JB2

Teresa, that's a really interesting thought -- maybe someone with mastering experience can chime in with some thoughts. I'm glad you are generally hearing the same thing, it was not subtle, it was quite noticeable. With the vinyl 24 bit rip I found myself nodding my head, tapping my foot, and singing along and I stopped "thinking" about the sound -- that's when I know it sounds great, I guess the term is "engaging". The HD Tracks had me thinking a lot but not engaging musically. So I went back and forth to try to analyze why -- both were dynamic and detailed and tonally similar but something was clearly different and I then noticed it was mainly the left to right soundstage which just opened up the recording really nicely. You may be on to something here, or perhaps the mastering engineer knew how to translate the raw tape into something more "musical" and enjoyable -- in other words he did his job which maybe shouldn't shock me as much as it does. Do you know a way to measure soundstage? It would be cool to analyze these differences if possible.

I compared them side by side -- 24 bit vinyl from Lyra Delos and Burl ADC versus the HD Tracks download. Both are excellent and I'm hopeful HD Tracks does more high quality releases like this! To my surprise I preferred the AP vinyl, it had a wider soundstage in particular. It appears to me that the mastering step of the AP had added some value. The wider soundstage seemed to also give the voice more room and better overall spacing. I could be off my rocker and perhaps the AP mastering did nothing to the soundstage, but to my ears, on my Burmester system, the vinyl definitely sounded spaced out better particularly left to right. Tonally they sounded similar, the HD Tracks was perhaps a bit more dynamic but not necessarily in a good way (and I'm usually all about dynamics). So perhaps the small bit of limiting added some musicality to the vinyl. I'm going to measure them later with Audioleak and compare. Anyway, I love the idea of HDTracks putting out minimally mastered material since I find almost all modern mastering atrocious. This release is up there with Eric Clapton "Slowhand" and Paul McCartney "Band On the run (uncompressed)" as my favorite HD Tracks downloads. But so far I do prefer the AP vinyl rip. I'll send some Audioleak results when I get them done.

Clay, as of a couple months ago Spotify requires a Facebook account. I think it's a dumb decision unless FB is going to acquire them. Really odd thing to do. I would say I had been quite negative about FB but once I joined it worked well for me as a nice alternative to email for updates from various music sources, niche radio DJs, etc. I thought it was going to be folks talking about their lunch and pictures of sunsets, there's some of that, but for the most part you can control the flow of information and it becomes really useful. My two cents there -- nonetheless Spotify should give a choice. This is probably my only gripe on Spotify actually since some friends just refuse to join FB.<br /> <br /> No regarding SpotOn as a desktop app. Spotify has a radio feature on tje desktop app that is pretty good. SpotOn uses EchoNest for song selection and so far I've been much more impressed with it than I was with Pandora, Spotify artist radio or MOG's selections.<br /> <br /> Good luck Clay, happy to answer any other questions -- I do hope sometime you get to experience SpotOn in the future <br /> <br />

Yes, I play Spotify and SpotOn over AirPlay to my Apple TV, it works great. The cover art displays and the track information displays as well. In fact, I think it's native to the iOS at this point so all apps that use Apple's audio library seem to inherit this.<br /> <br /> On the iPhone you simply double click the home button and swipe the app list on the bottom to the far left, those are the overall iPhone audio controls and from there you can select your output as an AirPlay device, Bluetooth Audio device, or the iPhone itself.<br /> <br /> Also, Spotify and SpotOn support track info over Bluetooth audio, so when I stream in wirelessly my car I'm able to see the track information. This is very, very cool. Not all cars support the Bluetooth audio track info display, my SUV does but my mini van does not for example.<br /> <br /> The next iteration of the Bluetooth Audio protocol will support playlist exchange as well. I'm really looking forward to that.<br /> <br /> I play Spotify and SpotOn over Bluetooth audio in my car for music discovery -- sound is excellent, surprisingly good (320kbps) and I use my USB port for playing 24 bit wave files of vinyl rips -- those sound incredible. So I rarely listen to CDs or ITunes in my car these days. CDs generally sound close to the Spotify sound over Bluetooth while my 24 bit vinyl sounds miles better than both.<br /> <br />

Thanks -- I see your point -- what still confuses me is the marketing of these things visavi regular commerial CDs? My Logic audio system masters at 24 bit / 192kHz and internally uses 32 bit processing -- it's nothing special and is quite typical for professional and home studios. I can record analog at 24/192 and then to create a CD as a final step I have to dither. So I just don't understand the description they have on this process when all commercial and amateur CDs are mastered using hi res and then dithered to CD as a final step. I recognize that some dithering algorithms are better than others but they don't explain this thing as an improved dithering algorithm. I have no axe to grind on this I'm just honestly confused, I suspect snake oil and everything I read confirms that, but audiophile sites and stores continue to quote this 24/100 thing so I've not ruled out that I could be wrong and this technology exceeds what is commonly used today for hi res mastering prior to conversion to red book. Does anyone have any insight on how it's different than a standard pro tools or logic mastering process?

Teresa, it's red book right? So there is no conversion, it's just a CD. The 24/100 thing is just some marketing thing from what I can tell, MoFi could probably market their CDs as 32 / 192 "mastering" CDs if they wanted to. So no conversion is necessary -- I think they should call a spade a spade.

