High Res Provenance

[James1776]

Selling 16/44 as high rez is not new to downloads. How many SACDs where based on 16/44 masters? A lot of record companies did not have any moral issues with that.

 

Record companies have never been known for their ethics, just their greed.

[James1776]

I'm not sure it's as clear cut as that... It's not fraud but also not being completely transparent.

 

Eloise

 

Hi-Rez is a lot like cars. If one pays for a Rolls one does not consider ending up with a VW and a custom grill as 'not exactly fraud'. Until the industry stops lying about their products folk will not buy with assurance.

 

Better, think Hollywood set. You have what looks like small town America in 1930 but on the other side of the façade one gets plywood and fakery.

[James1776]

Personally I would call it fraud.

 

Fraud must be proved by showing that the defendant's actions involved five separate elements: (1) a false statement of a material fact,(2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue, (3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim, (4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and (5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.

 

So are purveyors of faux hi res guilty of fraud by the above points?

 

Yes, they know what they sell is not a Hi-Rez source just like painting a Maserati on the door of your Yugo does not make it one.

[RealAudio]

Record companies have never been known for their ethics, just their greed.

 

 

Given how poorly record company sales are profits have been, scum of the earth that they are, maybe they need more greed.

[James1776]

I'm not a lawyer, but I know fraud when I see it. HDtracks takes standard redbook and packages and sells it as 24/192. That's no different from putting a pink of milk in a one quart container and selling it as a quart of milk.

 

Now THAT is an analogy that works!

 

The only issue is 'do they know what they are selling'? I would find it comforting to know they actually look at the music's provenance before they resell it as Hi-Rez. It would be good to know they remove suspect product from the catalog when advised the file is not as described.

 

Folk sometimes say they cannot hear any difference between 24/96 and 24/192. Let's assume the claim is true. Is it possible that is because the product listened is not 24/192 but simply upsampled?

 

I will, as an aside, note that I have bought a few files in 24/96 that did not sound appreciably better than my CD copy of the music BUT, every single file I have bought from Blue Coast Music and Linn recording sound seriously better than any of my CD's. I have total confidence in those folk but HD Tracks is hit or miss. Put another way, I make my buying decision with Blue Coast and Linn on if I like the performance, not on the quality of the recording. I have t make a quality call with HD tracks (and I have bought a good bit of their product. Their 24/96 files simply do not sound as well recorded as their competitors)

[James1776]

If people fell so strongly that it is fraud, then make a complaint at the consumer fraud divisions in the offices of district attorneys and attorneys general. But you have better have your facts in line and a wallet to generate the action you seek.

...

 

That is what companies with marginal ethics rely on. Who is going to drop thousands on a fraud involving a $25 product?

 

I once went to small claims court with an issue. My car, in for repairs at a dealer, was broken into and several hundred dollars of installed stuff was stolen. When confronted over the theft, the dealer pointed to a sign that advised they had no responsibility for the vehicles left in their care. That there was no legal protection for the dealer under state law for the event was ignored. I easily won the case but I have always wondered how many other poor fools bought the bogus sign scam and did not take their case to court.

[James1776]

Given how poorly record company sales are profits have been, scum of the earth that they are, maybe they need more greed.

 

Who is to blame for that low margin? They did it to themselves. They produce too much crap music at poor engineering quality to be surprised when sales die. Look at the record companies before the CD....the vinyl got thinner, lighter, with more built in defects and more poorly recorded every year while the price went up. Up popped the CD and the record nearly died. Today records sold new are vastly superior quality wise than what we were getting at the beginning of the CD era.

 

Quality sells but only when folk are sure they are getting what was promised.

[Audio_ELF]

Hi-Rez is a lot like cars. If one pays for a Rolls one does not consider ending up with a VW and a custom grill as 'not exactly fraud'.

I guess your analogy falls down if you know that Bentley took the VW Phaeton and customised it a little to create their Continental GT...

 

(Edited to clarify what I was saying)

 

Eloise

[RealAudio]

I guess your analogy falls down when you know that Bently took a VW and customised it a little to create their own car :-)

 

 

I think it's the other way around. Bentley is owned by VW

[firedog]

I think it's the other way around. Bentley is owned by VW

 

Yes, which is exactly why Eloise is right. That's how Bentley got the VW Phaeton for upgrading/rebranding. Basically the same car that didn't have enough hi-end cache when sold as a VW did when sold as a Bentley.

[James1776]

I guess your analogy falls down if you know that Bentley took the VW Phaeton and customised it a little to create their Continental GT...

 

(Edited to clarify what I was saying)

 

Eloise

 

I was thinking more of this

 

[Jud]

I will, as an aside, note that I have bought a few files in 24/96 that did not sound appreciably better than my CD copy of the music BUT, every single file I have bought from Blue Coast Music and Linn recording sound seriously better than any of my CD's. I have total confidence in those folk....

 

+1 re Blue Coast and Linn, and I'll add eClassical and Channel Classics (which I'm sure will spin off NativeDSD one of these days) for good measure.