Great video - I’m a mastering engineer based in London, and I was asked by a major label to remaster some of their back catalogue for a “hi-res” streaming service, with a brief to “make it sound different”. When I asked what the delivery format to ME for mastering would be I was told it would be the original CD. Already mastered. Not even the original pre-masters. I just had to ‘tweak’ it for 96/192/384K and send the files back at 24bit 48K! I didn’t take the job on, but there’s evidence from the inside that hi-res in terms of sample rate is pure marketing BS.

So, it's the old "Rubbish in Rubbish out" problem. I'm really glad that you are here to remind us that the recording and mastering of music is the most important part.

Tell it like it is Steve! As a former recording engineer I can tell you that it is all about the initial recording and the approach taken by the production crew and musicians.

Steve, I agree, you can’t fix a bad recording. Everything starts with the quality of the recording. Some of the finest recordings I’ve ever heard we’re done with two microphones , of the highest quality, with Symphony Orchestra‘s many from the 50’s and some of the best jazz recordings are from the 50s. I’ve been listening on high-resolution systems for several decades and totally agree with your observations

Steve, my family has always been at the top of the heap when it comes to audio... from back when we built our first hi-fi in 1948, to the present day... I KNEW what was going on "behind the curtain," as some people think of it. It is the music usually recorded with a Decca Triangle on whatever people had at the time. But the MODERN "music" recording is much more technically perfect and noise free, yet the very things which should bring the music out are keeping it hidden because the people are no longer around who were the mixers and recording engineers who understood the MUSIC. The things you speak of are true... and I of course agree. But the better part of music is in the listening. Too many people listening to their systems instead of the music.

Steve, you have hit the nail on the head here. This is exactly what I have found with hi-res audio. The most important thing is how the music was recorded and mixed, above a certain point the numbers don't mean much of anything. I'd much rather listen to a well recorded/mixed track on CD than a poorly recorded/mixed one in "hi-res". Yes! - some recordings from the 50s are amazing and put modern ones to shame!

I really can't see the point of having increasingly higher resolution of increasingly poor recordings.

Best explanation of dynamic range compression I’ve heard.

"You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, no matter how much you try and spice it up..." Thanks Steve for all you do! 👍😊

Of the 300 some in my collection, I discovered 6-7 superbly recorded, mixed, mastered CDs. Steve Winwood, Pat Benatar, Yes, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, John Williams. Instruments are separated, and there is a 3D soundstage - because the original recording is superbly made. It is a rare thing.

Hi Steve, even though you did this a while back I enjoyed listening to you today. I really appreciate your perspective. I am 61 years old and am still loving and learning about music and sound. It is a great hobby and brings me so much enjoyment. God bless you and all you love.

Great point regarding the importance of the analogue section in a DAC. I still (occasionally) use a Mark Levinson No. 360s that I purchased new in 2001 and I think it still sounds really good on 16/44.1 material (it will decode up to 24/96). I believe the analogue circuitry is the reason.

The recording/mix engineer are the key to great sounding recordings. Perfect! Thanks for sharing, mvh

Most audio engineers over the past 30 or so years need collectively slapped.

*M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G* That's your answer about "hi-res"

The same trend is happening in photography... people are fawning over the latest high megapixel sensors. The sensor is better, but the photographer remains the same. As another KZfaqr put it so aptly ... we are now getting a lot of “high quality” rubbish photos. Garbage in, garbage out... and unfortunately in high res the garbage looks worse and stinks more.

I need to thank Steve for two things. 1 Turning me on to the free Chesky sampler a few months ago. Fantastic sound quality. I downloaded several more since. 2 FIP. So many artists I never would have discovered otherwise. Play it all day long.

The best listening experience I’ve had in recent times has come from my turntable. I have however improved the sound coming out of my vintage system with the addition of a good DAC. They all have different flavours - you just have to find the one you like and that works best in your system.

No one needs more than CD quality, the recording and mixingprocess itself is what makes the difference... I hear my music with a cdtransport to my Sony signature headphoneamp,in my opinion hard to beat....

Well, I'm currently really enjoying the old stuff personally. I'm sort of on a MoFi SACD kick right now. Those are really hard to beat. It's stunning that recordings over a half century old are that good. I'm really trying to NOT listen to any current artists as much as possible. When I got high rez streaming capability last year or so I went on a mission of discovery of what was happening. Generally, just checking out nominees and winners for the Grammy for best engineered albums over previous years. Some of that is no joke imo. Beck's albums have some really wild soundstage trickery. The newest NIN albums - Ghosts? are intense too. I pulled out my CD of Buena Vista Social Club the other day and was stunned by how good it sounded with all the new gear I've put together the last couple of years. It made me wonder what other 'CD' quality albums I haven't yet discovered that sound that good. I'm sure there are more really great modern albums that recorded well. Billie Eilish was sort of what revived my interest in what was happening with 2 channel. I would never had guessed it would lead to me shunning all of the new stuff in favor of really old recordings.

