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The Bear

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  1. >>> If it sounds excellent, but is upsampled, we'd still feel ripped off. If it was genuine HD but sounded poor we'd still feel ripped off. I think this is a good point - what the website needs is more submissions to gain a consensus on "which downloads just sound great" I see it rather like AccurateRip - if one person thinks a D/L is A rated, that should be approached with caution, if two people concur (like James and I do for Shangri-La, Gaucho and Kamakiriad) that starts to build confidence - more ratings, more confidence - although always with the caveat that this is a subjective assessment, and YMMV. Best regards, George
  2. Thanks for pointing out that thread - there is a lot of information there to digest. You are right, a combination of objective data and subjective assessment would clearly be superior to subjective data alone. I will read up on Audacity - as you can see from my sig, I play from a Squeezebox Touch, rather than computer, so would have to work out how to set up my laptop to obtain the necessary spectra. Would you be prepared to submit a subjective A-D rating for the albums you have already analysed, to get us started ? Best regards, George
  3. Hi James, I find the B&W subscription very good value - £33.95 for a one year subscription, £23.95 for 6 months at current rates - for that they release at least one new album a month plus the back catalogue (currently 27 albums) - I noticed you had downloaded some Beethoven from HDTracks- there is lots from the LSO (Bernard Haitink and Sir Colin Davies conducting), plus a VERY wide variety of other stuff - as well as they albums I reviewed, I recommend the Unthanks collection and also the Accidental Powercut series (esp. album 2), which are recorded binaurally and sound uncanny through headphones. The downsides are: (i) Very few full 96/24 downloads, most are 48/24 - but don't let that put you off, as they mostly sound very good. (ii) You don't get to choose what B&W release, and there is some strange stuff up there (Boddie Recording Studios step forward) - but then I use it as good discipline to broaden my musical horizons, and occasionally strike a gem like Urasen or David Rhodes :-) (iii) For some reason, the cover art doesn't always make it into the files, so you need to use something like MP3Tag (free) to fix this up. I put my money where my mouth is and renewed my annual subscription recently. Hope this helps, George
  4. Hi James, Do you mind if I post on other hi-fi based forums regarding the website, to get the word out ? Regards, George PS: Just downloading "George Benson - Guitar Man" now :-)
  5. Hi Richard, I don't think you are hijacking the thread - I think the points you raise are valid. >> If the possibility for SQ dependent assessment is crucially based on the adequacy of the level of the system employed to assess such, what will give adequate assurance the rating is reliable? There can, of course, be no guarantee that the rating is reliable - even if we all had top-notch systems, we all have different ears - it is just one person's opinion, based on the results in his or her system - and should be approached in that way. I do not pretend to be "golden-eared", but I have been surprised and disappointed (naively, I suppose) that high bit-rate in particular is no magic bullet for SQ. >> Does it come down to, if SQ re the title assessed is high any system will convey that level because it is present; and, if not, any system will convey that level because it is not? I don't know the answer to that - but I would mention that a key factor in motivating me to submit my own reviews was seeing that James had "A-rated" a couple of albums (Kamakiriad and Guitar Man) that I knew also sounded great to me - and I subsequently purchased The Girl in the Other Room based partly on James' "A-rating", and yes, that also sounds great. >> What is needed to maintain the standard and the reliability for assessing SQ when contributions arrive from the world at-large ... At the moment, that would be a nice problem to have! James, would you be prepared to start another thread specifically related to http://hdmusicreviews.shutterfly.com ? If you are not keen, I am happy to do so, but it is your baby and I am new around here:-) Best regards, George
  6. Hi James, Many thanks for posting my reviews on your fledgling site. These are my honest opinions, and I have tried to assess purely the SQ in my system, as opposed to my reaction to the music itself - but I confess this is not always easy ! Based partly on your previous reviews on the site, I went ahead and downloaded "Diana Krall - The Girl in the Other Room". Wow ! That is what I (naively) hoped every 96/24 download would sound like - the system just disappears and you focus solely on the music. Best of luck with the web-site - the more people that contribute, the more useful it will be, increasing both the breadth of coverage and (hopefully) consensus of opinion. George
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