NickM

labjr: ¨I'm not sure many can tune as well as some of the modern tuners these days. I started using strobe tuners for guitars a few years back and would never go back to anything else. I trust it far more than my ear. I feel I've developed a better ear because of it.¨ I agree that technology can tune closer than most ears can; and it´s good to hear that you personally have developed a better ear because of it. Very encouraging that your first link says this tuner has JI built in (as well as ET). The old tunings are coming back, Utube now has a few performances in JI on guitar and Koto, and they sound good (in spite of the terrible mp3 downsampling). My point is, that modern hi-res recording such as DXD (which is where this thread started) enable us to hear better the physical vibration of natural acoustic instrument such as the wood in a guitar or piano (what francesleung called bottom). And hi-res recording ought now to be matched by the manufacturers waking up to produce hi-res synthesizers (at DXD sample rate or at least 192kHz). Has anyone here heard a synth with a 350kHz sample rate? I have; it was a crude home-brew device that only played the first 120 bars of Beethoven´s Rasoumovski quartet in C, but the precision of the harmony was phenomenal. Which is why I pricked up my ears when 2L company put out their amazingly superior recordings in this controversial new DXD format. Technology is wonderful but the ear is still king; here is Eben Goresko (pianist and registered piano technician) explaining how much expressive sound color our ears have lost since ET displaced the old tuning. (Interesting bit of information: ET as we know it has been supreme for less than 100 years; neither Bach, nor Chopin nor even Brahms used it. Contrary to what most people believe, modern ET does __not__ represent 200 years of Western musical tradition. I hope that, if people develope finer ears thru hi-res recording and tuning technology, they will begin to judge a recording by its intonation (harmonic purity and tone color) as well as by its realism. Eben Goresko Piano Tuning Improved | Reviving The Lost Sounds of Music http://www.nme.com/nme-video/youtube/id/tu5CUUFtl6A/search/temperament-music Guitar, with Dante Rosati http://users.rcn.com/dante.interport/justguitar1.html http://users.rcn.com/dante.interport/justguitar.html Lou Harrison guitar Koto Ensemble

francisleung re: JI versus EQ. ¨Thank you Nick for the Youtube link.¨ You´re welcome. As you say, Chinese artists over 40 still use the traditional system, which is many thousands of years old and world wide because based on natural harmonics, while younger artists have switched to the all-pervading ET system which is only 200 years old and an artificial construct. ET is near enough but not good enough: near enough for most purposes but not good enough for people with good ears who can tune their own instruments and play without pre-set frets or piano-style keys. A good violinist, a good singer or an older Chinese folk musician would rather trust their own ears than an electronic gadget, quartz or otherwise. Good string quartets play in JI or simiylar natural overtones. A string quartet by Beethoven, Mozart or Haydn could be played on the finest instruments and recorded in the highest possible resolution yet still sound unsatisfactory - if the players were using ET instead of JI. ET is near enough but not good enough when it comes to recording a Beethoven quartet for discriminating listeners. Here are 3 snatches of pentatonic music by well known Western composers - they sound like Chinese to me. What do you think? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale

francisleung re: ¨Just intonation and Equal Temperament Hi Nick, Thank you very much for the youtube links. Very interesting.¨ You´re welcome. Here is a link to JI versus EQ on a real, physical, acoustic guitar. Something that, as a guitar player, you can try for yourself. Should be good for accompanying a singer of Chinese folk songs because folk songs have natural intonation. No need to use a tuning fork, just tune your guitar to match the singer _for_each_song then listen to the chords as you accompany him/her. If you find the results interesting and can get so far as to make a recorded file, my email is NGMaroudas @ Gmail.com JUST VERSUS EQ GUITAR