Thank you for stating what I been telling my friends for years. It’s all about the source. So many recordings from the 70s and even before sound better than many recordings made this century. It makes me wonder if sound engineering is digressing. Great episode Steve.

Steve, I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to notice, but your wardrobe is Krameresque, you must start your own line of leisure/fitness shirts and tops. Love your Audiophiliac videos…as 67ish audiophile contemporary I can’t get enough of your content.

I have had my Arcam Alpha 9 HDCD 24/96 for many years and the HDCD disc's are amazing the clarity of the vocals and the instruments is great

It's about having the option. Some DSD files sound great. The higher resolution translates into greater clarity and better soundstage in some instances. As good as vinyl, tape or CD are they can't fully match that.

CDs in a good transport and with a good DAC still excite me much more than a 192/24 streaming. Plus there is a plus side on having the booklet and the case... holding the thing. (As you all already know). I have a few DACs and MQA has not impressed me enough to be a deal breaker when it comes to DAC buying. And yes, the source is the genesis of good sound in any format afterwards (given that is properly implemented of course). Great stuff Steve, keep up the good work!

The quality of a recording is determined by the studio at the time of recording and production. A well recorded and skilfully engineered 16/44.1 CD can deliver audio quality that exceeds the limits of human hearing. Higher bit depth and higher sample rates are used in the recording process for editing purposes but are pointless for playback. 16 bits gives a huge dynamic range. You will never hear noise in a silent passage of a 16 bit recording unless it is tape hiss from a copy of an old analog recording. 24 bit playback does absolutely nothing to sound quality other than further reducing the noise floor which is already inaudible with 16 bits. Higher sample rates produce frequencies above 20KHz, which is not only above human hearing, but captures unwanted noise that can produce nasties in the audible range. These ultrasonic frequencies can get into a tweeter and cause problems. Higher sample rates on playback cannot improve quality in the audible range. Any effects from the brick wall filter was resolved 20 years ago by improved DAC technology such as over sampling. A $100 DAC can give superb audio. So called “hi-res” releases are marketing hype to sell the same music again. Loudspeakers and room acoustics have far more effect on sound quality.

Excellent and accurate discussion. No MQA and no DSD. Don’t add anything of value. It’s all about the providence of the recording as you most aplenty pointed out. You should look at the work of Dr. Mark Weldrep and his efforts to see if people can actually hear the difference based on double blind evaluations of the same native hires recording offer in different data formats with identical loudness. Almost imported to tell a difference after the CD red book standard. Very interesting work.

I love learning stuff from you Steve. So what I took from this is if songs originally come out 44.1/16bit then that's the copy you want to listen to. I bought a new preamp this year and is supports MQA (not that I knew what that meant at the time). I am currently swapping from KZfaq music to Tidal and I'm on a two month trial of the premium hi-res package. Good recording sound amazing through my hifi, but I'm starting to think I should just go the 'hifi' standard streaming because it's half the price and I don't think I'd be able to hear the difference. I just hope all of the 'master' songs (probably 150 of them) that I've added to my library can be played at a lower bit rate if I downgrade the deal. Imagine if I can't play them!.

Thank you. There is a sort of consensus in the classical music world that some of the best sounding recordings still come from the 1930s. Edwin Fischer’s piano recordings in particular.

This is the first time that I hear an audiophile say what it is all about: it all starts with an excellent recording. This requires exceptional skilled people of which there are only a few. Therefore nothing has changed over the last 70 years… It has been a big disappointment for me when I realized that, after finally having that much wanted high end system, many recordings turned out to be very bad. But fortunately you forget this instantly when you listen to an excellent recording, in which case 16 bit will do!

Bitter experience has taught me that bad recording = bad in any media. Vinyl and cd for listening, streaming for research as to what to buy. Find Hi Res is like over-processed junk food, initially tastes great but then leaves an nasty aftertaste or an obesity problem.

Well said! For example, the Qobuz hi-res version of Surf's Up (Beach Boys, 1971) sounds processed to within an inch of its life. It almost made my ears bleed. So I went out and found a vinyl copy (1971 press on the German Stateside label) and it was such a relief to hear the music as it was meant to be heard.

