New To HD Audio -Need Help With Downloads Please

[Dougal]

Hi Folks

After many (too many) years of of using crap to mediocre PC speakers and systems, I'm just getting into listening to QUALITY music reproduction.  What can I say.... WOW!

I'm looking for places to find high quality downloads.  I've had a good look at HDTracks, but there isn't really a vast amount to choose from:-(

 

I don't really care its free or to buy, but any pointers most welcome;-)

Thanks

[mourip]

Try High Definition Tape Transfers web site. Especially good for golden age of Jazz and Classical recordings.

[ted_b]

Here is a great consolidator site:

http://www.findhdmusic.com/

 

Subscribe to their daily emails or alerts.  And always choose NativeDSD (just kidding, obvious bias plug here    )

 

P.S.  Also check your or a friends collection of BluRays, DVDs, SACDs or DVD-Audio discs.  They can easily be ripped to hirez files.

[kumakuma]

Get on the mailing lists for sites like HDTracks and ProStudioMasters and they'll send you discount codes every week.

[#Yoda#]

4 hours ago, Dougal said:

 

I'm looking for places to find high quality downloads.  I've had a good look at HDTracks, but there isn't really a vast amount to choose from:-(

 

I don't really care its free or to buy, but any pointers most welcome;-)

Thanks

 

Hi Dougal,

 

http://www.findhdmusic.com/ is a good place to start a research for sure, but not all major stores are listed there and the selection for a specific album and the countries where it is available is very often not complete.

 

To give you more specific tips, it would be good to know, in which country you are living and the genres you prefer. Unfortunately, the world of music download in better quality is anything else than globalized, there are regional restrictions for available albums at all stores. In North America are usually other multi genre download stores available than in Europe, except HDtracks and 7Digital.com.

 

What is your definition of HD or high quality download? For streaming portals, 16/44.1 (CD quality) is already HD or high quality, sometimes it is a circumlocution for MQA. Funny enough, there are much more options for HiRes downloads (24/44.1 or better resolutions) than for CD quality.

 

There are a lot of genre specific download stores, especially for classical music. On https://bandcamp.com you can find a lot of music from different genres as FLAC download in CD quality and an increasing number in HiRes as well. 

[bmoura]

3 hours ago, kumakuma said:

Get on the mailing lists for sites like HDTracks and ProStudioMasters and they'll send you discount codes every week.

 

Most of the download sites also offer discount codes every week. 

Check Blue Coast and NativeDSD Music, among others, for more discount codes and sales. 

 

[#Yoda#]

3 hours ago, bmoura said:

 

Most of the download sites also offer discount codes every week. 

Check Blue Coast and NativeDSD Music, among others, for more discount codes and sales. 

 

 

 Hey bmoura,

come on, selling HiRes music, anyway if FLAC or DSD only with discounts and sales is definitely not a strategy to generate a profitable business in a niche market. HDtracks is going to exit the European market by offering most albums to a price 30 to 50 % higher than the competitors since a few weeks ago, 24€ for a usual 24/44.1 album is simply brazen! The reduced discount from 15 to 10 % at weekends can be noticed as a joke in this correlation.

 

The basic price must be competitive with mp3 or CD prices somehow. This is primarily an issue for the labels because they don't want to sell their "crown jewels", the master tapes in original resolution at the same price as mp3 or CD quality, even if the production costs are lower. Additionally it is the major reason why they support a new lossy so called HQ format like MQA because it allows the restrictions of DRM and hedge the original master quality.

 

I like the approach of Cookie Marenco for HiRes music, but I think DSD is a very small niche within a niche. Usually today new recordings/masterings are made in a PCM based format and each conversion to a different format is suboptimal.

 

@Dougal mentioned that the HDtracks choices are quite small. No way that Blue Coast or Native DSD with their sonically good but very small and very specific selection can fit to his needs in any way.

[bmoura]

1 hour ago, #Yoda# said:

@DougalHDtracks is going to exit the European market.

