More > JRiver Media Center 24 for Windows
high quality music (hdtracks) is it worth it?
RD James:
--- Quote from: perry59 on March 21, 2019, 10:18:36 am ---Ok, so it sounds like it would make more sense to just buy the CD and rip it to flac (44/16) with dbPoweramp.
if it's true that that hdtracks is simply upsampling CD's, then I far as I'm concerned they are liars and thieves!
I have seen them claim that their sources are the original analog master tapes.
--- End quote ---
I doubt that they themselves are upsampling CD tracks, but distributing what they have been supplied.
Whether it's upsampled or not doesn't matter though. It doesn't change human hearing.
JimH:
--- Quote from: perry59 on March 21, 2019, 10:18:36 am ---Ok, so it sounds like it would make more sense to just buy the CD and rip it to flac (44/16) with dbPoweramp.
--- End quote ---
Or with JRiver.
blgentry:
Your question seemed to be about your playback device as reported by the White Bear tool. I can't really answer that question other than to say that the first screen shot shows a recommendation of 192kHz audio, which implies your device can play high sample rates.
I both agree and disagree with some of the discussion here. "Human hearing" doesn't tell the whole picture here. There are some very technical things that might make higher sample rate music sound better, even if humans can't hear the higher frequencies.
It's all made more difficult by not knowing the exact provenance of each recording. For example, I know a few people that are absolutely convinced that the HD Tracks version of one of the Led Zeppelin albums is obviously better than previous 16 bit versions. I'm not so sure that the mastering is different making it sound different. It may or may not have anything to do with it being a 24 bit digital file.
I say listen to some for yourself. My high resolution collection is tiny and I like some of it just fine. I also LOVE a lot of my regular 16/44.1 collection which came from CD. There's a lot of resolution on CD and it can sound really good with a good DAC and good playback software.
Brian.
perry59:
Thanks for the input all !
tunetyme:
Your pursuit of quality is worthwhile.
It may be the next step to improving the sound quality is through a DSP that can emulate a 50 year old Marantz tube amp and preamp. Check out Izotope. They are not not cheap but you will have a very noticeable audible improvement. Personally, I found it to be a good investment. I don't get into mastering but I do like Rx7 (repair) they have a number of freebies to get an idea of what you can do like "Vinyl" that will introduce pops and clicks to make your digital music sound like you are playing an analog record. I haven't done the last couple of upgrades but it may be time to.
https://www.izotope.com/
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