To answer your question Steve, I'm very happy with my locally stored FLAC files, ripped from my CDs. Spotify's 320 kbps also sounds great on my system. I'm much more interested in enjoying the music now than I am in higher res file formats. And I couldn't be less interested in MQA. It's not an open standard, so I'll avoid it on principle if decent alternatives (for my use cases) are available. FLAC and Spotify both qualify, for me.

The best sounding media I have is still CDs. Good vinyl records sound great too, but in my house nothing sounds as consistently good as CD. My choice for digital audio files is 24/96 FLAC, but that's only because it gives me the peace of mind that I know I'm getting overkill levels of data in the media. I've never actually heard a high res file that sounded better than a CD. For sure, as Steve and many others have said in the past, the recording and the mix make much more difference than the media past a certain point.

Hi, Steve . I've learn a lot of things from you. First thing which I remember is : First golden rule : listen music. Without this nobody can pass to next level . After my opinion CD quality format is enough for any one in every circumstances : audio system from home, portable devices using paid premium audio streaming together with a very good DAC and a high end headphone. The difference from CD audio quality and the other one like DSD, MQA is not like from distance EARTH to MOON. I checked myself , on a premium paid streaming service with a very good DAC paired with my studio headphone and I've notice very clear a difference from CD quality to MQA but this doesn't mean that everyone must listen DSD or MQA, because the difference of price is worth only for who realy want to stay on top of the piramid. 1. LISTEN MUSIC ( CD QUALITY OR ABOVE ) 2. AUDIO PLAYER DEVICE ( 500 USD - 1000 USD ) aquire a DAC if the device does't have one integrated 3. VERY GOOD SPEAKER ( 300 USD - 1000 USD ) 4. HIGH END HEADPHONE ( 200 USD - 1000 USD ) NO BLUETOOTH

Once again, I believe you are spot on with the hi-res craze. While I am certainly not a "sophisticated" audiophile, I believe I have a good grasp on what what sounds good. Overall, I am underwhelmed with high res recordings, some have sounded pretty good, others not so much......there are some artists who care about their recordings and it shows with their standard 16/44.1 CDs. I pretty much have abandoned purchasing hi res downloads as it's sort of like flipping a coin as to whether or not the original recording was done with any detail to attention. Thank you for your youtube videos, I watch them all and they are informative and interesting. I really like seeing other people's gear.

I still buy physical CDs, primarily classical. I’m ripping them using Apple lossless format and playing using Sonos. I don’t currently have any hi res sources.

So glad to hear you harp on these really really important points in audio, Steve! What you talk about here are things I try and re-iterate time and again on my channel and I think more reviewers need to tell the truth rather than shill. DACS are becoming a huge problem in this hobby and frankly, I'm getting tired of it.

In my opinion, the measure of a great DAC is how well it can play 16/44. This is because this is the hardest format to play - once you have higher sampling rates, it is easier to not muck up the audible band. As for source material, I have to say that I have MANY more albums in 16/44 that sound AMAZING than high-res files. And I have a lot of both. High-res that sounds high-res is rare to be honest. Polishing a turd is quite accurate.

I think that the songs I listened to in the 60's, 70's, and 80's on real stereo equipment (Not a car radio) do sound different from today's higher res copies of that same music. I was listening to Boston's first album on vinyl and then on my old iPod, and then on Tidal. The album version sounded the way I remember, the iPod version was just flat, and the Tidal version was a master and it sounded boosted in the bass and mids. I did like the Tidal version but I prefer the LP version....It just sounds more true to my ears.

I just ran across this video today and it answers a long standing question that I've had about current music versus that from the 70s/80s. While I totally agree that more the more data provided by Hi Res services doesn't necessarily produce better sounding music I would also offer that well recorded music can withstand my well-intentioned, but totally amateurish efforts to covert music from my younger days. Let me better explain. In the 70s my brother purchased a stereo receiver with a cassette player/recorder. He also purchased a turntable. All the guys in the neighborhood would bring over their vinyl albums so that we could covert them to cassette tapes. In return we made a copy for ourselves since we were clueless about copy write laws. We typically bought 90 minute (45 minutes side) tapes since hardly any album was longer than 30-35 minutes. One cassette tape typically held two single albums. If we had unused tape at the end of an album we'd simply tune to our favorite radio station and fill the remainder of the tape. Vinyl lives another day on my walkman and car cassette player. Fast forward 20 years into the 90s. These cassette tapes have now been lying around my home for 20+ years and I'm reading about how you can digitize them. So I bring out my old boom box as a source and load some software on my laptop and away we go. The tapes now reside on my computer. The radio "fill" stuff from each tape was cut and put into its own file which is about 8 hours long. I load these files onto my mp3 player and my music lives on once again. Fast forward yet again to present day. I now mostly listen to music on Sirius/Spotify but just for giggles I'll periodically give a listen to my old stuff. Darn if that music doesn't sound as good as offerings from the streaming services. Granted my stuff has a lot more hisses and pops but that simply reminds me of happy days playing around with the then current technology. I'm neither an audiophile nor a sound engineer but just someone who enjoys music. Until this video I could never understand why these double converted (vinyl to tape - tape to digital) files held up so well. I guess well crafted music can just stand the test of time. Thanks so much Steve for enlightening me.