 

 

HDTracks is exiting the European market by closing their HDTracks UK and HDTracks Germany web stores?

That's big news. 

 

Was it just announced?

 

[#Yoda#]

2 minutes ago, bmoura said:

 

HDTracks is exiting the European market by closing their HDTracks UK and HDTracks Germany web stores?

That's big news. 

 

Was it just announced?

 

 

It is not announced, but it will be the result of noncompetitive prices, finally. I don't know the real objectives for their price policy in Europe, especially as there are more successful stores in Europe with a much broader portfolio.

[Dougal]

OMG I can't believe the sound difference in my system when matched to flac or wav files.  How the hell can I EVER listen to my mp3 collection again!!!

And all I'm using is very basic....  I have a an optical cable from the PC to an SMSL SA-50 Plus amp/dac and Q-Acoustics 3010 bookshelf speakers.

Although I have a 'quality' (Asus Z170 Deluxe) motherboard with reasonable sound, would I still benefit from adding a separate sound card?

[rando]

Negative on the sound card.  Your optical cable takes processing away from the computer to your amp/DAC which is a good thing.  

 

Attempts to increase SQ with your current setup would be less effective than looking for some used stereo equipment to really show off the new music you are acquiring.  Having noted there is a lot of room for improvement, a decent player software is a requisite for every system.  There are a few free players and everything else offers a decent trial period.  Consider this the best computer based upgrade for you right now.

 

My current favorite for free is wtfplayer (flac, wav, and DSD only) which boots off a USB stick and stores your music in RAM before playing it back.  JRiver may be a good paid option to look at if you like a slick interface and album art.  Try a few programs and uninstall what you don't like. 

 

Ask questions when you run into issues.  Music wise a common one is HD that isn't really HD.  It pays to make sure your 96-24 download is a good quality master in that bitrate.  When you get into popular music that has been remastered multiple times over the years not all efforts were improvements either.  Unless you feel a need to own every single copy ever produced you'll want to zoom in on the best one.

[Dougal]

Many thanks.  What are your views on Foobar2000?

[Balder]

Hi Dougal!

 

Also a "Newbie", though i started a "steep" learning curve some 2 years ago.

 

In my experince Foobar2000 is the best player for a "weak" computer, very low CPU load. It is free, but to make it sing - you have to do a lot of learnining, and configure it.... You can configure it almost "infinetely". Now they have a "android" version, and a remote to control a windows PC from an "android" device, via your home network.

 

I have no problem playing back native DSD64 on a "Inte Atom N455 1.66GHz/1GB RAM/win 10" PC(!). On the same PC, JRiver constantly "buffers"....

 

On my second PC "dual pentium 2.4GHz/2GB RAM/win 10", JRiver sounds "warmer, sweeter", and runs without problems. I still use foobar2000 on that PC - mostly due to "tagging" issues, most of my music collection is rip's of my old LP's, CD's, and SACD's. When i ripped them years ago, i did not tag them very good. Foobar2000 has library view "by folder structure", as one option, i have failed to find that option in JRiver, so i end up with total kaos, with most albums in the "unknown" section with JRiver.

 

But if you have a fast computer, and good tagging, i think that JRiver is the best option if you just want to "Install and play", without having to spend hours/days of configuring/optimizing....And in my opinion it sound very good, and is not to expensive.

 

If i have to compare the sound: Foobar is "more in your face" - Rock'n Roll, and when configered/optimized - more "honest". JRiver has more detail/warmer, even "forgiving" sound, many people love that, but i have heard some calling it "booring".

 

Since Foobar is free - try it out(and keep it-as a second player)! And JRiver has a month trial - try it out! Since they sound different, but niether is bad - Listen for your self, and decide witch one you prefer, trust your own ears - you have to live with the sound, nobody else....

