[gatorengineer64]

  Oh yeah, if you recall the rockwell review of iphone 5.  He states he can hear page turn and all kind of details of a orchestra piece because of the 009.  The funny thing is, that's how it was recorded.  It's most likely not the headphones that's bringing out the details, but any decent headphones can hear it because of the way it was recorded.
 
Recently I had a chance to hear a binaural recording, blew me away.  Now I need to collect them all.  

  So, yeah the way it was recorded has lots to do with it sounding really great whether it's losses or compressed at a decent bitrate.  
 
This Binaural amber Rubarth album at 24/96 I have is nearly a gig in size, it's probably the way the it was recorded that makes it sound so incredible.  
 

 
 
Where did you find in FLAC?  I bought it off of Amazon but it came down MP3 (first purchase from them).  HD tracks didnt have it...  Did you get the disc and rip it?  If so what ripper, just so I learn.....

 

[bigshot]

  1)  If its put out at 24/96, then it is at least in theory well mastered.
 
2)  I think alot of stuff that has been ripped, may not have been ripped well.

 
1) That isn't the case. The hires Rolling Stones remasters sound NOTHING like the original recordings. Often with rock legacy titles, the term "remastered" means totally monkeyed with. You want the original sound the artists approved, not some jerry rigged remix made by an anonymous mastering engineer.
 
2) I rip my own CDs using iTunes and have no problems. The only time you would run into problems is if you were going through illegal file sharing to get your music.
 
If I had to make any kind of generalization about which format has the best sounding music, I would say that CDs from the 80s and 90s sound the best. That is when intrusive remastering was rare and hot mastering hadn't become as all pervasive yet. If you want the best sound, used CDs are your best bet.
 
For classical music and jazz, the most recent CD release is usually the best. Those genres have always enjoyed top quality mastering, and the recent remasters of older recordings on Sony and other labels has been spectacular.

 

[SilverEars]

   
 
Where did you find in FLAC?  I bought it off of Amazon but it came down MP3 (first purchase from them).  HD tracks didnt have it...  Did you get the disc and rip it?  If so what ripper, just so I learn.....

You can get it at HDtracks.  CD is 16bit 44khz so you cannot rip 24bit from CD.  Also, do not upconvert 16bit to 24bit or bitrates, it will make no difference.

 

[gatorengineer64]

I found it. Not listed by artist. You cost me a bunch of money LOL, even the mp3 sounds unbelievable... gonna be addicted to binaural now...

 

[SilverEars]

I found it. Not listed by artist. You cost me a bunch of money LOL, even the mp3 sounds unbelievable... gonna be addicted to binaural now...

Here is more from Chesky Records.  

 
http://www.chesky.com/index.html

 

[gatorengineer64]

I see a lot of old references to binaural. Anyone but chesky doing it now?

 

[SilverEars]

I dunno, I discovered Amber Rubarth at a meet, and I thought it was the headphones.  

  Then I downloaded it find out it is something called "binaural" in which I discovered for the first time.  I am not aware any other besides a Pearl Jam record called "binaural".
 
Here are couple threads that discuss binaural though
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/223165/legally-download-able-binaural-recordings-links
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/550220/chesky-records-makes-a-high-rez-album-for-head-fiers-in-binaural

 

[SilverEars]

Here is some good ones
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/511850/awesome-binaural-albums

 

[musikaladin]

... here a DSD64 LP rip I did recently. You can convert it to Flac 24/192 and compare yourself. I did so, and I come to the conclusion that the DSD is "more stress-free" than FLAC... in this sense less is definitely more...
 
As such, even within high-res between different formats, even when using similar "resolution levels" there are differences.

 

[cjl]

Did you do the test blinded? If not, you can really just conclude that placebo is a powerful thing.

 

[stv014]

There could also have been some difference in the playback levels, or other issues. The sample does not seem to contain much information above 40-50 kHz that is not swamped by the DSD noise, and the noise floor already starts to rise quickly above ~30-35 kHz. So, converting even to 96/16 PCM should not result in any significant loss of (already inaudible above 20 kHz) information.

 

[bigshot]

With LP transfers, the odds are there isn't any signal above 17kHz or so. Everything above that is either noise or harmonic distortion of some kind.