I've bought a external network streamer with DAC lately (limetree network) and switched from my integrated amp built-in one. I was shocked how much I was missing before from CD quality recordings. I thought I need DAC with HiRes. Absolutely not the case. I've stopped looking at the numbers since I have it and just look for good quality recordings. Thanks Steve for your album recomendations 🖖

Hi Steve. Thank You so much for Your good way to tell, about what counts in a good recording. Man I wish there was more on the KZfaq hifi channels, with this, easy to understand, way to explain even hard technical stuff.. 👍😊

CD quality is good enough for my ears. The mix and master quality are the most important factors in digital audio. Two cents....

I think CDs get a bad rap because of the CD loudness wars which destroyed the audio quality of the format. CDs started out with great dynamics and pretty good audio quality, but then with each subsequent remaster, they became louder and louder and more brickwalled. Most albums that first came out on CD back in the '80s were transfers from analog tape of classic albums from the Beatles and Steely Dan. They sounded pretty good, but not perfect because back then, the format was so new and the engineers didn't have a full knowledge of the format. The question you have to ask yourself is this: Are the streaming services using old holdover remastered digital sources of classic albums that are still brickwalled, still victims of the old CD loudness wars? Or are they getting newly remastered albums with their original dynamic range restored and tonal qualities restored, like they sounded before the CD loudness wars? If I had to guess, most old classic albums that were recorded on tape and transferred to digital that you hear on streaming services still suffer from poor dynamic range, loudness and brickwalling.

9:15 to 10 :44 is spot on! This is, imo, one of your very best videos as it touches to the biggest fundamentals of good music audio listening realism (and why music listening usually sucks too often, in spite of all the hype put in by techno-babble spewers and marketing reps & "influencers" on the Web). Good job Sir. :) As for MWA nad/or DSD DACs, of course it would be nice to have the maximum flexibility, but... the actual recordings are the element with the most impact on the listening experience (and again, I have to agree with your statement about some really great "old" recordings that are non-compressed & natural sounding being fantastic even in "normal res" playback on decent gear). Too often in audio, the Best is the enemy of the Good. Specially when we are distracted by specs and not adressing the fundamentals of good recording practices and actual sonic performance. PS I Really Hate Compressed music! And I'm not tallking of codec compression here although these can also really mess up sound quite a bit -- pun intended.) Dynamics are fundamental to music (both Macro-Dynamics and Micro-Dynamics has to be respected for any realism in sonic reproduction. This is demanding, but it is achievable as some great recordings have proven it -- you can look for them. As for the actual music; its always a matter of personal taste. Cheers!

Thanks, Steve for sharing some artists and suggestions!

Anyone remember J Gordon Holt's Law: "The better the performance, the worse the recoding, and the better the recording, the worse the performance." Seems to still hold true today for the most part.

I’m sold to hi-res and MQA in general . No all the recordings sound better than cd , but the vast majority seems to me more detailed than the latter .

