vivekk

Thanks very much for that. I really don't think HDTracks would have bothered pulling the album in the first place, if it were not for my persistence. I'm also quite sure they wouldn't have had the slightest hesitation in letting previous purchasers continue to believe their album was perfectly 'fine' & as described- 24/96. They know very well now that this just is not the case. I have spoken to HDTracks about my concerns regarding their supposed HD audio sales of certain albums. I would prefer to be allowed to make an informed choice about the standard of the music I'm buying, based on provided accurate, appropriate & relevant information about its source. However, HDTracks continue to believe that this is just not necessary. That is what I find to be quite ridiculous. If they have nothing no hide, why do they not provide the information & let their customers decide for themselves? Best wishes. Viv (I'm male, BTW!)

Hi Chris. I have been in touch with HDTracks about this issue since May. They had no intention of removing the original album from sale at all. They continued to sell it online during the course of their external 'investigations' & only pulled it from their site after I asked them why they hadn't done so already. I then asked them when they were likely to inform existing purchasers of the removal of the album. They didn't bother replying to that, despite asking them time & time again. I ultimately ended up telling them that I'd be likely to pass on the information I had to the IC3, based on their actions, or lack thereof. So, no, I don't think I'm a little full of myself at all. Best wishes. Viv

Eric, the only reason you & all the other previous purchasers of 'In Session' received the email from HDTracks, was as a result of my exceptional persistence in forcing them to do so. Have a look at question 5, which I listed in my original post. They had no intention of letting anyone know about the fact that they'd made a mistake, until I forced them to do so. I've been in communication with them about this since May 2011, so please don't think they are the 'fantastic' company you believe, without looking into the details I've posted already. Best wishes. Viv

Thanks for that, Steve. I think HDTracks are doing themselves no favours by failing to provide sufficient information about their 'HD' albums to potential purchasers. I think most buyers would be quite capable of making an informed choice about buying an 'HD' music album, if they were given adequate, reliable & accurate information about the source of the music. Unfortunately, HDTracks seem to think otherwise. Viv

Thanks for all of the kind comments. I downloaded the 'new' 24bit/192KHz HDTracks' Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'In Session' Stax Records Remaster earlier today. I then used Audacity 1.3.12 beta on the Mac to analyse the newly-released versions of both 'Track 01 - Call it Stormy Monday' & 'Track 11 - Don't Lie to Me'. In order to improve the spectrogram plot, I altered the settings as follows: changed FFT window size: 4096 - most narrowband, maintained Hanning window type, maintained frequency extremes as 0 & 96KHz, maintained gain as 20bB, increased range to 125dB (yes, I know the theoretical maximum is 144dB, but it doesn't make the spectrogram any clearer to read) & frequency gain maintained as 0 dB/dec. In order to provide sufficient detail in the FFR frequency plots, I also increased the FFR sample size window to 512 with a linear plot initially, & then to 16384 with a logarithmic plot. So, here are the respective spectrogram & FFR plots for HDTracks' 'new' 24bit/192KHz 'Call it Stormy Monday' & 'Don't Lie to Me' tracks: a Track 01 - Call it Stormy Monday - 'NEW' 24bit/192KHz: b Track 11 - Don't Lie to Me - 'NEW' 24bit/192KHz: The spectrograms show there to be at least 'some' higher frequency energy in the newly-released tracks, although there is still a sharp cut-off at the Red Book upper-frequency limit, of around 22KHz. Using a smaller, wider-band FFT sample size, it is possible to see some low level, higher-frequencies present, albeit below -87dB! Essentially, it appears there is little additional 'high definition' information identifiable in the 'new HD' recordings of 'In Session'. In my view, anyone buying these is simply paying more money for a whole load of 'empty' bits, irrespective of the source of the 'new HD' digital recordings! They may well have originally been recorded as 16bit/44.1 Red Book or 16bit/48KHz DAT masters, but I'm guessing HDTracks will never be bold or stupid enough to say! Best wishes. Viv

Despite my cynicism, I received the following email from HDTracks a short time ago: . . Quote Dear HDtracks Valued Customer, Thank you for your purchase of the Stevie Ray Vaughan/Albert King album, In Session. Your HDtracks.com experience is important to us, and today we are pleased to offer to you, free of charge, a superior sounding download of that album. You may choose between the 192kHz/24 bit file or the new 96kHz/24bit file formats. This free download is only being offered to customers who bought the previous version of In Session and can not be shared. Please go to: https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HX00888072333185 --- 192kHz/24bit format https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD00888072333185 --- 96kHz/24bit format Select the format of this album you would like to purchase and apply the promo code XXX at checkout to receive this free album download. This promo code is only good towards the one-time purchase of this album in either 192/24 or 96/24 format. Be sure to login using the same account, login and password that you used when making your original purchase of this album. The promo code expires at midnight, 11:59 PM, PST, Monday, October 17th, 2011. We hope you enjoy this high quality download. Should you have any questions, please contact our customer service department at: [email protected]. All the best, Norman and David Chesky Founders HDtracks . . So, it would seem they have listened & have taken some notice of what I asked & are now contacting existing customers & providing access to a new, more 'HD' version of what they had sold previously. I shall download the 24/192 version & let you know how it fares in my assessment. Best wishes. Viv