Hi Miska, I do not have your technical expertise, so you will have to slug it out with Swedish engineer Oehman in his technical journal. But in his interview with NL (the link is in my post to fafner) he made two statements which have pushed me even more in favor of hi-res PCM through parallel convertor over hi-res DST/SACD thru a one-bit convertor. Firstly, this interview confirmed that a master for one-bit SACD is actually made on multibit PCM. Surprise? NL: Press release: "A big surprise at the AES was the confirmation by Sony that DSD technique, used in SACD, uses multi-bit PCM during recording and mastering processes and that only uses one-bit technique as it applies to consumer playback systems." Apparently they use PCM for recording and mastering, even for SACD. Now the advantage of no conversion between formats suddenly disappears. Ing.Öhman: Several documents show this is the case. Sony/ Philips has even officially recommended using PCM when editing the recorded material. I think it is a wise recommendation, because every manoeuvre in the PCM-domain is straightforward, easy to make and will not degrade the quality if performed with high enough resolution. Only the DSD-problems remain! Therefore DVD-A is a purer and more straightforward system. DVD-A is what the CD system should have been from the beginning. NL: Back to the Sony technical paper: "On the playback side, most CD-players utilise one-bit D/A-converter to convert digital signals back to analogue." Is this correct? Don't most CD-players utilise multi bit-converters? Ing.Öhman: Though some fine multi bit CD-players exists, unfortunately most CD-players today utilise one-bit converters. It is probably a price question. A so-called 24 bit one-bit converter (working with one bit technology inside but accept 24 bit input) costs about 2-4 dollars including 2 channels and digital filter. A real 24 bit converter with 96 kHz sampling frequency and 8 times over sampling costs about 10-15 dollars per channel. For two channels and digital filter it ends up to approximately 40 dollars. So multi bit technology is ten times more expensive than one-bit technology. Most manufacturers find it easy to choose ... Especially since Hi Fi-magazines and Hi Fi-stores never take a stand and point out the difference.¨ That was the opinion of Swedish audio engineer Oehman. Now here is an opinion from somebody down on my own level, a consumer review from Amazon. By Hai-uy Dang (Fountain Valley, ca United States) Review of 2L Nordic Sound - Audiophile Reference Record (Blu Ray Audio & SACD) ¨I think its important that people have the right equipment that can actually output the full audio qualities that the producers of this album intented in order to experience the magic of this recording.... First, you will need a capable blu ray player and receiver that can decode 192khz/24-bit DAC's for all channels, this is important as this Blu ray has both 5.1 DTS HD MA 24/192kHz and 5.1 LPCM 24/192kHz soundtracks, I actually prefer the 5.1 LPCM to DTS HD MA as the bit rate was constant at 27 mbits almost for LPCM, almost twice the rate for the DTS audio and you could tell it provided a more enveloping sound field IMO.¨ To sum up, CD plays better thru a mulibit convertor (like my old 16bit Arcam). DVD-A which is merely CD with a higher sample rate, sounds even better at least to Ing.Oehman and Mr Dang Hai-uy above. DXD which is merely DVD-A with an even higher sample rate, sounds even better at least to 2 persons on this blog. Multibit PCM is straightforward and easy to edit and easy to copy. While SACD & DTS is attractive to manufacturers because one-bit convertors are cheaper than multibit, and converting their DXD Pulse-Code DXD master into a one-bit Pulse-Width SACD format makes it harder for the consumer to copy or edit the disk. Not that I want to rip off the manufacturer - I just want to enjoy the music. And Mr Lindberg of 2L (whose demo disk received more than 3,000 4* & 5* reviews on Amazon) has made it very easy for all of us to compare formats: album Nordic Sound presents BluRay, SACD, CD, DTS & DVDA - plus the Amazon site has bonus MP3 downloads of each track! I´m off to download them onto my iPad for some easy listening fduring those hours of insomnia, when one cannot sleep yet cannot concentrate either.