There are two factors in digital audio that affect the result: 1/ How frequently you sample the analogue voltage (sample rate), and 2/ How granular do you quantify the sampled voltage (bit rate/ bit depth). 1/ The frequency of sampling directly impacts on the frequency bandwidth that can be captured. The higher the sampling frequency the higher audio frequency can be captured. As you know the best human hearing can't hear above 20kHz. However frequencies above that can affect the sampled signal and create what is called "aliasing" where a higher frequency signal creates lower frequency artifacts in the samples. Becasue of that they need to filter out all frequencies higher than the maximum frequency that can be captured by the sample rate. The mathmatical theory behind it is that two samples of a sine wave are sufficient to perfectly recreate the original sine wave. Very few microphones today can capture audio frequencies higher than 25kHz, so there is no significant value to be gained by sampling audio faster than 48kHz - few microphones can capture that and nobody can hear that high. 2/ The bit rate affects the maximum dynamic range that a digital signal is capable of representing without either having quantization artifacts or hitting a maximum sound pressure level above which the digital signal cannot go. Very few people enjoy listening to music with excessively wide dynamic range, and human hearing sustains damage if exposed to a high sound pressure levels for a sustained length of time. In fact for each increase in the SPL of only 3dB (the average untrained person can barely detect a 3dB increase) we halve the length of time we can be subject to that SPL without incurring hearing damage. If you are using 8bit quantization then you have 256 possible values to represent the line level voltage from noise floor to maximum. That means there are large gaps between quantized voltages. If you are using 16bit quantization then you have 65,535 different possible values to represent the line level voltage from noise floor to maximum. That means the voltage gaps are much smaller, and the digital noise floor can be much lower. 24bit digital audio has 16,777,215 different possible values to represent the line voltage between noise floor and maximum. I think there is a good case to be made for capturing original audio recordings in 24bit audio, and doing any internal signal processing (such as digitally blending two different audio recordings) at much higher bit depths such as 32 bit or 64bit before outputting a finished product at 24 or 16bit. But for home audio using a domestic sound system in domestic spaces, there is little value, if any, to be gained from digital audio greater than 16bit 44.1kHz played on a CD player with a good Digital Audio Converter. Western Concert Art Music started being recorded digitally in the mid to late '70s, long before any other style of music started to be recorded digitally. this was because the classical/art music very much benefited from the greater dynamic range and cleaner reproduction that digital recordings facilitated. These days, CDs have so faithfully captured the original analogue recordings that the flaws of the original recordings are being revealed. These flaws are what a lot of vinyl lovers don't like - because the vinyl has too low a dynamic range and too great a level of introduced noise generated by the needle gouging the groove, and too little channel separation, and that hides many flaws. When you can hear the tape hiss off the original studio master recordings, and the maximum loudness of the audio isn't hitting the digital ceiling, then you can be certain that you can hear everything that is on the recording.

Just viewing this one now, guess I missed it,.. Great upload Steve, I have always believed the number one by far most important factor is the recording and mastering quality. If the content can exploit the higher res then it can add to the experience but it will be the last few percent if your system chain is capable. Final comment, Nick Cave Idiot Prayer, it was same for me.. I heard on Tidal and soon after bought the vinyl record as well as the CD. Spectacular, can't stop listening once I start it. Love your music choices as well and have added to Tidal and purchased many of the albums you refer to in your reviews. Awesome job. Michael

To use a digital camera analogy - more megapixels don't necessarily make a better picture. On the other hand, a better lens and sensor make a dramatic difference.

The first thing an audiophile told me when I got into this gig was that the source was everything and then you move forward with gear. That is still the case imo. I like hi res recordings as long as they were recorded well first.

I put CD in push play and enjoy.

Love that copy of Re.Ac.Tor right there up front. As a record producer I settled into doing everything 96/24 years ago. I use a lot of analog equipment to get to the DAW. We did purchase the Burl Audio Mothership convertor rig for our place. That really helped everything. The Burl sounds more like 'audio gear' as opposed to 'computer gear' if that makes any sense? Recording secret is that a whole lot of recording studios are using old convertors that really should have been retired a while ago. What you said about the Dark Dark Dark record is how I feel too. If the music is great, if the mix is great and if the mastering is great, it is great! Most records we make are released as CD, Vinyl and Downloads and I try to make sure the 96/24 is available for people who want it. In the studio when we went to 96/24 it was a turning point for me, it's when I started to like digital. Thanks for your videos.

Thank you for your review of dark dark dark. After listening to just a few tracks I believe their thing is natural ambience. You can tell from their videos they Relish in the places that they play . I love it and their recordings are designed to take advantage of that.

The french fries are burnt but we gave you lots of 'em.

I do not remember the last time I agreed with you this strongly.

Thanks Steve. Now I don’t feel too bad about not paying for high resolution subscription services.

I owned and ran Ghost Studios. Recorded everything in high resolution. Then had to dither it to 16 bit. Offered the music in high resolution. No one wanted it in the early 2000s. Boy did it sound great. A lot of depth and detail. Should really hear it with 20 to 40 tracks all high resolution over great speakers. Even when mixing it down to 96 or 24 two tracks it loses a lot. Thanks for the great videos

Sometimes when a recording is fantastic and its in true hi res flac, it's amazing. I feel like those recordings definitely elevate sound reproduction. I can see how amazing it can be, but I can also see how useless it is a lot of the time when a record doesn't sound that great in the first place.

I dont stream, but hi rez files sound better than the standard cd when compared. easy to hear the difference for me and my friends.

Steve, you're the best. I've heard a few hi-res recordings on KZfaq (pop) and they did sound really good. The problem with most pop recordings (70's onward) is there's too much reverb, especially on the vocals. And like you mentioned, too much compression as well.