 

I also have a very "niched" player that came with my DAC, AudioGate4(by "Korg"). That player outperforms both of the above, but is CPU intense, and to fully use it - you have to buy a Korg USB DAC! But if you are on a budget, and like DSD, i don't think you can beat the compination of AudioGate4 + Korg DAC. The player is automaticly "licensed" when you have installed software and plug your DAC in. I have the cheapest Korg DS-DAC100m, today about $200(?).

 

I have tried all free windows players, and in my opinion foobar is the best FREE player, since HQPlayer is out of my "budget", i have no idea how demanding(CPU/configuring) it is, or what it sounds like....

 

Good Luck!/Cheers.

[bmoura]

2 hours ago, Balder said:

Hi Dougal!

 

I have no problem playing back native DSD64 on a "Inte Atom N455 1.66GHz/1GB RAM/win 10" PC(!). On the same PC, JRiver constantly "buffers"....

3

 

With JRiver, check out the new 64-bit version of JRiver Media Center 23.  Available on their forum.

That should eliminate the buffering issue.  In addition to improved performance.

 

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,112776.0.html?PHPSESSID=uult1i7v9bdnvssprlea6pi8n7

[rando]

Getting good sound requires different things from every system.  On Windows computers how thoroughly you have shut down the litany of background and unrelated processes makes a huge difference.  As does the the version of OS with W10 being drastically better than W7 or W8. 

Click on the links drop down top right on this page and then on foobar component.

Open foobar File>Preferences>Components and click on install.  Show it the file you just downloaded.

 

Still in preferences Media Library>Album List>Add New.  Name it "by DR" and copy/paste this mess in the other field.

 

[DR%ALBUM DYNAMIC RANGE% ][%album artist% – ][%album%][ [%__bitspersample%-][%__samplerate%]]|[[%discnumber%.]%tracknumber%. ][%track artist% – ]%title%

 

Display>Default User Interface>Playlist View  NAME:  DR       PATTERN: %DYNAMIC RANGE%   ALIGNMENT: right

 

 

Advanced>Tools>Dynamic Range Meter    Just check all the boxes to start 

 

I think that is it for setting this up which should give your music a chance of sounding better if it doesn't have the metadata stored in the files already.  Basic concept here is load album to play, pause, select all, right click and select dynamic range meter way at the bottom.  This scans all the selected files and does all kinds of good stuff you should totally research.  If you set up your library in foobar it will let you do a bulk job of scanning it and then sorting it by DR.  

 

For some unknown reason the webpage I would have linked that explains all of this was down.  So you got me typing one handed while eating and glossing over everything of importance.  

 

 

[Dougal]

20 hours ago, rando said:

Getting good sound requires different things from every system.  On Windows computers how thoroughly you have shut down the litany of background and unrelated processes makes a huge difference.  As does the the version of OS with W10 being drastically better than W7 or W8. 

Click on the links drop down top right on this page and then on foobar component.

Open foobar File>Preferences>Components and click on install.  Show it the file you just downloaded.

 

Still in preferences Media Library>Album List>Add New.  Name it "by DR" and copy/paste this mess in the other field.

 

[DR%ALBUM DYNAMIC RANGE% ][%album artist% – ][%album%][ [%__bitspersample%-][%__samplerate%]]|[[%discnumber%.]%tracknumber%. ][%track artist% – ]%title%

 

Display>Default User Interface>Playlist View  NAME:  DR       PATTERN: %DYNAMIC RANGE%   ALIGNMENT: right

 

 

Advanced>Tools>Dynamic Range Meter    Just check all the boxes to start 

 

I think that is it for setting this up which should give your music a chance of sounding better if it doesn't have the metadata stored in the files already.  Basic concept here is load album to play, pause, select all, right click and select dynamic range meter way at the bottom.  This scans all the selected files and does all kinds of good stuff you should totally research.  If you set up your library in foobar it will let you do a bulk job of scanning it and then sorting it by DR.  

 

For some unknown reason the webpage I would have linked that explains all of this was down.  So you got me typing one handed while eating and glossing over everything of importance.  

 

 

Thanks for all that. Much appreciated.