fafner: ¨All the textbooks say that redbook is sufficient for optimal human hearing (the sonics) and the nyquest/shannon confirms that (theory). Add to that the commercial failure of hdcd; sacd; and dvd-a, what makes your analysis better than the analysis of every major record label?¨ Reply: My ears tell me that DXD (0.3528MHz PCM) is better than RedBook (0.0441 PCM); and they are the only thing that connects me to the music. If I cannot believe the signal analysis that my own ears have done for me, then what analysis can I believe? However, since I see that you are knocking SACD, allow me to hand you a hammer: http://sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm Öhman wrote in the Swedish Audio Technical Society * journal. (*A non-profit organisation for sharing interest and knowledge in audio and sound reproduction) The following are quoted from what Ing. Öhman wrote in the journal: "It is nothing less than a tragedy that Sony/Philips system SACD still is considered to be a real competitor ..... [even] though it has lower real resolution than the CD-system in the highest octave........SACD is in the high frequency range quite mediocre, even compared to a good CD-system one-bit DAC, and of course clearly inferior to a CD-player with a real multi-bit [parallel DAC] converter.

francisleung: ¨As regards the 2 sopranos singing A Capella, I am not aware of this album and will look for it. I guess for making the recording, they would use an instrument to provide the tune and pitch before singing. This would be edited out in the track for consumers.¨ Track 10 on 2L demo album The Nordic Sound. The soprano is called Berit Opheim Versto, her album is called Slaettar... (2L46). The sleeve note to Nordic Sound says that ¨Slaettartrull¨ is the Norwegian folk singers way to imitate a violin. When the dancers couldn´t find a fiddle player they used a singer to trill nonsense ¨words¨ with tunes handed down from generation to generation. So I doubt whether those folk dancers and folk singers carried a tuning fork in their pocket. If Berit Versto learned her Slaettartrill the traditional way, handed down by listening to her mother singing or from her friends, she would carry those pitched sounds in her head. Like a child who has learned to speak in Mandarin? The sleeve note also says she brings this tradition to life in a modern soundscape: the two sopranos are herself recorded twice and dubbed over!

francisleung: ¨Many thanks Julf and Nick for explaining my examples of tuning in relation to Just Intonation and Equal Temperament.¨ You´re welcome. For your info, and for anyone interested in visual images, here are interesting sonograms of the same chord in EQ & JI played on present day MIDI. Still unrealistic sound, but the visual difference in purity of harmony is clear. Justonic midi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhZpvGSPx6w And here is some Bach in EQ vs JI. I think this was recorded on a real harpsichord or clavichord, if so it is 100% relevant to your blog. Wish there were hi-res demo recordings like that. PS You are probably safe in your reserved seat at the concert hall. Any group which can present a line-up Stradivarius with Guaneri probably knows how to play in tune. The same applies to that 2L recording of two sopranos doing A Capella in folk style. No tuning fork and no piano and no conductor to boss such groups - only their own ears to guide them - so no EQ.

Submitted by Mark Powell ¨ 352.8 Ksampling rate Are we not getting a little mad here? Just chasing the numbers? Our ears don't go above 20KHz at best so a 44.1K sample rate gives a frequency response of 22.05K and the originators of CD thought this was high enough. OK, so maybe they were wrong. a 192K sample rate (the current fad) gives a frequency response of 96K, and not even the (obviously inaudible but may beat) harmonics of any instrument go that high. And I do know about filters.¨ Refer you to this paper showing freq response up to 100kHz of real musical instruments: There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz! A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm

francisleung has another question: ¨that relates to tuning. At a concert prior to its start the piano is tuned by a technician using a fork. And when it is there, the concertmaster gets players to tune to the notes he plays on it. Further if a singer is accompanied by the piano in a recital, he or she has to sing in tune with the piano that was previously tuned by the fork or else will be out of tune. So where does Just Intonation and Equal Temperament come in?¨ That´s the trouble: Just Intonation does _not_ come_at_all into the process that you have described so clearly above. Every instrument from the fork to the piano to the orchestra to the singer is in tune with one another; but they are all tuned to the _wrong_ scale ie, to Equal Temperament (EQ). Strings and voice and horns do not vibrate in EQ; they vibrate in a natural series of overtones called Fourier. Just Intonation (JI) is a natural method of tuning and key relationships based on the first 3 odd Fourier tones (Tone 1 is known in music as the Fundamental eg C; overtone 3 is called the Dominant in music because it is the next most important to 1, like G is to C; overtone 5 is called the Mediant eg E; and these 3 natural tones have been the basis of human music since pre-history, for instance the Chinese and the Scots both use CEG with F & A; because C is the 3rd overtone of F, and A is the 5th overtone of F). The 1/3/5 ratio is basic to music, always has been, because it is basic to the vibration of strings and air. It is basic to the way the ear works (can supply an up to date scientific paper from Harvard). I came into this thru a very illuminating old book called Science & Music by James Jeans (Dover). For the past 200 years music tuning has fallen into line with the 12 tones of the piano - slightly mis-tuned but good enough for most people. An instrument that is convenient, cheap and simple to play (like a guitar) compared to the skill needed to sing or to play a violin in tune. The piano was the MP3 of the 19th century. As julf has pointed out, microtuning & JI kept trying to make a comeback but interest kept fading away; my point is that digital technology was not adequate to implement JI until the arrival of near-megaHerz Pulse Code Modulation mastering, of which the 2L recordings are such a brilliant example. PS: I looked up MIDI sound font companies, and their idea of a hi-res sampled sound bank is only 96 kHz! No wonder modern synths still sound so awful.

Author: francisleung Title: synthesizing high res tracks Hi, francesleung, Your appreciation of DXD as a superior sounding recording format happens to coincide with my appreciation of PCM at near-megacyle sampling frequency, as a superior format for synthesizing music from a written score in classical harmony (eg, a Beethoven string quartet). So here, in brief, is the common ground between pure musical harmony (when the composer wrote down in notes what he heard in his head), music synthesis from that written score, good intonation (either by human string players or by a digital synthesiser, who turn a written note into a sound with accurate pitch frequency) and the record of what might be reaching a listener in a seat in a concert hall. If you care to contact me by email we can discuss at length, but it is unfair to divert a blog on rec to one on synth (except for common characteristics). So here is my brief reply to your first query. Query ¨Hi NickM, Your experiment of synthesizing the 2L DXD tracks is something beyond my comprehension because of my lack of knowledge.¨ When you are in a position to do so, please expand on what you have achieved as some subscribers here including me would be interested to know how and in what areas the high res ROM files may be improved upon.¨ Reply: I did not synthesize 2L tracks but I did use near-megacycle PCM (Pulse Code Modulation, which is all that DXD is) to synthesize very accurate square waves (0.2% error in the female voice range, which the human ear is most sensitive to). What 2L have done is to show, practically, that a near-mega-Hertz sampling frequency has produced some superbly lifelike recordings. I do not see how Mr Lindberg´s hi-res recordings (at 0.3528 MHz) could be improved on (unlike my reaction to the original CDs at 0.0441 MHz). Query: ¨I know nothing about modern synthesizers. Many years ago I had a Kawaii electronic organ (like an upright piano) and the synthesized strings, brasses etc sounded artificial.¨ Reply: You may know nothing about synthesizers but you know what your ears are telling you: compared to what you hear in your seat at the concert hall from good human players with good violins, modern synthesizers sound artificial. One reason is now obvious, they need to upgrade their sampling frequency to DXD or SACD standard. This is probably in the pipeline, if it hasnt been done already, it´s merely a matter of electronics. The other reason for _string_ synths to sound bad IMO has to do with tuning: a good violinist or a good singer instinctively performs in Just Intonation, which is a scale composed entirely of natural Fourier overtones. But modern synths imitate keyboard instruments which are tuned to an unnatural scale called Equal Temperament which has only 12 tones to the octave, most of which are slightly mis-tuned (compared to Just Intonation). So-called micro-tuning is coming into MIDI, but I think general acceptance of a change in tuning will be much slower than general acceptance of hi-res sampling. Purity of harmony is a matter of music appreciation at the level of human performer & human listener, not sound recording technology. The purity of harmony for most listeners and most performers has been blunted by 200 years of listening to pianos, guitars, horns and other acoustic instruments all playing in Equal Temperament, which is a scale that is simple, convenient, economic and widely popular - but ever so slightly mistuned. The Just Intonation Society posts demos of the same chord played in EQ or JI. It took me years to tell the difference. Enjoy all your music - whether topclass from Guaneri & Stradivarius in your reserved seat at the concert hall, or just so-so from MP3 in your car. The medium conveys the message but the medium is _not_ the message.

Author: francisleung Title: synthesizing high res tracks Hi, francesleung, Your appreciation of DXD as a superior sounding recording format happens to coincide with my appreciation of PCM at near-megacyle sampling frequency, as a superior format for synthesizing music from a written score in classical harmony (eg, a Beethoven string quartet). So here, in brief, is the common ground between pure musical harmony (when the composer wrote down in notes what he heard in his head), music synthesis from that written score, good intonation (either by human string players or by a digital synthesiser, who turn a written note into a sound with accurate pitch frequency) and the record of what might be reaching a listener in a seat in a concert hall. If you care to contact me by email we can discuss at length, but it is unfair to divert a blog on rec to one on synth (except for common characteristics). So here is my brief reply to your first query. Query ¨Hi NickM, Your experiment of synthesizing the 2L DXD tracks is something beyond my comprehension because of my lack of knowledge.¨ When you are in a position to do so, please expand on what you have achieved as some subscribers here including me would be interested to know how and in what areas the high res ROM files may be improved upon.¨ Reply: I did not synthesize 2L tracks but I did use near-megacycle PCM (Pulse Code Modulation, which is all that DXD is) to synthesize very accurate square waves (0.2% error in the female voice range, which the human ear is most sensitive to). What 2L have done is to show, practically, that a near-mega-Hertz sampling frequency has produced some superbly lifelike recordings. I do not see how Mr Lindberg´s hi-res recordings (at 0.3528 MHz) could be improved on (unlike my reaction to the original CDs at 0.0441 MHz). Query: ¨I know nothing about modern synthesizers. Many years ago I had a Kawaii electronic organ (like an upright piano) and the synthesized strings, brasses etc sounded artificial.¨ Reply: You may know nothing about synthesizers but you know what your ears are telling you: compared to what you hear in your seat at the concert hall from good human players with good violins, modern synthesizers sound artificial. One reason is now obvious, they need to upgrade their sampling frequency to DXD or SACD standard. This is probably in the pipeline, if it hasnt been done already, it´s merely a matter of electronics. The other reason for _string_ synths to sound bad IMO has to do with tuning: a good violinist or a good singer instinctively performs in Just Intonation, which is a scale composed entirely of natural Fourier overtones. But modern synths imitate keyboard instruments which are tuned to an unnatural scale called Equal Temperament which has only 12 tones to the octave, most of which are slightly mis-tuned (compared to Just Intonation). So-called micro-tuning is coming into MIDI, but I think general acceptance of a change in tuning will be much slower than general acceptance of hi-res sampling. Purity of harmony is a matter of music appreciation at the level of human performer & human listener, not sound recording technology. The purity of harmony for most listeners and most performers has been blunted by 200 years of listening to pianos, guitars, horns and other acoustic instruments all playing in Equal Temperament, which is a scale that is simple, convenient, economic and widely popular - but ever so slightly mistuned. The Just Intonation Society posts demos of the same chord played in EQ or JI. It took me years to tell the difference. Enjoy all your music - whether topclass from Guaneri & Stradivarius in your reserved seat at the concert hall, or just so-so from MP3 in your car. The medium conveys the message but the medium is _not_ the message.

