castleofargh
Sound Science Forum Moderator
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well the easy way to keep archives was to copy onto newer tapes, but that was not helping the resolution for sure.
Hilarious, LOL.... it's very simple:
After high rez marketing hype made a lot of consumers buy new DACs capable of 24/96 to 192 or even 32/384, DSD 1234 xyz or what have you, there had to be software on offer to feed all these new gadgets and make the respective LED's light up or displays tell the resolution. And then people were hearing that they got their money's worth.
The classic recordings you mention do sound spectacular already on CD (living stereo, living presence etc.). These are analog recordings and given the age of the tapes, the sound that was captured is just astounding. Unless the orig. master tapes are newly A/D transferred with a higher resolution, then the old "CD master" are just upsampled to make the DAC display say 24/96. Everybody should be able to decide if that's worth paying for or stick with "lowly RB" at 16/44. The age of these tapes makes it very questionable if renewed transfer will give better result than what has been done 20 or 30 years ago. A new mastering of the orig. transfer files might help in certain cases when producers have been over eager to make the CD sound "obviously better than analog". The age of early digititis. The tapes don't really improve with age. At some point another playback will destroy them completely. What hasn't been archived into a new format already, might be lost at some point.
So yes, if there is no audible difference between the 2 why the heck are we so concerned to have the former, especially if we're talking streaming?
Flashbacks to the horrors of magnetic media (Cassettes and VHS/Beta).
Speaking of old-fashioned technological horrors and monstrosities, anybody remember 28 and 56K dial-up internet? LMAO!
In reference to streaming, I want a codec with the smallest data rate (file size) that is transparent. 256kbit AAC or 64kbit MPQuantum512LAFU, doesn't really matter. Of course when we really get unlimited wireless data (100% wifi coverage), then it won't matter.
For my own reference and storage, I want lossless. I would rather not transcode from lossy to lossy. Flashbacks to the horrors of magnetic media (Cassettes and VHS/Beta).
My hanging on is partially a combination of habit and mistrust of the industry, fed by things like the loudness war and the current hi-res money-grab.
Loudness War is by far the most important reason why I keep my CD's and FLACs. Trying to find an old master of an album or track is just a stupendous pain in the *****. Pretty much invisible unless you look for a "mark": a new copyright date, a second difference in length, etc. Kinda like how Enya's "Book of Days" was silently "upgraded" to "Far and Away Theme", I grabbed the entire stack of used CD's, took them to the counter and played each one to find the one with "Book of Days" on it. They had a sticker, but it was on the plastic wrap, which was long gone by the time I even thought about picking up the album.
That is what makes the Loudness War so insidious; the changes are nearly invisible until you listen to it. Maybe that's just a new cover for an old album or may be its the old cover on a secretly boosted CD. Evil. Then comes streaming...you are at the mercy of the streaming master (most here in Sound Science know bit-rate is usually swamped by the quality of the master), with no recourse except to not play that song from that service.
Dream format - 24-bit/48khz lossless (compress those zeros!), DRM-free. Dunno if multichannel sound would need more bits at a higher frequency or they just add data tracks so 24/48 is way more than enough.
I'm happy with a CD. I would like to see online retailers like iTunes, Amazon and Google start selling CD-quality lossless downloads. The storage space is available for most people and the bandwidth is there, unlike 10 years ago when lossy downloads came on the scene.
My uninformed butt is trying to understand something. HighRes DL sites(HDTracks specifically) offer all these classic cds that were recorded in the 50s,60s 70s at different levels of 24bit. Since these albums were not likely recorded in 24bit, how could upsampling/inflating them to this resolution level make any bit of difference? I mean, all this space is filled with what? Certainly not actual music data that originated from the artist when it was recorded. correct? Is it just meaningless filler that they are adding and then asking much higher prices for them? Please be so kind as to help me understand what it is that these sites are offering here. Regards, Joey