The Legendary Christine Perfect Album sounds phenomenal. I cannot get enough of that music. She was great with Fleetwood Mac, but her early work was so much better.

I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your content. Very authentic feel

Hi Steve Because anyone with a laptop is now a recording engineer. Like anything else there is a small percentage with higher expectations. The only way to appreciate that last bit of audio quality with a hi res file is with a 1st class recording and a hi end headphone setup. You will hear the different breed of horsehair on the violin or cello bow.

"Polishing a turd"... Ha Ha Ha! By far, in my opinion, your best video yet Steve. Understandably you have to be all smiles and thumbs up on your product reviews but it's refreshing to hear you take your considerable experience and tell it like it is. As an amateur audiophile, I would love to see more videos, like this one, where you share your honest views based on your years of audio experience. Thank you!

I think you're absolutely right. As an engineer myself, engineering and mixing matter so much more than resolution. For me CD quality is enough. I like recording in a higher resolution if possible to make editing more precise, but for listening I can't tell the difference. (sometimes with pop masters I can't tell the difference between mp3 320 and cd). For reference I have a Steinberg interface with a decent dac in it, a pair of grado sr60e, a pair of sony mdr whatever (the ones you see everywhere), and also a yamaha rs202 receiver hooked up to wharfedale diamond 220s. Nothing crazy, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.

I have a streamer but use it mainly for background music and researching music. Otherwise I listen to my CDs and vinyl.

I listen on Sony MDR-Z1R headphones directly from my Sony WM1A Walkman via balanced cable (no amp or DAC). My primary listening is classical, but I also listen to plenty of Jazz, Rock, and Pop. I have a wide range of files from old MP3 rips from the early aughts, CD rips to FLAC, hi-res rips from Blu-Ray audio, and hi-res downloads from stores like HDTracks and Presto Classical (Presto is SO GOOD and everyone should go there). My take is similar to Steve's. Hi-Res only matters when the recording was done entirely in the digital domain with good equipment and mastering. And the amount it matters over 44.1khz/16b CD audio is marginal. You would have to be doing serious A/B comparisons in order to eke out the differences. London Symphony Orchestra has some great DDD recordings available for download on their site, including cycles of Carl Nielsen, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, and Scriabin symphonies. If you're into John Williams, the 192/24 release of the Rise of Skywalker soundtrack is absolutely mind-blowing, and audibly better than a CD quality recording. CD recordings that exist entirely in the digital domain can sound basically just as good, though. Sony Classical has a release of Shostakovich's symphonies by Michael Sanderling/Dresdner Philharmoniker that just blows me away every time I listen to it - more impactful than nearly any Hi-Res recording I own. BUT, and this is a big BUT, sometimes analog recordings released in hi-res are better than their CD counterparts because they are offering the consumer the latest remastering work. My main man Herbert von Karajan has a huge catalog of releases, some of which have been mastered 3 times by DG and Decca. Generally speaking, the latest masters are the best, and those masters often are released on Blu-Ray Audio. Some examples include the Beethoven 1977 cycle released on Blu-Ray in Dolby Atmos, and Holst's "Planets" released on Blu-Ray in Japan. I sourced these recordings and jumped through the hoops required to rip them, and they do sound audibly better than their CD counterparts (which I also own). But it's mainly because of remastering. There are pop releases in which a hi-res download audibly improves upon the CD release as well - Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson spring to mind. But this is not owing to any inherent flaw in the CD format, but the mastering decisions made in the mixing room. So yeah. DDD recordings done well can beat ADD recordings from prior decades. Hi-Res is just icing on the cake. It's kind of like buying a 4K television. Yeah, you're not going to really see a ton of difference at normal viewing distances. But you're going to get all of the best technical features and new media releases on 4K. Hi-Res audio is like that. CD is amazing and should in no way be considered "less than." A great CD will beat almost any other format.

A new format does not always means a step forward. It is just a product that is created for profit. It will benefit most of all the company who has the rights to it. That's why a new format is thrown into the market as the new audio messiah. We have heard it all before!!!

I quite recently bought a Marantz NA6006 to complete my marantz amplifier. I'm still only playing through Spotify Connect (320kps, NOT CD-quality, by numbers standard) but the fidelity of this streamer is still warm, engaging and "foot-tapping" which is basically what I am looking for in a music system. Though the launch of Spotify Hifi later this year sounds awfully intriguing (bringing the quality up to 1411kbps, similar to CD-quality). I will try some free downloadable DSD64 tracks later on and see how that turns out. Thanks Mr. Guttenberg, always enjoyable to watch your videos and hear your take on music/gear. Kudos!

I appreciate your honesty, Steve. I have no objection to higher bitrates and wider bandwidths being used in recording. The producers can knock themselves out, if they want to. But, it serves no useful purpose so far as audio reproduction is concerned. The PHILIPS/SONY Redbook standard is quite sufficient, and was from day one. It offers more dynamic range than you can realistically use, and perfectly reproduces the frequency spectrum to the satisfaction of the most discriminating 20 year-old.

I think the thing with high resolution recordings is they tend to offer audiophile masterings where if it was an old album it's mastered correctly with the luxury of being cleaned up with modern tools. It's not that they offer anymore detail that becomes more audible. You can see that most of the recordings peak out at 22 kHz. I haven't ever listened to music in high resolution that clips because it's mastered too loud. (Has anyone else?) Being that it's 24 bit it should have enough ceiling not to clip, so maybe that's the big advantage even if it would be too loud. (somebody correct me if I am wrong) The real advantage for high resolution is for recording. It basically means you have more head room so you don't have to worry about clipping as much. All that said, I would love to see a completely digital recording with the best ADC, best mics, etc. recording something new in the spirt of Jazz At The Pawn Shop. That recording has some many layers of ambient noise for your ears to dig through and it's so clear. It was recorded in 1976, so it would be fun to see what could be done today and then master it perfectly. To hell with what it sounds like on iphones and sound bars.

The quality of the recording is the most important factor in how well the music sounds-in my humble opinion.

Nice work Steve I'm new to your channel and have watched heaps.......But can't help to notice your LP shelves , Dude you need some separators in my view you shouldn't have more than a cube space (12" max ) Keep up the good work Cheers from NZ

This is why I come back to spotify, it is enough for streaming! I was with qobuz, TIDAL, amazonHD... CDs for me sounds always better than streaming-services.

Really informative and enlighten video that I think Many have been looking for. Hopefully with lower cost of today in producing good sound.. and the more general interest in High Res sound/music among the average listener, it will be enough demand for the recording industry to take the job of recording more serious. Knowing that word of mouth spreads the interest in the final product they sell.

I did a comparison of a Stones Flowers CD burned to my PC in Flac and a 1960's Stones Flowers vinyl record played on a debut carbon turntable with a Denon $230 MC cartridge , I started the songs at the same time and switched the sources to my powered Vanatoo Transparent One Encore Speakers with a switchbox and to me once I normalized the volume levels of the two sources they sounded just about identical except for the occasional pops and clicks from an older vinyl record. I agree with your opinion in that what matters the most is how the recording was produced and mastered more than the Hi Res specs that are listed on paper.

16bit and 24bit doesnt make a differnce, what your hear as highres music beeing good has a lot more to do with the samplingrate also its technically impossible to reproduce anything above 21 to 22 bit because the noisefloor of the dac is higher then the signalchange after that (and that is with noise at -130db)

I have a Yamaha SACD player. You can toggle 2 channel SACD on and off if the disc is hybrid - has a SACD layer and a Redbook layer. When you turn the SACD off the sound difference is immediate and the sound is not as good. Toggle it back on, and the deep SACD sound returns. That's the simplest way I can think of to show that SACD is very real. And, yup, I'm a classical junkie.

I bought a Schiit Bifrost 2. I don’t use MQA and neither does the Bifrost. It doesn’t support it. I’d still buy it today. I like Schiit products. It works well with my vintage McIntosh preamp and Mc amps. I use the Amazon HD service, no MQA available. I have trouble hearing the difference between CD quality and most of the Hi-Res recordings. To me, they all sound pretty good. I’m older so discerning what’s highly compressed and what isn’t is difficult.

I have one dsd music album file that I love so much, I play it on my chord mojo & hugo. Then in my journey to find the best DAC, I end up in dual TDA1541S1 with only spdif input and source from a cd player. I bought the CD for the same music album I love in DSD to listen from this new DAC. Guess what, it sound wonderful and far better. No hires anymore, 16 bit CD is enough.

Hi res is not a factor for me and listening to Steve reminds me of a CD that I love the sound of "Two against nature".. It is a pro tools recording 24/96 but at 16/44.1 it is still a very fine, great sounding album.

I bought the Topping D90 WITHOUT MQA. I don't know anything about streaming or even how to. I play CDs. The D90 sounds pretty good with 44.1kHz CDs over coax, and optical. Bluetooth is good for free internet radio apps like TuneIn on the smartphone. More concerning is the lack of good CD mechanisms in the industry. So many major players are getting out of CD playback because the mechanisms are rubbish. All the best, Rob.

