Lies about vinyl vs digital

[asdf1000]

8 hours ago, GUTB said:

Time for some real talk.

 

My digital source is better than most members' of CA. Just being real. Most of you guys are running el-cheapo streamers, junk-berry servers with consumer NAS units, laptops, mac minis, etc.

 

I have a custom PC running an I7-7700K with a large passive cooler, no fans anywhere. Paul Pang V3 USB card powered by dedicated battery. SSD on a separate dedicated battery to completely isolate the entire system from SSD noise. Linear ATX PSU. Windows 10 running Fidelizer Pro, Roon and HQPlayer for DSD512 up-sampling (the reason for the powerful CPU). Single RAM stick to minimize noise. It's not perfect because of switching-mode voltage regulators, but very decent.

 

This i7-7700K is directly USB connected to your USB DAC?

 

From my own experience (not expertise) I think you'd be far better off having the PC a couple of rooms away and having something like the Sonore ultraRendu in the listening room.

 

This way the Rendu (or Allo USBridge or SMS-200 or whatever similar) and hence DAC input, is ethernet isolated (and distance isolated, i.e RF interference) from your PC.

 

Just have a Netgear FS108 or GS108 unmanaged switch inside the listening room (later you can do a simple John Swenson PSU grounding trick)

 

From my experiences (again, not an expert), getting the powerful PC far away from the listening room and network isolated, and just having the low powered 'endpoint' (streamer) connected to the DAC, proved to be one of the best system changes I made.

 

[asdf1000]

12 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

I’ve consistently said you will find hi res a very difficult sell.

 

We'll see over the next 12 months... if this rumour about Amazon turns out to be true.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/26/18518182/amazon-music-service-cd-quality-hi-fi-tidal-competitor-unlimited-prime-price

 

All previous theories about why hi-res will be a very difficult sell, go out the window if one of 'The Big Four' (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Google) makes the first move...

 

[asdf1000]

24 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

How are they going to have enough hi res music to stream? 400,000 tracks isn’t enough. 

 

Is that number fixed? Does it have no room to grow?

 

I'm personally not too fixated on the 'hi-res' aspect of the Amazon rumour... if it means Amazon has 40+ million tracks of "CD quality and better" it means there's more chance Spotify and Apple Music may move to do similar (CD quality minimum...) and that's good for us as consumers... and the hi-res number will continue to grow of course...

 

 

 

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8510134/record-labels-hi-res-music-riaa-format-streaming-downloads

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, Paul R said:

All the tracks on iTunes are high resolution already. They are simply delivering them as AAC 256 right now.

 

There's no way of knowing this with certainty unless you have inside Apple info...  it wouldn't even make sense to guess the number.

 

The Mastered for iTunes process recommends tracks are submitted in 24/96kHz ideally, but it doesn't mean they always are or have to be...

 

 

Many aren't aware that even Spotify recommends tracks are submitted to them in FLAC or WAV... could be RBCD or could be 24bit...

 

 

[asdf1000]

5 hours ago, Paul R said:

Let’s say then, I strongly believe all, or at least the vast majority of all music on iTunes has a high res original, be it 24/48 or 24/96, or above. 

 

5 hours ago, Paul R said:

I also strongly believe, but cannot provide absolute proof of, all new music is recorded at higher than CD resolution, usually much higher, and so providing Apple with high resolutions originals is neither difficult or any extra expense. 

 

Sure I think the labels have lots of hi-res digital masters.

 

So they wouldn't just be able to provide Apple with these if Apple asked - exact same applies for Spotify, who have been requesting labels supply FLAC or WAVE for years...

 

So both Apple and Spotify could already have a huge lossless library. We (publicly) just have no idea on the number. Could be less than 1 million tracks, could be over 20 million tracks. No way to know.

 

But yes, at the labels side, it's obviously safe to guess that number to be higher than what Spotify or Apple have.

 

 

[asdf1000]

9 minutes ago, SJK said:

My understanding is that the music labels are extremely reluctant to release anything to anyone that is true high resolution, whether that’s considered to be 24/96 or likely 24/192 or better.

 

It's really hard to know how things may change if the Amazon rumour turns out to be true... if there is a knock-on effect to the rest of The Big Four (Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon)... for example, would the labels have a change of mind if The Big Four told the labels they wanted access to hi-res and will charge more to the customer?

 

In my opinion, any past thinking or theories go out the window if one of The Big Four makes the 1st move... we'll have to wait and see over the next 12 months if this Amazon thing does play out or if the rumour was just fake news.