Just to keep you all in the picture, I received the following email from Lisa Hershfield today, HDTracks' customer service manager: Thank you for your email . I am out on holiday, but with regard to this specific album,the( In Session) album is actually a 192/24 album. We pulled it to check and find out where the original 192.24 master is and what the status is. Hopefully it should be on the site in Native 192/24 and 96/24. Regards, Lisa . . On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Viv wrote: Dear Lisa, I sent the last email to you over a week ago. Please would you be courteous enough to at least make some form of reply. Thanks. Mr Viv Things just get stranger & stranger. There cannot be a true 24bit/192KHz original digital recording of the 'In Session' album, due to the simple fact that the recording equipment just wasn't around at the time, in 1983. So, it'd be interesting to find out what source was used for the master. Using an analogue master is one thing, but upsampling CD or DAT is another. Either way, they haven't been selling what they've said they have & that's why they pulled it, but still no 'sorry' to existing buyers. Viv

Thanks for that, pitshot. What irritates me most is the fact that HDTracks are quite simply ignoring the fact that they've made a mistake. Previous customers who have already purchased 'In Session' & other pulled so-called 'HD' albums are likely to never know about the problems & will therefore never know that they are entitled to a refund. HDTracks have made no attempt whatsoever to answer any of the seven questions I put to them & subsequently have no intention of contacting previous purchasers about their 'mistake'. From this, I feel that they simply do not care. It's a shame, for them. Viv

Sorry, but after the way they appear to be acting, I think I've got every right to criticise them!

I've been reading a number of threads on this forum, but have yet to post, so please bare with me on my first post. I posted about my problem with HDTracks on my blog (http://bit.ly/HDTricks) & the full run-down is on the CyrusUnofficial forum at http://bit.ly/HDCrocks. To summarise all of this, I bought the HDTracks' Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'In Session' 2009 Stax Records re-master in April 2010. It's described as a 24bit/96KHz HD album in FLAC format. As a result of problems other people were having with the company, I decided to check the album's frequency plots using Audacity on the Mac. The results indicate that the downloaded music contains to musical information above 22KHz. I asked HDTracks about this, but they didn't seem at all bothered. After some external investigation & more moaning by me, they finally removed the album from sale on June 15th, but gave no explanation as to why they did this. I've continued to ask them the following questions, but they continue to remain as quiet as a politician with a dodgy expenses claim: "The evidence I have already provided indicates quite clearly that the Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'In Session' 24bit/96KHz album, which I purchased on 9th April 2010 from HDTracks, has either been upsampled from Red book (16bit/44.1KHz), or has passed through some form of HF cut-off from a higher-resolution source, perhaps unknowingly. 1 What specifically is the reason for the 22KHz high-frequency cut-off on each & every one of the tracks on the album? 2 What source material was used to produce the album download? Were analogue master tapes used for session re-mastering, or were the original recordings stored on 16bit/48KHz DAT? 3 Is the current 'In Session' download digitally identical to that which I purchased on 9th April 2010? ie Has any 'new' version of the album since been made available to your customers? 4 If no change in the download has taken place, do you intend removing the current version for sale to customers & offering a 'true' 24/96 version of the original recordings? 5 Do you have any intention of informing all previous purchasers of this album, of this potential upsampling issue? 6 If a 'true' 24/96 version of 'In Session' is currently available on your website, how do you intend offering those previous customers the opportunity for a free download of the 'true' HD album, along with some form of compensation? 7 If no 'true' 24/96 version of 'In Session' is currently available on your website, what do you intend doing for those previous customers who may feel that they have been deceived by HDTracks? I still await HDTracks' answers to these questions, but please bear in mind that I'm not prepared to wait for much longer. Also, please do not ask again for methods by which you can provide me with a refund, as I will simply ignore this until I am satisfied with your company's response to my questions. Thanks again, Lisa. Best wishes. Mr Viv" I think that the Canadian TV company that recorded the original recording weren't keen on releasing the original analogue masters for re-mastering, or it was originally recorded on 16bit/48KHz DAT. I'm sure this was a problem between 1999 & 2003 with a lot of SACDs being produced from Red Book masters, instead of DSDs. Either way, I just don't think the music was ever inherently recorded as a true 'HD' recording. I wouldn't mind if HDTracks were transparent-enough to provide enough information about their downloads to allow buyers to make informed decisions prior to making a purchase. This just isn't happening, unfortunately. They've quietly removed other albums in the past, without mentioning anything about doing so to existing buyers. That, I think, is ridiculous. In their last response to me, David Chesky sent me this link: https://www.hdtracks.com/files/DSD_to_LPCM.pdf It's a nice technical description of why they use 'brick wall' filtering in their recordings, but it still fails to answer any of my questions about why they pulled the album I bought. Looking forward to hearing what you all think on this forum. Viv Below are the Audacity frequency spectrographs & FFR plots for two of the tracks which I downloaded: a Track 01 - Call it Stormy Monday: b Track 11 - Don't Lie to Me: