first three albums, along with bonus tracks. If you didn't know already, these are the remasters John Davis has done. The other albums will be remastered soon as well, but there's no release date.

 

[roamling]

 
Not sure what you mean, but it's mentioned in the original post that Led Zeppelin's albums are coming out on the 3rd, though bear in mind it's only the first three albums, along with bonus tracks. If you didn't know already, these are the remasters John Davis has done. The other albums will be remastered soon as well, but there's no release date.

 

me bad, did not even see that! That is very good news!

 

[sonitus mirus]

If the remastered Led Zeppelin albums are of better quality than the last Jimmy Page masters, I might be interested.  That is all I care about, as any FLAC file I purchase will just be converted to a 16/44.1 lame-encoded mp3 to play on my systems.  If heavily compressed tracks with blaring lead guitars are going to be the result of Page's bias, then these will just be expensive, newly remastered crap.

 

[Compassionator]

  It depends how they've gotten to the recording, whether it was directly from the master or perhaps from another source. You can look up a lot of records on the dynamic range database and see the recording quality. Have to say I've been mostly happy with all the records I've downloaded from them, some records really sound fantastic. Just a tiny bit annoyed now as I bought most of Joni Mitchell's records on HD Tracks last month....

This and the how good the master sounds.  You cannot polish a turd.  If the master wasn't recorded well you cannot go back into the studio and re-record it.  Dynamic compression, too much/incorrect eq, etc. ruin most recordings.  Sad truth is that most recordings aren't that good to begin with.  So, you simply have a HD version of an average sounding recording.  So, yeah you probably will not be able to tell a difference, and the HD version might actually sound worse (a turd in high resolution).  I guess you can dress it up under the guise of "HD" 49/99000 or whatever and tell people it is better and charge more for it.  Some will buy it though and mentally justify it by thinking this is HD and expensive.
 
Also, the condition of the master matters.  Some tapes have to be baked as over time as the tape gets stuck to itself.  The plastic tape with magnetic particles degrade over time, so even if it was great to begin with it may not be great 50 years later.  Oh, and the tape machines need to be in good order as tape heads degrade/wear, caps dry out and change value, Mastering engineer's ears go bad, and poor quality monitoring equipment might be used.
 
Having said the above, there are a few recordings that sound better than in HD.  Whether you actually like the music is another story.  I've got several audiophile friends that play the same damn music over and over again and they don't actually like the music, but listen to it because it is recorded well.  I'll take my fav music on an am radio over music I'm lukewarm about on HD on $200k system anyday.  Kind of like, I'd rather eat a hamburger over the best most expensive lamb chops, because I cannot stand the taste of lamb.

 

[blacknile]

  I like buying cds and having a physical copy of the music I buy and then rip it to my computer, but are these downloads higher-fi than listening to the cd?, Would I even notice a difference?

 
You would only if the mastering is better. Higher than Cd sampling rate is mostly snake oil. Interesting article:
 
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
 
 
"[...] the SACD version of a recording can sound substantially better than the CD release. It's not because of increased sample rate or depth but because the SACD used a higher-quality master. When bounced to a CD-R, the SACD version still sounds as good as the original SACD and better than the CD release because the original audio used to make the SACD was better. Good production and mastering obviously contribute to the final quality of the music [...]"

 

[qveda]

  If the remastered Led Zeppelin albums are of better quality than the last Jimmy Page masters, I might be interested.  That is all I care about, as any FLAC file I purchase will just be converted to a 16/44.1 lame-encoded mp3 to play on my systems.  If heavily compressed tracks with blaring lead guitars are going to be the result of Page's bias, then these will just be expensive, newly remastered crap.

 
I'm curious... maybe I am misunderstanding your post, but why you would buy HDtracks if you end up converting  them to mp3's ?