PeterSt: ¨although you tell about converting PCM to MIDI and such, I really don't see how this can work out for the better. Oh, you will be able to apply different instruments; nice. But now it is not related to playing "original music" through loudspeakers anymore.¨ That´s right, I hope to apply different instruments by using the soundbanks of MIDI. Up to now I crudely synthesised a string quartet by assigning to each instrument its own table of harmonic partials from published timbre profiles (about dozen partials for each instrument) and its own envelope. Then adding the four waveforms and sending the PCM stream via high speed parallel port or PCI board to the 12bit or 16bit parallel DCA board. As crude as that. I was more interested in having the PCM square waves accurate to 1usec (0.2% frequency error at 1kHz) because pure harmony means more to me than does realistic timbre. In those days MIDI was not an option because EQ cents are not a natural harmonic scale, microtuning was a pain, synthesizers sounded really awful and I couldnt even trust their soundbanks to be harmonically pure, and the received wisdom was: no sense in sampling much above 2*20k. Things have moved on since then. So I was pleased to come across this blog on hi-res Superior Sounding Recordings, both informative and encouraging. But, as you say, in a blog on recording it is not good manners to hog any further space for ideas on synthesis. Just wanted to explain where I was coming from when crossing your path.

thanks francis but ripping a purposely non-copiable format is just too much hassle for this old man. On my homebrew DACs I found that megaherz PCM, using Analog Devices 12bit parallel or 16bit parallel evaluation boards, was a straight and simple method for generating wave forms for my crude but accurately tuned homebrew synthesiser, This experiment convinced my ears of the necessity for really hi-res PCM if one wants to hear a string quartet playing a rapid passage in pure harmony ie, Just Intonation. Now Mr Lindberg with his 2L hi-res samples has shown that 352kHz PCM is good enough to please audiophiles on the blogs that I have read so far (with a few knowledgable exceptions like Miska), and the domestic market has affordable DACs to play DXD, my own way ahead is clear. To learn how to use standard MIDI software that can convert a music score into MIDI, with software like SCALA that can output MIDI in hi-res Just Intonation tuning, and software like Timidity which can convert MIDI back to PCM - all for playing through a modern domestic DAC at 352.8 or 394 kHz. I have enough recorded music to listen to for the rest of my life. But once I got the taste of synthesised music that was really accurately tuned, it dawned on me that the medium is _not_ the message; the message is in those notes on the music stave, and a really good sythesiser can deliver the composer´s message from his written notes nearly as well as a mediocre performer - sometimes better, because you can program a synth to deliver those tones the way you think they ought to have been played, not the way somebody else thinks you ought to be hearing them.

francisleung: ¨Then audiophiles will have to live with CD and MP3, only with upward sampling of them to enhance their listenable quality. We now have SACD as well but it is dying based on what I read.¨ Your enthusiastic (and knowledgable) posts on DXD encouraged me to join this blog. And I learned from you and Miska that DXD capable players are now on the domestic market around 1000 euro affordable. Ten years ago I had to build my own MHz PCM DAC, so now there is no need to worry about hi-res recording dying. Especially if, as you say, 2L is partly subsidized by the Norwegian government as well as being a commercial firm. I foresee these small hi-res recording companies in Norway, Denmark & Switzerland (lately joined by Canada & Italy) being like the French film industry: helped by govt subsidy to produce excellent original work of high quality that never gets an Oscar and hardly penetrates the mass market - but still provide an awful lot of people with a lot of high class entertainment (and sometimes gets remade by a big US corp as a mass market block buster). You hear that SACD is dying - let it die. I would never buy a format that I cannot copy if I wanted to. PCM DXD or PCM 394 is the ideal format for the future - not only for recording masters but for synthesizing new music. The copyright problem (if it is a problem?) will vanish into thin air, the way it went for Xerox photocopiers and cassette tapes and CDs. Personally, I bought hundreds of books, cassettes and CDs in my time - but never copied more than dozen in all those years, mainly to pass on to friends. There is nothing wrong with MP3 quality (though I prefer Vorbis - its free and better quality) if you are tired or in a hurry or simply not in the mood to test your hearing acuity to the limit. Last night I could not sleep so I listened to 2L´s MP3 versions on my iPad thru good earphones and they sounded good. My brain knew that I had heard these same 2L recordings in DXD with much more lifelike sound - but my ear said this is still OK. The lifelike hi-res mastering technique of Mr Lindberg results in a good low-res version; but a low-res CD canot up-sample to a lifelike hi-res master! The only thing that upsampling can do is produce something smoother, possibly more ¨beautiful¨ sounding. Compressed audio is great for the car; I had a little Chinese gadget that stuck into the cigarette lighter and played Vorbis (and MP3) thru my car fm - it stored 5 hours of classical music on its 4GB memory! Wish I still had it. A car is a dangerous place to concentrate on hi-res music, but fm quality of your favorite recordings as background to the journey is ideal. I wonder if this is what sdolezalek might have been driving at when he posted about his work with visual images and asked whether ears do something similar: ¨The other thng we discovered in photography was that the eye can separately process the dynamic range of the entire field of view and simultaneously process on a much finer basis the specific location we are focusing on. I wonder if the ear can accomplish a similar feat?¨ Maybe when I listen to good music on old cassette tapes or mp3 on iPad, my ear could separately process the whole field of hearing, and decide ¨OK, this is a low res audio field so I´m not going to focus on a much finer basis for any specific location - I´m just going to let the brain be soothed by some favourite oldies while it drifts off to sleep.¨ ________________

francisleung: ¨Then audiophiles will have to live with CD and MP3, only with upward sampling of them to enhance their listenable quality. We now have SACD as well but it is dying based on what I read.¨ Your enthusiastic (and knowledgable) posts on DXD encouraged me to join this blog. And I learned from you and Miska that DXD capable players are now on the domestic market around 1000 euro affordable. Ten years ago I had to build my own MHz PCM DAC, so now there is no need to worry about hi-res recording dying. Especially if, as you say, 2L is partly subsidized by the Norwegian government as well as being a commercial firm. I foresee these small hi-res recording companies in Norway, Denmark & Switzerland (lately joined by Canada & Italy) being like the French film industry: helped by govt subsidy to produce excellent original work of high quality that never gets an Oscar and hardly penetrates the mass market - but still provide an awful lot of people with a lot of high class entertainment (and sometimes gets remade by a big US corp as a mass market block buster). You hear that SACD is dying - let it die. I would never buy a format that I cannot copy if I wanted to. PCM DXD or PCM 394 is the ideal format for the future - not only for recording masters but for synthesizing new music. The copyright problem (if it is a problem?) will vanish into thin air, the way it went for Xerox photocopiers and cassette tapes and CDs. Personally, I bought hundreds of books, cassettes and CDs in my time - but never copied more than dozen in all those years, mainly to pass on to friends. There is nothing wrong with MP3 quality (though I prefer Vorbis - its free and better quality) if you are tired or in a hurry or simply not in the mood to test your hearing acuity to the limit. Last night I could not sleep so I listened to 2L´s MP3 versions on my iPad thru good earphones and they sounded good. My brain knew that I had heard these same 2L recordings in DXD with much more lifelike sound - but my ear said this is still OK. The lifelike hi-res mastering technique of Mr Lindberg results in a good low-res version; but a low-res CD canot up-sample to a lifelike hi-res master! The only thing that upsampling can do is produce something smoother, possibly more ¨beautiful¨ sounding. Compressed audio is great for the car; I had a little Chinese gadget that stuck into the cigarette lighter and played Vorbis (and MP3) thru my car fm - it stored 5 hours of classical music on its 4GB memory! Wish I still had it. A car is a dangerous place to concentrate on hi-res music, but fm quality of your favorite recordings as background to the journey is ideal. I wonder if this is what sdolezalek might have been driving at when he posted about his work with visual images and asked whether ears do something similar: ¨The other thng we discovered in photography was that the eye can separately process the dynamic range of the entire field of view and simultaneously process on a much finer basis the specific location we are focusing on. I wonder if the ear can accomplish a similar feat?¨ Maybe when I listen to good music on old cassette tapes or mp3 on iPad, my ear could separately process the whole field of hearing, and decide ¨OK, this is a low res audio field so I´m not going to focus on a much finer basis for any specific location - I´m just going to let the brain be soothed by some favourite oldies while it drifts off to sleep.¨ ________________