Best Hi-Res Audiophile Releases 2014.

[mkrzych]

Lyn Stanley's Potions is out for a little while now, very similar if not better acoustics and recording techniques as lost in romance. Great theme, and well chosen songs. I haven't seen any Hires downloads as yet, the SACD is out though, and it's great, Vinyl as well. Will NOT recommend the mp3, this is, CA after all.

 

If you loved Lost in Romance, you'd like Potions. There's really enough material to do Potions 2 up to 20

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15618[/ATTACH]

I've been looking for Posions for a while, but no high resolution download indeed. Anyone know if it's going to be finally released?

[Frankophile]

Yes very nice trumpet playing, but the sound of the upright bass bothers me a bit. Sounds almost like a Fender bass.

But Mr. Phillips sure can can PLAY!

 

Problem with the bass is that they have not used a microphone but the piezo pickup, which bass players use when they play live.

Too bad, and a real pity for the sound of the album.

[EuroChamp]

My favorite release in 2014 - non classical

 

Gregory Porter - Liquid Spirit 24/96

 

[kumakuma]

Lyn Stanley's Potions is out for a little while now, very similar if not better acoustics and recording techniques as lost in romance. Great theme, and well chosen songs. I haven't seen any Hires downloads as yet, the SACD is out though, and it's great, Vinyl as well. Will NOT recommend the mp3, this is, CA after all.

 

If you loved Lost in Romance, you'd like Potions. There's really enough material to do Potions 2 up to 20

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15618[/ATTACH]

 

Thanks for mentioning this. I love her previous album. Hopefully this one will available as a download soon.

[peter73]

Yes, the same performance. According to the DownloadsNow site:

 

"West Side Story was originally recorded to 9624 PCM. The 9624 WAV files are the original digital file generation sent to us. The ... FLAC files are considered second generation ... After several blindfold tests, it is our opinion that the 9624 wav files sound the best, followed by DSF or DFF and after that the FLAC 9624. The difference is minimal ..."

 

Mr. Walker's statement that a wav file sounds better than a flac version of the same file simply means that either there there is something wrong with his playback software or Mr Walker is badly susceptible to placebo. I've yet to see evidence of someone successfully ABX flac from wav, Furthermore, claiming that a DSF/DFF conversion is closer to the original wav file than its flac version, is even more absurd and displays complete ignorance in digital audio file formats and conversion.

[jhwalker]

Mr. Walker's statement that a wav file sounds better than a flac version of the same file simply means that either there there is something wrong with his playback software or Mr Walker is badly susceptible to placebo. I've yet to see evidence of someone successfully ABX flac from wav, Furthermore, claiming that a DSF/DFF conversion is closer to the original wav file than its flac version, is even more absurd and displays complete ignorance in digital audio file formats and conversion.

 

Read more carefully. The quote is from the DownloadsNow site, not my own observation.

 

FWIW, I agree with your statement, though I wouldn't generally state it so rudely.

[peter73]

Read more carefully. The quote is from the DownloadsNow site, not my own observation.

 

FWIW, I agree with your statement, though I wouldn't generally state it so rudely.

 

Sorry, John, my mistake - I thought the signature was part of the quote.

I was at a HiFi Expo yesterday and had a very similar conversation with a guy selling digital downloads online - I had the misfortune of asking him why are the wav versions almost 50% more expensive than flac ... lost about 15 minutes of my time :-)

Apologies once again,

Peter

[oso]

Sorry, John, my mistake - I thought the signature was part of the quote.

I was at a HiFi Expo yesterday and had a very similar conversation with a guy selling digital downloads online - I had the misfortune of asking him why are the wav versions almost 50% more expensive than flac ... lost about 15 minutes of my time :-)

Apologies once again,

Peter

storage space? Waw files are bigger....?

[PAP]

Mr. Walker's statement that a wav file sounds better than a flac version of the same file simply means that either there there is something wrong with his playback software or Mr Walker is badly susceptible to placebo. I've yet to see evidence of someone successfully ABX flac from wav, Furthermore, claiming that a DSF/DFF conversion is closer to the original wav file than its flac version, is even more absurd and displays complete ignorance in digital audio file formats and conversion.

I think I agree with you as well, but having taught music and music appreciation for decades I cannot help but noticing that peoples hearing is as different as their sight or ability to learn play an instrument.

[elcorso]

I think I agree with you as well, but having taught music and music appreciation for decades I cannot help but noticing that peoples hearing is as different as their sight or ability to learn play an instrument.

 

+1

 

Why is so hard to understand different hearings , and I have to add, differences from listening gear and digital music players...!

 

When I make and appreciation (maybe an statement, but for me only), I add: With my listening system (ear / brain) and gear.

 

To cite a white paper or some other technical paper or theory is only a little part of the issue.

