List Audiophile Quality Download Sites

[The Computer Audiophile]

I think it is time to start a list of the audiophile quality music download sites since they are so rare and can be hard to find. I'll start it off with these.

 

1. Linn Records

2. iTrax

3. Naxos Music Library

4. Classics Online

5. Music Giants

 

- Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6. Deutsche Grammophon just announced higher quality downloads. But they are only 320 kbps mp3 files. No DRM though.

 

 

- Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Linn Records High Resolution Downloads - Editor's Choice 2007

 

Highlighting Linn Records' commitment to improving the quality of digital music, highly-regarded HiFi magazine Stereophile has just published Award details for Linn Records High Quality Music Downloads which won the Editor's Choice award.

 

"The Linn downloads are all taken from their own catalogue; my hat is off to [Linn] for leading audiophiles-and me!-into the brave new world of high-resolution downloads."

 

- Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

7. Beatport (http://www.beatport.com)

 

Beatport is the first authentic digital music store designed to service the evolution of the digital music culture, redefining how DJs and enthusiasts acquire their music. Beatport.com allows users to access the world of club music through secure, legal, hi-speed, high quality downloads in MP3, MP4 and WAV formats on a pay per download basis. With hundreds of labels and thousands of users world wide, Beatport is recognized as the leader for online, electronic dance music.

 

If anyone has a review please let us now how this site is.

 

 

- Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8. High Definition Tape Transfers (HDTT) is a site that offers 24/96 high resolution downloads. At first blush their selection didn't do it for me. However, after obtaining additional information about HDTT and their process I think it is a disservice to focus on selection over quality. It is almost antithetical to audiophile morals :-) Quality is always more important than quantity. I hope to have a full review of their rare classical recordings that have been praised by many in the high end industry. Here is a link to their free full resolution samples.

 

For those of you looking for the physical media HDTT offers offer all of their releases in CD, 24/96 DVD and of course 24/96 download.

 

 

Also, here is some information directly from HDTT:

"Like vinyl, analog tape is a relatively neglected storage medium now enjoying a renaissance, due to the enlightened efforts of a growing alliance of audiophiles and "tapeaholics." High Definition Tape Transfer is the brainchild of an avid 2 & 4 track open reel collector who is also a serious audiophile. Collected over the years, many tapes contain forgotten performances of historical importance, with unusually good sound quality when played back through modern, state of the art music systems.

Contrary to what some "experts" might say, we have found that every one of the numerous techniques and aspects of the HDTT transcription process makes important, audible contributions to the quality of the encoded digital signal."

 

- Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

9. Gimell Records

Website

 

Sample downloads from gimell.com

 

MP3 320kbps MP3

CD Quality 16 bit - 44.1 KHz WMA or FLAC

Studio Master 24 bit - 44.1 KHz WMA or FLAC

Studio Master 24 bit - 48.0 KHz WMA or FLAC

Studio Master Pro 24 bit - 88.2 KHz WMA or FLAC

Studio Master Pro 24 bit - 96.0 KHz WMA or FLAC

 

Sample information

 

 

- Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

They have lossless FLAC downloads.

 

From http://www.mindawn.com

In the summer of 1999, Shawn Gordon founded theKompany.com, a software company specializing in creating developer and desktop software for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. TheKompany.com develops both commercial and open source software.

 

In late 2001, Sharp introduced their Zaurus line of embedded Linux-based PDAs. TheKompany.com jumped on this exciting new platform, creating nearly 40 embedded applications for the device. This led to the development of portable media players supporting both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, in both standalone and streaming formats, in addition to the development of extensive video playback technology.

 

In the summer of 2002, Mr. Gordon followed his long passion for progressive rock music and acquired the popular internet radio station ProgRock.com. One of his first acts was to switch it from MP3 streams to Ogg Vorbis streams. This also led to the development of the freely available tkcOggRipper, with which the user can easily rip CDs to Ogg Vorbis files on Linux and Windows.

 

In late 2002, Shawn followed what to him seemed a logical evolution and founded ProgRock Records as a way to help nurture and support some of the fantastic music coming out of this often overlooked community.

 

After many brainstorming sessions with some of the ProgRock Records artists and theKompany.com software developers, we realized that we already had most of the technology we needed to pull this off effectively. Now we also had a financial model that also made sense to artists and consumers alike -- so it was time to realize the dream and make it real.

 

Mindawn was launched in September 2004 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of theKompany.com, Inc.

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

"Pristine Classical is the biggest historical music download site on the Internet. There are hundreds of recordings to choose from, all with substantial full-quality audio previews. Download CD covers and choose between high quality MP3 files or lossless FLAC files for true CD-quality downloads - or order a CD, sent direct by priority airmail."

 

Pristine Classical

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

HDtracks

 

[radar2886]

I would like to add Archive.org to the list. A friend of mine showed it to me last week, and it has a great live music section. Most of the artists are more obscure, but there are some great live shows from artists such as the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh and Ryan Adams among others. Most of the shows can be downlaoded as FLAC files, some even have 24 bit files. I have downloaded a couple of shows, and the sound quality is scary good.

 

[watchnerd]

Do you have a link to the audiophile downloads for Naxos?

 

The only thing I can find is 128 kbps mp3.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hmm, it looks like they aren't even offering any downloads right now. Everything is streamed only. Yuck!

 

[chrille]

Hello there again,

I´m surprised you did´nt mention 2L ,they have also started selling some true hi rez files.

 

I have downloaded their test files and they sound very promising.

Of the ones you list only one really offers hi rez, Linn!

 

Right now I´m listening to the whole set of Bach´s Brandenburger Concertos on a free download from Czech Radio

Flac files

Took about ten minutes to download on my new high speed connection.

