Neil Young Archives On New Streaming Service

[esimms86]

Launch date is December 1st.

 

http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/neil-young-to-open-up-entire-online-music-archive-for-free-1.3681012#_gus&_gucid=&_gup=GSEmail&_gsc=CdWyaqZ

[Ralf11]

wow!

 

 

[#Yoda#]

Not really news and far away what was announced as XStream a view months ago, but a great and cheap way to experience the work of Neil Young up to HiRes quality. http://www.neilyoungarchives.com/desktop/index.html#/?_k=b087ri

 

There was an OraStream link a view months ago with some selected albums from NY and the sound quality was excellent up to 24/192. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Here is the latest email from @OraStream

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.   December, 1st marks the launch of the Neil Young Archives - a chronological collection of his entire recorded music, film, videos and books.   The Neil Young Archives will use Xstream Music high-resolution audio streaming, an idea that allows the listener to hear all of the music available at his or her current listening location.   Audio streaming will be directly from the original record masters to web browsers. Based on OraStream's patented audio streaming technologies, The Neil Young Archives will deliver the best musical fidelity possible at any given moment in time.  READ A NOTE FROM NY OraStream Private Limited, 73 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #01-17, SIngapore 139952

[The Computer Audiophile]

One thing I struggle with is the sentence, "Audio streaming will be directly from the original record masters to web browsers." Using a web browser for high end playback is the worst. Audio is usually routed through the OS mixer and there are little to no options. Plus, there is no remote control for sitting and listening, you must be at your computer. 

 

Web browser listening is great for the times while I'm working at my computer, but the need for high resolution is usually diminished during these times. 

 

Anyway, just a thought.

[#Yoda#]

The Neil Young archives are online now and you can sign in http://www.neilyoungarchives.com/#/?_k=l18i1x and make your own impressions.

[#Yoda#]

On 30.11.2017 at 4:33 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Web browser listening is great for the times while I'm working at my computer, but the need for high resolution is usually diminished during these times. 

 

Anyway, just a thought.

 

You are right with your thoughts. Someone who wants to listen to music in a HiRes format is not using a computer with the Brio App or a browser. Meanwhile for this audience it is common to use a dedicated audio device with internet access and it is essential for a service like the Neil Young Archives or XStream or any other new streaming service to appear on the list of supported providers on as much as possible platforms.

 

Beside this audio aspects, there are a lot multimedia elements in the NYA that can only be played back with a computer. My first impression is, this a groundbreaking multimedia example to show the lifework of an exceptional artist. 

[left channel]

As @#Yoda# said, the archives went live today. Access is free for now. http://www.neilyoungarchives.com

 

The music mostly streamed here in great-sounding 24/192 quality, but I'm not too impressed with Xstream's overall performance. Maybe the servers are sagging under the weight of all the curious users right now, but the stream has paused on me a couple times. Switching it to 320 kbps MP3 quality cured the problem, but that's not the point of Xstream.

Looking forward to hearing others' impressions. I'm not a big Neil Young fan, but I enjoyed listening to this week's all-too-topical Pocahontas, and of course the version of Old Man with Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor doing backup vocals, plus Taylor on banjo.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I have 1 Gbps upload/download fiber internet, an iMac (4Ghz processor 16GB RAM), and wired 1 Gbps Ethernet to the iMac. I had tons of dropouts. I stopped listening. 

 

Edit: It was sending 192 KHz audio and everything was green. 

[left channel]

I think activity in my other browser tabs was interfering with the stream. Another drawback of web browser playback.

[austinpop]

Tantalizing, but agree about the browser restriction. 

 

This is just a novelty, until they figure out how to serve this as a stream to music players and servers like Roon. IF they ever do.

[left channel]

Agreed. But the interface and all the content is a lot of fun, and NY clearly put his heart into it. I encourage you to try it just for that. Like I said I'm not a big fan, but I had a ball clicking and dragging around in there while listening (two tracks and one full album).

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

Tantalizing, but agree about the browser restriction. 

 

This is just a novelty, until they figure out how to serve this as a stream to music players and servers like Roon. IF they ever do.

I've addressed this months ago to Phil Baker who seems to be responsible at XStream as he used to be at PonoMusic. However, I cannot imagine, any music player hard- or software supplier will support a single artist streaming and download service, even if it is Neil Young. We will see if there are plans to widen the catalog, first steps with CSN&Y are already announced, but to be taken seriously as an possible additional feature would be a long way, IMO.

 

Perhaps they stay with the current appearance, it remains to be seen how many paying subscribers will support NYA when it is not for free anymore in a view weeks. Time will tell!

[mansr]

I find the interface a bit too gimmicky. That aside, Firefox 57 on Linux insisted on resampling the audio to 44.1 kHz. I had to modify the source code and rebuild it before it would output 192 kHz. Then it started getting buffer underruns instead. A little more source code tweaking to increase the buffer size mostly fixed this, but there's still the occasional glitch. Browsers do not make good music players. I would not pay money for this in its current form. Youtube is better.

 

With the technical issues out of the way, I captured a track at the highest quality. Here's the spectrogram:

 

And the average spectrum of the left channel:

 

Not much going on in the high frequencies, but at least it's not full of fake content like with MQA.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

 

I find the interface a bit too gimmicky.

 

It’s the poster child for skeuomorphism. 

[left channel]

1 hour ago, #Yoda# said:

I've addressed this months ago to Phil Baker who seems to be responsible at XStream as he used to be at PonoMusic. However, I cannot imagine, any music player hard- or software supplier will support a single artist streaming and download service, even if it is Neil Young. We will see if there are plans to widen the catalog, first steps with CSN&Y are already announced, but to be taken seriously as an possible additional feature would be a long way, IMO.

 

Perhaps they stay with the current appearance, it remains to be seen how many paying subscribers will support NYA when it is not for free anymore in a view weeks. Time will tell!

 

Not disagreeing, just clarifying. As I understand it:

 

• the neilyoungarchives.com site will be free until June 30th, and the nya.orastream.com download service will launch soon, 

 

• XStream was developed for Neil, Phil & the rest of whatever team they have left (if any) by Orastream, a very small Singapore company, and

 

• Orastream also offers the BRIO streaming server solution. Their biggest coup before this deal with Neil Young was signing up a group of classical music stations for a BRIO-based subscription service.

 

I would hope Neil & co. will try to sign other artists up for the XStream concept before next June. And I hope they are developing standalone apps for that, to unchain us from the tyranny of browser audio.

[#Yoda#]

38 minutes ago, left channel said:

 

Not disagreeing, just clarifying. As I understand it:

 

• the neilyoungarchives.com site will be free until June 30th, and the nya.orastream.com download service will launch soon, 

 

• XStream was developed for Neil, Phil & the rest of whatever team they have left (if any) by Orastream, a very small Singapore company, and

 

• Orastream also offers the BRIO streaming server solution. Their biggest coup before this deal with Neil Young was signing up a group of classical music stations for a BRIO-based subscription service.

 

I would hope Neil & co. will try to sign other artists up for the XStream concept before next June. And I hope they are developing standalone apps for that, to unchain us from the tyranny of browser audio.

This is largely my state of knowledge, too. Maybe, NYA/XStream will use a BRIO based application as well, but this will not solve the issue of computer/tablet/smartphone dependency, beside SONOS or Chromecast Audio, both not really HiRes enabled.

[AudioDoctor]

Oh if only we could have Full res, non MQA-ified streaming on a single platform...

[The Computer Audiophile]

I want to circle back on this topic. 

 

I hope I didn’t sound overly negative in my posts above. I applaud Orastream and Neil Young for their efforts to provide better quality. Sure I have some dislikes with the product but this is version 1.0.

 

In addition, the Orastream team is very receptive to feedback and is reading this topic. 

[old_bassist]

Xstream needs a desktop app like Tidal's, one that can take exclusive control of the DAC. Right now, my Sound > Playback > (Device) > Properties > Advanced screen says 24 bit, 192000 Hz (Studio Quality) and that's what appears to hit the DAC regardless of what is playing from the NY Archives. 320 kbps, 16/44.1 or 24/192 - everything hits the DAC at an alleged 24/192.

 

Tidal can take exclusive control of the DAC and so can JRiver Media Center. Does anyone know if there is an app in the works for Xstream? Seems to me it would be a big leap forward.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I’d like integration with JRiver or Roon. 

[mansr]

I don't know whether Firefox or their player code is to blame, but the amount of stuttering when doing anything else in the browser is unbearable.

[#Yoda#]

18 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I’d like integration with JRiver or Roon. 

I'm afraid, the relationship between Jim Hillegass (JRiver, Inc.) and Neil Young is not the very best since Jim published in the Pono Community that he had submitted a proposal to invest in PonoMusic to get the store up and running. The proposal has been rejected by the Pono Management.

[firedog]

17 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It’s the poster child for skeuomorphism. 

Which would be fine, except that it is sort of cumbersome. If you just want to play music, it takes too many clicks and windows.

On the other hand, visiting there inspired me to listen to Buffalo Springfield. The streaming from my server to my speakers works great and sounds great, too.

[mansr]

23 minutes ago, firedog said:

The streaming from my server to my speakers works great and sounds great, too.

What OS and browser are you using?