 

Roch

[YashN]

Mr. Walker's statement that a wav file sounds better than a flac version of the same file simply means that either there there is something wrong with his playback software or Mr Walker is badly susceptible to placebo. I've yet to see evidence of someone successfully ABX flac from wav, Furthermore, claiming that a DSF/DFF conversion is closer to the original wav file than its flac version, is even more absurd and displays complete ignorance in digital audio file formats and conversion.

 

I make the same statement about WAV and AIFF sounding better than FLAC and ALAC but I add this: in my system. It is neither a small difference nor is it a sporadic occurrence (in my system). This happens every single time I compare FLAC to WAV.

 

Yes, the issue occurs during playback and during playback only (nobody is claiming here that the data uncompressed from the FLAC file is different from the WAV data, it isn't different) so it is linked to how the different formats are being processed in real-time on the computer and/or treated by the audiophile player, probably because of concomitant RFI/EMI and software induced jitter or other induced jitter.

 

I also totally second the notion that a DSF/DFF conversion sounds better than playing the FLAC version, but in this case, this also has to do with how a native DSD DAC doesn't use the brickwall filtering of PCM.

 

In fact, the difference is so that although before I was happy to convert all my FLAC/ALAC to AIFF, this time I am undertaking to convert all the AIFF to DSD 2x.

 

This isn't placebo at all.

 

It is the reality of using a computer to play audio, even with async USB.

 

Is it something inherently *wrong* with how playback is being done?

 

I don't think so, I think it's a common implementation, we're too tributary of the computer and USB and RFI/EMI.

 

Can it be done better in the future so that the differences are minimised?

 

I say perhaps. But the work is the realm of people who actually investigate this and try to solve it, like John Swenson, Gordon Rankin, Miska and Damien Plisson, rather than making gross assumptions that others are merely imagining things.

[YashN]

You should precise whether you're talking about DSD64 or DSD 128...

 

Compared with the 24/96 master, DSD reduces the frequency extension from 48kHz to about 25kHz by drowning the 25-48kHz band in ultrasonic noise. However, this is euphonic, DSD-grade noise. Now, watch the DSD police stone me in forthcoming posts.

[YashN]

I​ will go for the 9624 PCM. I like my files to be as close to the original studio master file as possible.

Or does DSD add another dimension?

 

Technically, you should benefit greatly from a good DSD 2x DAC implementation because of smoother filtering instead of the brick-wall filtering and resulting pre-ringing distortions of the usual PCM chain. You can probably bypass some of these issues if the files are up-converted to DXD rate. All this is very dependent on DAC implementation including the filters.

 

Despite all this, some people still prefer to set the audiophile player at NOS (no oversampling).

 

In some DAC which internally do up-conversion (and here again with filters...), you may get better results if you do the conversion offline and then send the files to the DAC so that it bypasses the internal up-conversion process as well as its filters.

 

These all need to be tried in any system to find out what suits you better.

 

I can only speak for our experience at home here and my system:

 

DSD 2x systematically sounds better than the original PCM file sent to the DAC as PCM in NOS mode, better than the original PCM file sent to the DAC upconverted to DXD rate.

 

With DSD 2x, the sound is more fluid/liquid, effortless, analogue, dynamic, there is better separation of instruments, the soundstage is better. The sound is more enveloping and forward. PCM sounds flat in comparison.

 

Real-time up-conversion to DSD 2x sounds less good than files pre-converted offline to DSD 2x.

 

But that's only in my system, you may find something entirely different in yours...

[PAP]

I did not see this Sound Liaison release mentioned here on this thread.

The music is maybe a little less easy on the ear compared to the After Silence album given the instrumentation of only piano and drums, but is nevertheless very rewarding upon repeated listening. And the sound quality is stunning.

Sound Liaison Music Shop

Yes, very adventurous pianist , Atzko Kohashi and beautiful recorded.

The combination piano and drums duo, is quite unusual but I have one more in my collection which also is worth a listen.

Bill Carrothers with Bill Stewart.

 

Piano sound quality maybe not as good as the Dualtone, but excellent performance.

[PAP]

Originally Posted by peter73Sorry, John, my mistake - I thought the signature was part of the quote.

I was at a HiFi Expo yesterday and had a very similar conversation with a guy selling digital downloads online - I had the misfortune of asking him why are the wav versions almost 50% more expensive than flac ... lost about 15 minutes of my time :-)

Apologies once again,

Peter

storage space? Waw files are bigger....?

 

there used to be a difference, but lately they seem to have come to their senses and ask the same price for WAV and FLAC.

 

Here is a very quick survey,

 

HD Tracks 25 $ for wav or flac. Homepage | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads

 

Sound Liaison 15 € wav or flac Sound Liaison Music Shop

 

Naim 19 € wav or flac https://www.naimaudio.com/naim-label

[acousticsguru]

Too many to safely elect just one, but this springs to mind as particularly beautiful and unusual:

 

 

Bought as DSD128 download from Native DSD.

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[PAP]

Yes,

I agree very beautiful

Too many to safely elect just one, but this springs to mind as particularly beautiful and unusual:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15742[/ATTACH]

 

Bought as DSD128 download from Native DSD.

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[burnspbesq]

I would add the hi-res remastering of Supertramp's "Crime of the Century" to this list.

[elcorso]

From Barry Diament, the best Christmas paid gift I got...!

 

 

Cheers Barry!

 

Roch

[bdiament]

From Barry Diament, the best Christmas paid gift I got...!

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15853[/ATTACH]

 

Cheers Barry!

 

Roch

 

Hi Roch,

 

I'm so glad you are enjoying the album. I believe the sense of joyfulness in it can be felt in the listening.

An appropriate feeling for the season.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

[Boris75]

You should precise whether you're talking about DSD64 or DSD 128...

 

DSD obviously means DSD64. Nearly All my SACDs have DSD written on them. A few have no reference to DSD.

 

None has DSD64 written on them.

 

Let's recap:

DSD means DSD64

DSD128 means DSD128

DSD256 means DSD256

DSD512 means DSD512

Now let's future-proof this list:

DSD1024 (surely twice better than DSD512 and 8 times better than DSD) means DSD1024

 

Am I clear enough now?

[tailspn]

Compared with the 24/96 master, DSD reduces the frequency extension from 48kHz to about 25kHz by drowning the 25-48kHz band in ultrasonic noise. However, this is euphonic, DSD-grade noise. Now, watch the DSD police stone me in forthcoming posts.

 

Gee, I missed this one from earlier. While I'm certainly not the DSD "stoning police", I may be able to add support to your statement of euphoric noise.

 

The upper limit of 64fs DSD frequency response is half the bit rate of 2.82 MHz. Of course there's no audio signal present much above ~30KHz. But what is there is a rising UNCORRELATED (to the music content) noise. It's non existent at low audio frequencies, about -140dB at 20KHz, rising to about -80dB at 50KHz, to about -55dB at 100KHz. All of this is prior to the DAC's low-pass filter, which starts at about 50KHz.

 

To put this into perspective, non Dolby tape hiss is about -55db, throughout most of the entire audio band of frequencies. Also, like tape hiss (basically white noise), the DSD noise is uncorrelated, so does not modulate with the music content. It's a harmless, undetectable (except for very few marginally stable power amplifiers) artifact of the modulation process that creates DSD.

 

So, transferring a 24/96KHz "master" to DSD does in no way trim the audio bandwidth. But I embrace "master" in quotes, for that's a derived product. All digital recordings made since the mid 1990's (with the exception of a tiny percentage of those made with the Pacific Microsonics PM-1 and PM-2 A/D converter) originate through analog to digital converters that use DSD like modulators as their front ends. Those converters that subsequently output PCM of any sampling rate, convert to PCM internally through a decimation filtering and a calculation process. There's no reason for a DSD conversion from a PCM formated content to be of any less bandwidth then the DSD to PCM conversion that originated it.

[Milan]

What is your nomination for best hi-res audiophile recording or recordings of 2014?

 

May I start out with suggesting the new group Batik;The Old Man and the Sea.

This album is so beautiful written and played that I have played everyday for the past 2 weeks. And the sound stage is stunning, maybe the best engineered Sound Liaison album so far or at least as good as the Carmen Gomes albums or the Paul Berner album from the same label.

 

It is available as flac and wav, flac being cheaper for some reason $15 vs $20.

 

BATIK (WAV)

 

 

And in DSD as well.

[Milan]

My img's had disappeared somehow but these 3 are still on the top of my list. Although musicophiles suggestion and my latest acquisition, the Berlin Phil and Simon Rattle by repeated listening is starting to catch up.

 

Linn Records - West Side Story

 

After Silence (FLAC)

 

BATIK (FLAC)

 

 

These three are incredible well recorded and well sounding downloads.

The music is completely different,

West Side Story blending the Broadway musical tradition with Classical. Great new interpretation.

After Silence blending Classical virtuosity with world music. What a sound this man has, I think he takes the prize for most beautiful trumpet sound.

Batik, the Old Man and the Sea, Jazz musicians telling a story with out words, using an almost "Pink Floydian" approach.

 

Best of the three? I find it impossible to choose.

[Boris75]

And in DSD as well.

 

The master recording format for After Silence is 88.2kHz 24bit PCM, but the information is not provided for The Old Man and The Sea. Would anyone have and be willing to share this piece of information? I'd rather buy the original recording format rather than the result of a conversion, even if I trust conversions have been done very well.