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In August 2011, a web site was selling Deutsche Grammophon albums in a resolution higher than 44.1kHz/16bit.However, the email reply from Deutsche Grammophon was this.
We do not offer high res files in 88,2kHz/24bit or higher at the moment. However, we are working on offering those.
Stay tuned for more information to come.Do you trust those high resolution (high definition) online music downloads? Why?
Edits: 05/12/12 05/12/12Follow Ups:
I'm done with downloads. Until you can know what you're buying (that obviously excludes hdtracks) it's a crap shoot.
Eclassical.com is a good site. What you pay for is what you get. And if you don't like it they'll give you your money back.
But basically it's SACD's and vinyl for me.
Damn, I wish SACD would make a comeback.
"Lock up when you're done and don't touch the piano."
-Dr. Greg House
One doesn't know what one is getting when one buys any recording unless one can trust the record label. The situation is exactly the same whether one is buying an LP, cassette, CD or download. The music "industry" is a den of vipers and many record labels are run by crooks who cheat their artists, distributors and customers. My way of dealing with this is by making a list of record labels to buy from and record labels to avoid.
I agree with your comments about eclassical.com. I have bought a lot of downloads from them over the past four months, most excellent and at low prices. The service has been excellent.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
#1 Is "We do not offer..." the same as "We do not record..."?
#2 Do you really believe a label such as Deutsche Grammophon still records at 16/44?
That said, I generally trust companies that offer HD downloads, but I would seek out the opinions of others who had purchased from them in the past and/or verify my purchase upon reception (if I could not find any feedback).
Let us use our common sense.Deutsche Grammophon physical CD's are sold at Barnes and Noble and Amazon in the US.
Would Deutsche Grammophon say "We do not offer physics CD's in the US"?I do not think so. Deutsche Grammophon would say "We offer . . . ".
Deutsche Grammophon 88.2kHz/24bit or 96kHz/24bit albums are sold at a web site. I asked Deutsche Grammophon, "Are these higher resolution files from Deutsche Grammophon?"
Deutsche Grammophon replied "We do not offer . . . "A common sense way of understanding this is the following. The web site's high res files are not from Deutsche Grammophon.
If they are not from Deutsche Grammophon, they should be upsampled from 44.1kHz/16bit lossless file or a lossy compressed file.
Edits: 05/13/12
"The web site's high res files are not from Deutsche Grammophon."
I have no idea what web site you are referring to. I can only speak from my personal experience.
HDtracks.com sells a number of DG albums for hi-res download. Most of these are available at 88/24 and were made by ripping the DSD and converting it to PCM. I have one of these 88/24 transfers, Beethoven Symphonies no. 5 and 7 by Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic.
I have no idea how this SACD was created, but from looking at the spectrum it is clear that it was not made by upsampling 44/16 to DSD. It is possible to see that the 88/24 PCM came from DSD by looking at the high frequency noise, which starts rising at 28 kHz. We also have postings from the mastering engineer, Bruce B, who made most if not all of the HDtracks.com SACD to PCM transfers around this time. He has posted as to the equipment and procedures used.
It is quite obvious that this recording is from "Deutsche Grammophon", the artwork has the DG logo, etc. It would seem highly unlikely that HDtracks would selling pirated material for over a year. (I purchased this download in January 2011.)
BTW, the recording has the typical multiple microphone DG sound. Apparently they have not learned how to make good quality orchestral recordings. This issue, of course, has little or nothing to do with the formats involved, plaguing DG's LP and CD releases as well.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
The DG album was not DSD (SACD). Only a single layer red book CD album was available from DG. The web site suggest me to ask DG, and the reply I quoted here was DG's reply at that time.
My email to the web site has the link to the album's web page, but it seems that they removed the album or they changed the web address. This is the link from my email.
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?%20file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD00028%20947793373
It would be possible to have a more intelligent discussion if you would be specific as to the particular web site and album that was involved, formats, dates purchased, etc.
I can assure you that the Kleiber Beethoven download that I own was made from an SACD. One can see the SACD logo on the artwork, the file has the characteristic DSD noise profile. HDtracks.com is still selling this album.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Please read what I posted. I already told you that the DG album that lead to the reply I quoted here was not a SACD DG album.I clearly wrote the web site by copying the web address of the album on that web site from my email sent to that web site at that time.
What DG sells:
http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/single?PRODUCT_NR=4779337HD track's higher res file web page at that time (currently unavailable)
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD00028947793373
My question to HD:
Could you tell me whether the high resolution version (96kHz/24bit) of the following album is coming from? https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD00028947793373 I am asking this question because Deutche Grammophon sells only (44.1kHz/16bit) on their own web page. http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/single?PRODUCT_NR=4779337
HD did not answer where it comes from:
No that is a totally different product from Deutche.
