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Steven must have used a different A/D or filter on "Happy Returns" as the frequency doesn't roll off at 30 kHz like most of the album. Interestingly, I noticed that Marco Minneman doesn't play drums on "Happy Returns." Chad Wackerman handled those duties. I'm wondering if he tracked "Happy Returns" at another location instead of AIR Studios. I do love the fact that Wilson's mixes are not tampered by a second person in a mastering process. His skills at mixing leaves little if any room for improvement by someone else mastering them. Therefore, something like a different filter or frequency roll-off between individual tracks will definitely show up on his 24 bit / 96 kHz masters, as appears to be the case here. If someone else ran the overall album through their own series of filters and processing, you might see more uniformity on a spectrogram over the entire album, but the sound may not necessarily be improved upon in the individual tracks. To hypothesize if Wilson knows what he is doing at this point in his career is an understatement. After the Thick as a Brick debacle, I doubt he'll ever willingly allow another person to "master" his final mixes again.

HD Tracks does not include any bonus or instrumental versions of the tracks found on the Blu-ray Audio Disc, only the six tracks that make up the album.

The link I entered above is for an encrypted connection (i.e. https). Should have been http. My apologies: http://www.burningshed.com/store/24/

Burning Shed is a home music retail and distributor for Kscope and several other labels in the UK/Europe. They are very grassroots to their approach and are a great supporter of artsy and progressive music. They opened an audiophile 24 bit flac store a few months ago that first offered some Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson titles in 24 bit stereo flac. Now it appears they are starting to offer 5.1 24 bit flac, the first album being Anathema's new beautiful album, Weather Systems. This site is a retailer to many audiophile physical formats from bands like King Crimson, Jetro Tull, Porcupine Tree, No-man, Van Der Graaf Generator, Talk Talk, Caravan, OSI, Ozric Tentacles, Japan, Kate Bush, Marillion, Riverside, Opeth, Phil Manzanera, Miles Davis, ELP, Anathema, and so on with formats like Vinyl, DVD-Audio and Blu-ray. But since they are starting to offer 24 bit downloads, I am hopeful we'll see more and more artsy and progressive artists for audiophile downloads that are not currently available on the other high resolution audio sites. https://www.burningshed.com/store/24/

I have listened to both the 16 / 44.1 and the 24 / 96 stereo FLACs via Halide Bridge > DSM3 studio monitors. Again, this is entirely subjective and the thread may now need to be moved to the other subforum because of this post. But since the question was raised earlier, I must say the 24 / 96 has more dynamic range and sounds more natural to my ears. I suspect this is due to the nature of the recording and lack of mastering at the 16 bit level. In other words, the issue with sound quality may be even be more pronounced than comparisons between traditional modern releases on hires and CD because the CD wasn't a "proper master" at 16 bits, but just dithered down from the 24 / 96 stereo mix. Again, I am only going by what Mr. Wilson has stated in his quote, and he may have been talking about the Blu-ray audio only even though he says "all editions". But a CD release may have benefited more from true mastering within the 96db range where as the Blu-ray mixes are fine to be left alone at their much higher resolution. This has been my discovery of more classical music recordings that were not mastered like modern rock music, and benefit more from higher resolutions. At any event, the 24 / 96 stereo mix sounds better to me on my DSM3 studio monitors than the CD. Of course, neither of these mixes have the magic of the 24 / 96 5.1 LPCM surround I experienced through my Marantz receiver, which is nothing overly special, but not exactly crap. Bottom line, this is a beautifully sounding piece of work that does seem to benefit from the higher resolution formats. Enjoy.

Here's a quote by Steven Wilson. Based on this quote above, I am incorrect. The CD 16 / 44.1 mix appears to also have been bypassed in the mastering stage. But obviously it was brick walled around 20-22 kHz since it is a dither from the original source. I will listen to both again and see if I can discern any difference between the 24 / 96 FLACs from Roadrunner and the 16 / 44.1 FLACs I ripped from the CD. That, of course, would still be subjective. I'm sure this goes on all the time around here, but is probably intended for the other subforum. Anyway, again, the intention of this thread was to give a heads up that the high resolution stereo tracks are available on HDtracks. Hope this was helpful.

I own this album on CD, Blu-ray and Vinyl. I received 24 bit FLACs via Roadrunner's site here via a download code packaged in the vinyl's gatefold. Since I did not purchase the 24 / 96 stereo FLACs from HDtracks, I can therefore only assume they are the same as the 24 / 96 stereo FLACs provided by Roadrunner. If not, that would make little sense, but of course, most things stopped making sense to me years ago. Other than this, the only difference between in the stereo mix on the CD and Blu-ray (or these FLACs) would, of course, be the resolution and the fact that the stereo on the CD is dithered and mastered for CD where as the Blu-ray is the original 24 bit source. This is according to Steven Wilson, who mixed the album before submitting to the label. Does the high resolution stereo sound better than the CD? Yes. But that is entirely subjective by me. The fact is if you want to own the original unmastered high resolution source material, it is available for download. I will add if you have a Blu-ray player and an audiophile 5.1 setup, nothing is going to trump that. The 24 / 96 5.1 mix is simply stunning! But the 24 / 96 stereo is fantastic as well if that is your audiophile setup.

First time posting on these forums but I have been a loyal reader for years. In fact, I have purchased a few computer gadgets because of the wonderfully detailed reviews and discussions here. I love my Halide Design Bridge. Moving on, I just wanted to share some information on the new Storm Corrosion album that has been released on HDtracks. This is a project between Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) and Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree). This is a heavily orchestrated experiment in sound that is certainly *NOT* metal or prog rock, and I must say it is presented in absolutely beautiful high resolution detail. The album's mixes were purposely uncompressed and bypassed mastering by Steven Wilson to have greater dynamics and sonic detail on the Blu-ray audio release. A brick wall is not to be found here. The 24 / 96 LPCM 5.1 mix on the disc is stunning, but even the 24 / 96 stereo mix shines as one of the best I have heard this year. It complements some of the best classical and artsy hires albums I have in my collection. Though there is a wide variance of instrumentation, the music might best be described as acid folk, but with medieval and minimalist overtones. There is very little in the way of percussion, though it is used to implement certain movements. The tracks Storm Corrosion and Ljudet Innan are the highlights for me, but everything flows so well as a whole. Even considering the artists involved, this isn't going to be an album you will rock out to in your car. However, it makes for an absolutely beautiful experience through your home audiophile equipment. A nice dark red wouldn't hurt either. The high resolution stereo mix of the album is available from HDtracks here or you may receive it as a download with purchase of the vinyl from Roadrunner (if it is still available).