HighResAudio announced HiRes streaming service in Europe

[#Yoda#]

HighResAudio.com, the German store for HiRes downloads, announced to launch a new streaming service in Europe soon on their Facebook page link:

 

"HighResAudio Streaming: we are bound to launch our subscription based streaming service in Europe! Stay tuned for a unique usability, feature-set and of course our pristine and fully tested, verified and native 24bit FLAC audiophile service. Highly recognized and well known German music journalist are on board to make the HRA streaming service the only serious choice. Pssst ..., the subscription price is a real winner!"

 

[#Yoda#]

I'm curious about it. We've seen a several announcements for HiRes or MQA streaming in January this year (HDtracks, XStream, Napster, Pandorra) but nothing happened since then.

 

The niche for high quality audio streaming is very very small and I think it is difficult to develop a profitable business plan and find financially strong investors for a long term engagement.

 

Like me, a lot of HiRes download customers cannot see any need for streaming in HiRes if the prices are superior. I'm using streaming services primarily to evaluate new music that I intend to buy, for this purpose redbook quality is more than sufficient and a service like Qobuz Sublime (without the +) perfect.

 

The disadvantage for the service provider is that Qobuz cannot earn money with me, because they are subsidizing the streaming service with significant discounts on many HiRes download albums. Within a view weeks, I've already compensated a major part of the annual subscription fee with this discounts. If, beside me, the buying behavior of many more subscribers is similar, this cannot be a profitable business model. 

[#Yoda#]

33 minutes ago, Charente said:

 

Perhaps it is  . I wonder how their production differs from Qobuz ... that might be a key differentiator.

 

The difference is that HRA has a strict quality control and Qobuz not. The majority of my upsampled HiRes fakes are Qobuz purchases, because of this I'm doing my own quality control and check each HiRes purchase with MusicScope.

 

When you are streaming HiRes, this monitoring is impossible and you must trust your ears and your streaming service provider that you really get, what you've payed for.

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, Charente said:

That's quite an eye-opening statement ! So, presumably, if the Qobuz downloads are not 'true HiRes', little chance that the stream albums will be ... presumably derived from the same thing. I do hear a quality difference between some albums and have just put it down to the recording/production. I guess that's why HRA have focused on this issue on their FB page, quote: "Don't be fooled or sorry, if your supplier cheats on you. You don't want to buy music that sounds horrible or is manipulated. The screenshot shows you a very bad example - that you shouldn't pay for."

 

Perhaps my statement was a bit harsh. From my around 200 downloaded HiRes Qobuz albums, 8 has been fakes, to show you the proportion. Primarily older Classic Rock albums that had been reissued in the early years of "high resolution music", 2012 - 2015, but some new issues as well.

Confronted with the charts from MusicScope, Qobuz always offered me new free downloads as compensation. What makes me angry is, that most of the rejected fakes are still in their catalog, you can download the files unlimited times, so it is easy to check and I'm doing this occasionally.

 

By the way, the MusicScope screenshot on the MacBook you can see on the FB page is a bit fuzzy, but as far as I can see, it is from a 16/44.1 PCM/FLAC track, insofar not really a good example for a "bad example" of a HiRes file.

 

58 minutes ago, Charente said:

I suppose a disadvantage for HRA is that their catalogue is not as large (speculating) ... maybe nowhere near. Fortunately, in the Jazz genre that I'm interested in, they have some great offerings. I do pretty much what you do ... evaluate on streaming but I haven't bought a download from Qobuz yet ... always from HRA.

 

I think, the size of their HiRes catalogs is fairly equal at the end, unfortunately blurred by an absurd distribution politics of the labels and regional restrictions for digital rights, even within the EU.

For sure, HRA has a huge advantage in Classical and Jazz music and it seems as they strive for making up leeway at the Pop/Rock related genres. Anyway, competition is always good for us, the customers.

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, Charente said:

... Have you done similar checks on HRA material ?

 

Of course, I'm checking all HiRes downloads: no fake from around 120 HRA downloads, HDtracks 2/40, 7digital 0/10 and one even from an artists own store and the only one without any refund.

[#Yoda#]

1 minute ago, Em2016 said:

 

Thanks for sharing. By "fake", you mean CD quality being sold as 88k or 96k, etc etc?

 

Not necessarily, actual the very most fakes are originally 24/44.1 or /48 upsampled to 24/96. The most extreme one is Eric Clapton - Slowhand, upsampled from 16/44.1 to 24/192, downloaded from Qobuz in Spring 2015.

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, Cebolla said:

Is that the same MusicScope produced by XIVero, who hypothesised in a white paper (announcing a deeper technical analysys of MQA), "MQA is a lossy audio codec … degrading the achievable audio quality"?

https://www.xivero.com/blog/hypothesis-paper-to-support-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa-by-mqa-limited/

 

Can MQA be classed as 'fake' HiRes too?

Indeed, it is the same product.

 

Corresponding to the definition for HiRes Audio from the DEG (Digital Entertainment Group, Consumer Technology Association, and The Recording Academy: "Lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better than CD quality music sources.", MQA is cannot be called HiRes music because it is lossy. Beside this, MQA is a "blackbox" for the customer and usual music analyzing tools and you never really know, what quality you get.

[#Yoda#]

@Charente Cheers ?

[#Yoda#]

4 minutes ago, Charente said:

HRA have 'pulled back' from MQA while they wait for an answer from the organisation concerning how they can verify provenance as part of their quality testing ... their FB page has a short statement to that effect. I believe it's safe to say that their intended HiRes streaming service will be limited to FLAC 24 bit... to start with anyway .... which they can test, qualify and guarantee.

 HRA has not pulled back the complete MQA catalog, they are still offering some MQA albums. A search for MQA shows 258 hits.

[#Yoda#]

It seems as if we must wait a little bit for the HighResAudio streaming service: http://www.monoandstereo.com/2017/12/highresaudio-streaming-service-is-coming.html#more

[#Yoda#]

HighResAudio.com will initiate a "soft-launch" of their real HiRes FLAC streaming service at the Norddeutsche HiFi-Tage in three weeks from yesterday and estimated at the HighEnd Show in Munich, the launch of the corresponding iOS and Android apps.

 

The service will start in the EU countries, the UK and the Scandinavia. It is still uncertain, if and when the service will be available in the US as well.

[#Yoda#]

HRA Streaming what is the official name will have an annual subscription and the price is either € 16.66/month or € 199.99 for annual payment, the price for the Qobuz HiRes service Sublime + is € 349.99. Compared to Qobuz, the catalog is relatively small because HRA Streaming is streaming HiRes content exclusive.

Similar to Qobuz, HRA will offer up to 50% discount on HiRes downloads. A trial subscription will be available for 7 days.

 

Rumors say that we will see an integration in several well known audio hard- and software solutions soon.

[#Yoda#]

19 hours ago, Charente said:

Looks like a good price but I'm thinking can one have offline playing as with Qobuz ? 

I don't know if offline playing is possible. Maybe we will find out next weekend when the soft-launch starts.

[#Yoda#]

4 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Can anyone explain to me what I get if I go for the 

Optional: 229,99 GBP Streaming + Downloads (12 months)

option ?

 

Meaning what is the download part, as I don’t expect to be able to download 30000 albums for that price ?

 

 

Unfortunately not, HRA offer a discount up to 30% on downloads for this streaming option, comparable to Qobuz Sublime +  

[#Yoda#]

32 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Is all album you can stream also available for download ?

Not necessarily, the regional rights to stream music are not always the same as for selling music downloads, not even within the EU. This is the weird digital world. 

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, Musicophile said:

I‘m really impressed by their quality control, they claim they reject 30% of the albums. 

 

As much as I like Qobuz in general, they should take this as a best practice example. 

 

Indeed, I'm indicating on Qobuz's missing quality control, anyway if download or streaming for years now in several forums and to Qobuz itself, but it seems as nothing's changed so far.

 

In case of HiRes downloads you can check the real resolution with e.g. MusicScope by yourself and usually get a refund if it is a obviously a fake, but for streaming you must trust your provider that the content is credible, what should be a matter of course for any HiRes offering, by the way.

 

It shouldn't be the job of consumers to prove the quality of the content, we pay the providers generously for getting the promised quality.

[#Yoda#]

3 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

I'm really wondering, who on earth in 2018 will take a 24/44 file, upsample it to 24/96, and sell it to Qobuz? What is the point?

 

It is not so much a matter of new issues. Primarily it regards older recordings or reissues of some popular Rock/Pop albums from 2012 to 2016 as I already mentioned in other threads.

 

Another question is why some labels deliver occasionally obvious fakes to Qobuz and correct versions to competitors with quality control.

 

You can ask likewise, why albums are available in the U.S. or Canada in HiRes and not in Europe or the other way round, respectively different available resolutions or extremely differing recommended retail prices, depending on the country.

 

Due to regional restrictions and geo-blocking this is not really obvious to most common customers. A lot of questions for the labels to answer.