You can e-mail them and ask them, but they are selling the original source 44.1 album.
We have the remastered version.
Who remastered it at higher res for sale? It has the same DG label and album picture. The only on who remastered and then released for sale should be DG.However, when I asked DG about this high res version, DG answered that they did not offer higher res files.
Clear now?
Edits: 05/13/12
The info in this post (your 6th) should have been in your very first post. Why did you feel the need to leave out so many pieces to this puzzle?
Do you know the source master for any of the releases of this recording?
If not, once again, do you believe it is 16/44?
Did you purchase this download from HD Tracks?
. . . are a couple of DG's worst with regard to the audibility of the multi-microphoning. Very primitive in that regard. I think that, especially in the past decade or so, DG's multi-microphoning has gotten quite a bit more sophisticated.
One wonders how a company can put out such junk. Where do they find the deaf engineers and deaf producers? I prefer minimal microphone stereo recordings, but there are many labels that use multiple microphones that preserve a sense of depth. The Kleiber Beethoven had zero depth. It was as flat as a cartoon character that's been run over by a steam roller.
After listening to this recording I put DG on my "do not buy list" and haven't purchased another of their recordings for over 15 months.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"The Kleiber Beethoven had zero depth."
Maybe if the recordings were better, people would realize that.............
Admittedly, they were always poor recordings but they are among the great recorded performances and I'd rather hear these than the majority of "follow the dots" Beethoven symphony recordings.
Kal
It pretty sad. It wouldn't matter if the artist and performance hadn't been so good. Any kid out of school using a $500 portable field recorder could have produced better sound than this travesty.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Have you asked the website in question?
Sometimes the best one to answer the question is the one in question.
What website are you referring to and is there a reason you are omitting that information from your posts?
It's not easy to give you a more specific answer, at least one based on personal experience -- and that pretty much is what you're asking -- if you keep protecting the identity of the entity you are accusing.
Now, if you have downloaded anything they say are DG recordings, you can easily verify (via free software) if there is any musical content (ie, not just noise) above 22kHz. If there is musical content, then they are indeed High Resolution recordings. If not, then they are upsampled recordings.
Both of my questions posed specifically to you, and not answered, are valid:
#1 Is "We do not offer..." the same as "We do not record..."?
#2 Do you really believe a label such as Deutsche Grammophon still records at 16/44?
The reason that I asked is because of the following 3 facts:
The great majority of music recorded from the early '90s on has been done at a sampling rate > 44.1kHz. The great majority of music recorded today (and started nearly a decade ago) is done on workstations at 24-bit. What format is still the most common? 16/44 by far and nothing else comes close.
"A common sense way of understanding this is the following. The web site's high res files are not from Deutsche Grammophon.
If they are not from Deutsche Grammophon, they should be upsampled from 44.1kHz/16bit lossless file or a lossy compressed file."
So you've basically answered your own question based on what you believe to be the case. Other than a "lossy compressed file" having nothing to do with High Resolution content and the fact that what the download company is offerring could be converted from analog tapes or DG recordings that DG doesn't specifically sell from their website, my only reaction to this statement is to ask why you posted in the first place.
Common sense is that it is easy to make a high res file from a low res file in a way that it can cheat the free software that checks whether the file has music content (ie, not just noise) above 22kHz.
If "common sense" suggests that it would be easy to cheat software programs, then why are there still downloads that are obviously from upsampled content?
I understood that you believe there are still downloads that are obviously from upsampled content. Thanks.
Seeing my question specifically mentioning an asserted higher res DG album, DG replied that they did not offer high res files.
Then you tried to prove that the asserted higher res DG album file must be indeed from DG based on the fact that DG took the recording at higher res since many years ago, which is a logical flaw.
"DG replied that they did not offer high res files."
"they" -- That could mean that they do not offer High Resolution files from their site. There are many reasons for this: budget, servers not up to the task, etc. Thus the files that other sites may offer, because they are more equipped to manage High Resolution file downloads, could be files from actual High Resolution DG recordings. And that's a possibility that shouldn't be overlooked.
"Then you tried to prove that the asserted higher res DG album file must be indeed from DG based on the fact that DG took the recording at higher res since many years ago, which is a logical flaw."
Only a flaw if that's what I tried to do, which I did not. Instead, I gave examples of what "could" be the reason High Resolution files were being offered by a site other than one owned by DG.
For the record, I couldn't care less about HD Tracks. Nor could I care less about your post that started this thread (poor in so many ways) and your subsequent responses (though "non-responses" may be the better way to describe them).
You question #1 and #2 are irrelevant to this issue.
The fact that DG took the recording in higher res format does not automatically mean that DG released higher res maser for sale. In case of that DG album I asked, DG clearly said they did not offer it yet.
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