Hi-Rez Highway

New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

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Many roads lead to Rome

Posted by Chris from Lafayette on November 26, 2024 at 01:46:03:
I'm a 98% classical listener here, and, certainly, I've been a fan of hi-rez listening, mainly in the form of downloads from various sites (Native DSD, 2L, etc.). I use a Mac Mini for this purpose, with a back level version of HQ Player to play everything up to and including DXD and DSD256, mostly in 5.0 or 5.1, feeding into an exaSound DAC. I have hundreds of these downloads, and I truly enjoy them all very much.

In the past year and a half however, I've been drawn much more to streaming Dolby Atmos files on Apple Music - my system is 5.1.4. Yes, it's true: these streams are LOSSY! But as Jim Austin said in the May 2023 issue of Stereophile (in a footnote to one of Kal's reviews):
The BPO's Digital Concert Hall provides Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 at 1024 kb/sec via Dolby Digital Plus, the same technology used by Apple Music. . . It's lossy to be sure, but to look at it another way, the 7.1.4 BPO feed contains about 30% more information than a two-channel CD rez FLAC stream does. What's more, that extra information is far more sonically meaningful than some extra samples in a two-channel feed.
Or as I like to say, sure, I'm missing some bits on a Dolby Atmos stream on Apple Music. But, OTOH, people who do not listen to Dolby Atmos are missing part of the actual sound field itself.

(BTW, there are lossless Dolby Atmos files on bluray. I have some of these too, but the selection is tiny compared to the wealth of titles available on Apple Music.)