<br /> Spotify users note that SpotOn is a new free iPhone app that gives a Pandora like experience to Spotify premium users. To my ears it sounds exceptionally good, they list 320kbps as their streaming rate. Its basically like Pandora and generates songs based on an artist but uses the Spotify library which is much larger than Pandora and allows unlimited skips and better music quality. Highly recommended as an addition to Spotify for those times when you want to let the computer intelligently pick some songs.<br /> <br /> I was a MOG user for a long time and switched to Spotify so I generally disagree with the notion that MOG is a better choice than Spotify for audiophiles -- I find the Spotify interface far more intuitive and the sound quality the same (both seem 320 to me). One key thing I did like on MOG was the radio feature, now SpotOn provides a good alternative to that for users who prefer Spotify.

Thanks Rimbaud, I find that whole K2 thing very suspicious so I'll be interested in how it compares. I'm all for improved mastering techniques and I certainly am in favor of emphasis on audiophile mastering approaches but I would contend that most mastering shops are working in hi res, in fact even amateurs process in 32 bit these days and up to 192kHz sample rates are not uncommon now so to imply that a red book CD is 25/100 just seems misleading to me. It's like calling a well prepared shrimp dinner lobster because it's been prepared so well -- it's still shrimp!

Rumbaud, I'd be interested in your analysis, I thought K2 mastering discs are just 16 / 44.1 and the 24/100 thing was marketing speak in which case what do you expect to see compared to the true hi res?

I'd be interested in your review of Burl equipment, last summer I upgraded my ADC converter for ripping vinyl and after much research I chose the Burl B2 and it was a huge upgrade over my previous converters. I've been very pleased. From what I understand the Burl excels in terms of musicality and uses a transformer design which some folks believe is also critical to the musicality of highly regarded mic pre amps. It would be interesting to see where their DAC and ADC line up against the Weiss. Also, I'm curious how you measure soundstage depth, you quote it in feet, is that a subjective impression?

Thanks everyone for sharing feedback on this one, I'm going to give it a try. I thought I was on an island as a guy who finds HD Tracks downloads to be iffy at best. I've felt burned by REM downloads (bright, compressed), Elton John (compressed, processed and unnatural sounding) and most recently the awful Some Girls release. When I can find the original vinyl it always destroys dubious downloads like this, I've been doing some measurements of dynamic range as well and these releases have less dynamic range than the original LPs obviously due to overzealous remastering (usually compression) that has destroyed the sonics -- pushing 3D into 2D, blurring the instruments, sometimes even distorting sections, and killing the joyful punch of music like the Stones. Sorry to rant but I'm glad that I'm not the only one out there critical of hi res downloads as they exist today. On a positive note some HD Tracks downloads I've found sublime (Eric Clapton Slowhand and Paul McCartney Band On The Run uncompressed). I often use Cat Stevens 24 bit ripped tracks to demonstrate the great the sound of vinyl ripped to 24 bit since his early 70s releases where stunning analog recordings and I love those records. Based on these posts I'm going to download the hi-res and compare it to the analogueproductions.com LP that I have. I ripped "Teaser & The Firecat" from a vintage LP the other day and that sounded better actually than the analogueproductions.com LP which sounded a little bright to me. If you like the sound of tape / analog then these two recordings are among the best that I'ved ripped in over 300 vinyl rips. I have a question for the group, is this the right forum for hearing unbiased reviews of HD Tracks downloads and other Hi Res downloads? It would be nice to have a place to go to check what other audiophiles have had to say. And I don't mean to single out HD Tracks here, I'm glad they exist and I know that they are just selling whatever hi res they can get their hands on. I simply have encouraged them to give us much detail about the source and mastering as possible.

I've been using MOG for about six months. I've been very happy with the selection and the audio quality as well as the mobile app which has improved over time. <br /> <br /> I only buy vinyl and rip that to 24 bit for playback in my car so these services for me are about discovering new songs and trying out things or sharing music I've discovered with other people.<br /> <br /> Simply put -- Spotify crushes MOG in the ability to interact and share music with other people. Two reasons for this (1) awesome Facebook integration and (2) a free model.<br /> <br /> I found that my friends with similar music interests were not signing up for MOG so I decided to try Spotify since it has a free model and I figured more friends are likely to try it and share music playlists with me.<br /> <br /> That has indeed been the case, over six months I never convinced a single person to try MOG and share music with me -- in just 2 weeks I've connected almost 10 other people to Spotify and I'm already sharing playlists with several people. Although at first the Spotify interface seemed odd and it wanted to index my iTunes library I was able to quickly gain control via the preferences and tell it not to bother with my iTunes library or other media on my computer. I simply started with a blank canvas like I did with MOG and I'm building playlists from there.<br /> <br /> I see Spotify as crushing the competition over the next year or so -- why? Because it integrates so well with Facebook and allows the free version which is so enticing even with a 4 hour limitation per month.<br /> <br /> I've connected several DJs and friends that I want to share music with and it works fantastic for that purpose.<br /> <br /> The Spotify high quality audio option sounds as good as MOG to me so far and I'm extremely picky. I primarily buy vinyl and rip it at 24 bit using a Burl A/D converter for playback in my car's Burmester stereo using Pure Vinyl. So I'm certainly in the high quality audio camp. Sounds to me that MOG and Spotify are both at 320 for the stuff I'm playing but I'm not sure.<br /> <br /> Given the Facebook connection I predict Spotify will be competing with iTunes not MOG in the not too distant future. With Pandora being equally irrelevant with MOG.<br /> <br /> I did really like MOG but try as I might my friends were not going to dive in -- but they are now trying Spotify at the free price and some of them may pay to use the mobile service maybe some will just use it share music playlists here and there.<br /> <br /> So for me it's vinyl + Spotify , I've stopped buying CDs and stopped downloading from iTunes except as a last resort. I've also canceled Pandora, XM radio, and MOG -- all of which I had been using for a long time.<br /> <br /> Spotify for sharing and discovery and vinyl for cranking it up...<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />