[safulop]

  All you say is sensible, but it doesn't indicate a need for a new end-user format, simply a different attitude from musicians, producers, engineers, and, especially, the listening public.

Yes this would solve everything, but you're talking about changing the whole world.  I'm saying, we could reserve stuff like HDTracks to be like the niche marketplace for audiophile-grade masters, as vinyl now is, and let all else be equal.  Objectivists and subjectivists could make "strange bedfellows" wanting the same sound files but for different reasons, yielding the same increased enjoyment of the music.

 

[RRod]

  Yes this would solve everything, but you're talking about changing the whole world.  I'm saying, we could reserve stuff like HDTracks to be like the niche marketplace for audiophile-grade masters, as vinyl now is, and let all else be equal.  Objectivists and subjectivists could make "strange bedfellows" wanting the same sound files but for different reasons, yielding the same increased enjoyment of the music.

 
A few issues I have:
1) I don't think I should have to pay any premium price to get music not mastered like s@#$
2) I've been unimpressed with the information available on masters from sites like HDTracks and the Ponostore™®☭
3) Audiophile-grade masters should be the norm, not a niche. Not that I have any idea how the audiophile world can change that 

 

[safulop]

   
A few issues I have:
1) I don't think I should have to pay any premium price to get music not mastered like s@#$
2) I've been unimpressed with the information available on masters from sites like HDTracks and the Ponostore™®☭
3) Audiophile-grade masters should be the norm, not a niche. Not that I have any idea how the audiophile world can change that 

Oh I agree completely, especially with point 2.  HDTracks (I have not used it) seems to be hit-or-miss just like Spotify, you have no idea what you are really getting.  I suppose my suggestion is just a coping strategy for dealing with your point 3.  I am perfectly happy playing my records, but it is crazy to me that in 2015 with all the world's supply of record pressing machines dating from the 1980s and prior, *vinyl* is how audiophiles can get the best-sounding masters?? A technology that was "perfected" in the 1950s? I mean, DVD-Audio and SACD were on the right track but didn't get anywhere, maybe HDTracks can provide for us.  The music business in general certainly won't.

 

[arnyk]

  All you say is sensible, but it doesn't indicate a need for a new end-user format, simply a different attitude from musicians, producers, engineers, and, especially, the listening public.

 
 
Agreed that the listening public should stop buying bad sounding products. They never have because too many of them are irrationally overcome by "The new sound".

 

[Thad-E-Ginathom]

   
A few issues I have:
1) I don't think I should have to pay any premium price to get music not mastered like s@#$
2) I've been unimpressed with the information available on masters from sites like HDTracks and the Ponostore™®☭
3) Audiophile-grade masters should be the norm, not a niche. Not that I have any idea how the audiophile world can change that 

Market forces.
 
What we want is the properly-mastered 16/44.1 version, please, and then everybody will be happy. Oh, except the record company, because they can't charge me more.
 
But market forces fail when the market has drunk the kool aid and want nothing but... kool aid.

   
 
Agreed that the listening public should stop buying bad sounding products. They never have because too many of them are irrationally overcome by "The new sound".

 
And the new numbers. Even the relatively sane are to be found casually talking about "better" quality when what they actually mean is higher bit-rate. It has almost got to the point where this stuff has entered the language.  No. It  has entered the language: if High-res audio is not in the dictionary yet, it soon will be, and that in itself will be an argument for it being real. 
 
There is no such word as updation. Oh yes there is: battle lost, nonsense wins the day.

 

[RRod]

  Market forces.
 
What we want is the properly-mastered 16/44.1 version, please, and then everybody will be happy. Oh, except the record company, because they can't charge me more.
 
But market forces fail when the market has drunk the kool aid and want nothing but... kool aid.
 
And the new numbers. Even the relatively sane are to be found casually talking about "better" quality when what they actually mean is higher bit-rate. It has almost got to the point where this stuff has entered the language.  No. It  has entered the language: if High-res audio is not in the dictionary yet, it soon will be, and that in itself will be an argument for it being real. 
 
There is no such word as updation. Oh yes there is: battle lost, nonsense wins the day.

 
Certainly new releases of old material can sell. I mean how many version of DSotM are out there? But yeah, the incentive just isn't there to make an audiophile version that doesn't also have the hi-res baggage attached. The whole "hi-res" versus "better" thing really gets to me too. I have some mind-blowingly great sounding orchestral stuff on CD, so know all too well that the decision to make something sound bad is often a deliberate one, and that this can happen even at 24/192.

 

[fiascogarcia]

  Market forces.
 
What we want is the properly-mastered 16/44.1 version, please, and then everybody will be happy. Oh, except the record company, because they can't charge me more.
 
But market forces fail when the market has drunk the kool aid and want nothing but... kool aid.
 
And the new numbers. Even the relatively sane are to be found casually talking about "better" quality when what they actually mean is higher bit-rate. It has almost got to the point where this stuff has entered the language.  No. It  has entered the language: if High-res audio is not in the dictionary yet, it soon will be, and that in itself will be an argument for it being real. 
 
There is no such word as updation. Oh yes there is: battle lost, nonsense wins the day.

Apple will begin streaming in 256 on their new site at the end of this month, loading their streaming app on every iphone, so it isn't going to get any better soon.

 

[RRod]

 
Apple will begin streaming in 256 on their new site at the end of this month, loading their streaming app on every iphone, so it isn't going to get any better soon.

 
A well-mastered 16/44.1 album converted to 256AAC or even MP3 will sound better than stuff that's badly mastered at 24/192.

 

[cjl]

 
Apple will begin streaming in 256 on their new site at the end of this month, loading their streaming app on every iphone, so it isn't going to get any better soon.

256 AAC is more than adequate for nearly every piece of (two channel) music ever recorded, and it is almost never audibly distinguishable from 16/44 PCM (or higher, for that matter). Good mastering and less dynamic compression would do far more for music quality than any upgrade in bitrate from 256AAC (unless you use the additional bits for more channels).

 

[Thad-E-Ginathom]

  ... ... ... (unless you use the additional bits for more channels).

 
I do accept the possibility of something entirely new in audio technology, let alone basic improvements in the technology that we have now. 16/44.1PCM 2-channel is sufficient does not mean it is the be-all and end-all of recording technology for ever more.
 
The tragedy of the lunatic climb through the PCM sample rates and the DSD multipliers is that it is such a waste of resource that could be applied to audio research.
 
I suppose, the fact is that it doesn't actually take much resource to produce these so-called-high-res copies. It's a new medium for the record companies to resell the same stuff without even having to buy machines to manufacturer it.

 

[safulop]

   
 
Agreed that the listening public should stop buying bad sounding products. They never have because too many of them are irrationally overcome by "The new sound".

I think that audiophiles hear things differently from the average person, and we are constantly complaining that they are so wrong in their hearing.  I know a lot of friends who love that Led Zeppelin remastered box set.  I use the CD cases for coasters.  But I refuse to judge other people's preferences.  There's just no sense in judging a preference.
 
From tape saturation (1950s) to Phil Spector's "wall of sound" (1960s) to the loudness wars, the music industry has defined itself around generating products that sound "good" on low-fi equipment.  My daughter plays music straight out of the screen speaker on an iPhone!  We're going backwards in some ways.  But it is not irrational, it's just a different priority system than we share in this community.  I think we can do better if we stop complaining about the world as it is and work toward a system where we can get access to the best-sounding products we want to hear.  Yes even if they cost more.

 

[arnyk]

  I think that audiophiles hear things differently from the average person

 
That's because about 40 years ago there came to be enough audio gear that was sonically transparent, that a new form of audiophilia came to be which we now call Placebophilia.
 
Placebophilia is the love of placeboes, which characterizes a lot of people who behave an a similar fashion as audiophiles, but are not the same. Another confusing term is Music Lover. Three different groups of people, sometimes overlapping.

 

[blades]

 
Sometimes I wonder if there is any difference between sponsorship and outright bribery. In the case of high end audio publications similar lack of difference exists between advertising revenue and outright bribery.
 
Truth, honesty and integrity are all just so 20th century. The 21st century is all about lies, dishonesty and corruption.

 
Actually it is all about money.

 

[safulop]

   
That's because about 40 years ago there came to be enough audio gear that was sonically transparent, that a new form of audiophilia came to be which we now call Placebophilia.
 
Placebophilia is the love of placeboes, which characterizes a lot of people who behave an a similar fashion as audiophiles, but are not the same. Another confusing term is Music Lover. Three different groups of people, sometimes overlapping.

Well, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about how average people "can't hear" deep into the music, so they don't hear differentiated instrumentation or the subtle transients and spectral changes that define all the different sounds in the mix.  My wife once asked me why a stereo has two speakers!  She actually cannot hear that there are different sounds coming from the two channels.

 

[Toom]

Wood and trees comes to mind.