 

http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/download_eng

 

Maybe not the very best sound I´ve heard but quite clean and free of digital nasties it seems.

A bit closely recorded in what sounds like a studio,certainly not the Rudolfinum!

 

As far as pay sites are concerned there only seem to be TWO of any real interest out there as far as my tastes are concerned 2L and Linn.

And I already own several of the Linn recordings as SACDs .

The others keep promising hi rez or are promoting CD quality as hi rez!

Which is frankly quite misleading!

HD Tracks have been saying soon for quite long now!

But so far nothing !

Chrille

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I agree promoting cd quality as high resolution is misleading. They should call it higher resolution because the resolution is obviously being compared to iTunes and those like it.

 

The HDtracks high resolution stuff iscoming shortly.

 

[watchnerd]

Also, it would seem Classics Online is offering only 192kbps.

 

[watchnerd]

I didn't see Magnatune anywhere on this list:

 

www.magnatune.com

 

They offer WAV downloads and, even more interesting, they let you pick how much you want to pay and offer all you can eat for $18/month.

 

[zzgavin]

http://www.bleep.com/ sell FLAC files of most music on their site, their parent label is Warp

Combined with MAX you can get lossless ALAC files

 

great site, thanks

Gavin

 

[rom661]

Thanks Chris for the update. Unfortunately, Holt's Law seems to be largely holding true so far. For those not familiar with him, J. Gordon Holt was the founder of Stereophile magazine as an effort to counter the tendency he observed at Audio magazine, where the cost of the advertising budget with the magazine seemed to influence the quality of the review.

 

To paraphrase Holt's Law states "The better the recording, the worse the performance". This is not to say that Linn et al do not have any worthwhile artists in their camp, it is just hard for me to get excited about hi rez until lots of performances are available. Or, as someone else said, it's the music, stupid. That last line does not refer to anyone on this site, just a concept.

 

[rom661]

Thanks Chris for the update. Unfortunately, Holt's Law seems to be largely holding true so far. For those not familiar with him, J. Gordon Holt was the founder of Stereophile magazine as an effort to counter the tendency he observed at Audio magazine, where the cost of the advertising budget with the magazine seemed to influence the quality of the review.

 

To paraphrase Holt's Law states "The better the recording, the worse the performance". This is not to say that Linn et al do not have any worthwhile artists in their camp, it is just hard for me to get excited about hi rez until lots of performances are available. Or, as someone else said, it's the music, stupid. That last line does not refer to anyone on this site, just a concept.

 

[piers]

There's a good chance that this won't be news to anyone but a quick google search last week bought up a 3,000,000 track, DRM-free, WAV file download site:

 

http://www.mobiledjdownloads.com/index.php

 

I downloaded some tracks last night and the quality seems good.

 

Piers

 

PS I emailed them to enquire whether they might offer 24/96 tracks in the future and they said it was something they were considering...

 

[ciamara]

I will cast in a vote for Beatport. Back in the day when I used to buy a lot of electronic music, I would go to Satellite Records in New York and buy vinyl. I amassed a collection of 10,000 records over a decade. In the late 1990s and into 2001, Satellite was the best shop in the country, and seemingly every DJ on the planet "knew" that vinyl was the only medium for mixing. It is amazing how fast that has changed. Sure, a lot of DJs still play from their vinyl collections, but more and more these days play from CDJs (e.g. the Pioneer CDJ 1000 mkIII, which we connect to high end DACs when they are used in professional environments). The more innovative ones play from their computers using tools like Ableton Live. Beatport allows DJs and electronic music lovers to download their favorite music in compressed MP3 (320kb) format, or for a slightly higher price, you can get the 16/44 WAV master files. Even though producers will record and mix at 24/44 or 24/88 (when mixing, dynamic range is a huge advantage, hence the use of 24bits), most mastering houses that deal with electronic dance music master at 16/44 -- at least that was my experience.

 

Anyhow, Beatport is great. I just wish the GUI was a little easier on the eyes! I myself produced some dance music back in the day, and some of it was released on Beatport. Sadly, the label that licensed my music went out of business (a very common occurrence in this genre), so it is no longer available on Beatport. So ... I have decided to make it freely available to everyone. Please follow this link to find my music if you're interested:

 

http://www.ciamara.com/music/

 

For now, I have "Digital Satisfaction" up there. Both versions are mastered. Over time, I'll add some of my other stuff if people are interested, though none of that stuff is mastered.

 

 

[church_mouse]

www.chandos.net offer some of their classical selection in FLAC/WAV/AIFF - sometimes one can even get one of their free monthly samples in lossless.

 

Note - they refer to high definition lossless, but this simply seems to me to mean 16/44.1 lossless from what I have been able to find.

 

[CharlyD]

I'd also add B&W's Society of Sound site, http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/display.aspx?infid=777, to this list.

 

And Chris, doesn't the software on this forum allow addition of simple HTML pages and forms? The information in this list would be a LOT more useful if it was presented as a table with a simple form to add entries. The table columns could be Site Name, URL, Genre, Formats, Pricing (USD) and Comments.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi CharlyD - I'm working on a Wiki at this very moment that would allow all this stuff and of course freely editable content by registered users. Thanks for mentioning you are interested in a table style form.

 

[Bob Stern]

24/88 downloads in AIFF and WMA formats of 4 new recordings conducted by Levine plus one Mozart chamber music album.

 

The remainder of their catalog is 320 kbs MP3 of historical concert archives, including Koussevitsky, Monteux, Munch, Cantelli, Kubelik, etc.

 

For $30 you can download their entire catalog, including the 5 new 24/88's and the historical recordings.