In 2019, I decided to take the plunge and I did a Google search on "where to buy high resolution recordings." Because I had no idea where to obtain any. Google served up a few sites and I bought and replaced my digital versions of Led Zeppelin. To-date, I have listened to those recordings and not heard a single difference in quality to non high res recordings using my way less than golden ears.

Being skeptical but also curious about Hi-Res I went looking for some authoritative sources where I could learn more about the technical aspects. I discovered some things I didn't know or realize about digital audio before: e.g. that our hearing can distinguish extremely small timing differences between sounds (5-10 microseconds), and these intervals cannot be resolved by 48 kHz sampling rates (20,.8 microsecond intervals), which in effect smear out the timing information; hence the interest in 96 and 192 sampling frequencies. Also that our hearing can detect extremely low-level sounds, if they are not masked by ambient noise. In this respect 24 bits offers better control of the noise floor, as well as more dynamic range. There is more to dynamic range than I thought -- e.g. it can reveal quieter instruments to the ear even though louder instruments are playing at the same time (provided the audio system is sufficiently linear and low-noise). Whether these hi-res technical improvements result in audible improvements depends on many external factors. My listening experience is limited but after trying some 24/96 and 24/192 computer files through a very low-cost Zen DAC, I think the most noticeable difference to me is not so much in clarity but in "definition" and in more striking dynamics, especially in percussion and bass. It's hard to find authoritative sources but I found Hans Beekhuyzen's tutorial videos to be very helpful. On DSD, PS Audio are big enthusiasts and want to tell you all about it, and in particular Ted Smith's videos on DSD and DACs are fascinating if you like tech stuff. He shows how hard it is to do digital audio really well, and that you are up against some fundamental limitations! They also touch on jitter, enough for me to see what it is and how it happens, but I think I need to see the actual logic and circuit diagrams to really understand it. Going down the hi-res path, other issues emerge: is my media player delivering bit-perfect data out the USB to my DAC, without being altered by some onboard computer audio processing? I don't think so, but does it matter? Is there a way to detect bogus hi-res files (i.e. upsampled from lower-res sources)? More things for audiophiles to obsess about.

8-track is the way to go, that click/clack makes all the difference.

Thanks for the introduction to Foxwarren. Some nice tunes in there.

I agree with Steve that most commercial music that most people are listening to at any given time is not recorded in sufficient quality to warrant high resolution recording or mastering. At the same time, however, the commercial audio equipment that most people are listening to commercial recordings on at any given time is not high resolution nor capable of presenting the distinctions between high resolution and standard resolution recordings. The answer to Steve's question "What is high rez for?" is high resolution is mostly for audiophile recordings played back on audiophile equipment for audiophile listeners. This is, always has been, and always will be for a small minority of listeners, not for most people. My musical preferences are classical and jazz, and there are many wide dynamic range, well mastered or re-mastered originally analog or digital recordings that have been transferred to high resolution digital files that benefit from high resolution DACs, but only if the analog output of the DAC and the remainder of the analog playback chain is capable of high resolution and high dynamic range as well. As for DSD, one claim for DSD is that compared to PCM transfers of the same originally analog master recordings, DSD transfers sound more like the original analog recordings than PCM. I think it is difficult to say whether or not this is true. In my own listening there have been cases where I preferred the sound using the DSD file to that using the PCM file and vice versa on the same system, but not having access to the original analog master tape, I cannot say which is truer to the original analog sound. For those of us who have eschewed physical media, both CDs and vinyl, as being too bulky, delicate, and inconvenient compared to digital files and streaming, and who find "digital" sounding music (however one experiences that) to be disconcerting, the promise of DSD sounding "more analog" than PCM even as a transfer format for original analog recordings is very attractive subjectively, and this is DSD's raison d'etre for many audiophiles, even if it is largely unverifiable objectively.

All the best sounding recordings I own are old analogue recordings (50s, 60s, 70s, etc.) in high res digital formats. Currently I’m listening a lot to some of the Everest 35mm recordings in their original 3-channel format on DVD-A, but there is so much sublime catalog out there which sounds utterly superb when lovingly transferred to true hi-res digital and played through a good sounding system. MQA have been doing some loving restorations on early digital recordings, getting back to the original sound as far as possible on recordings which have been mangled over the years.

Hey Steve, I agree 100% with everything you said. The King is the mix and the recording. If you were to do a blind taste test of high res vs. CD res recordings I bet very few could tell the difference. As you say... you can’t polish a turd. And that’s why those recordings on vinal records that were made back in the 50’s and 60’s are still just as good today as they were back in the day. The biggest problem today are masters that are overly compressed and at too high volume levels. That’s what really kills it. If you screw up the master it doesn’t matter how high the bandwidth of the delivery stream, it will still sound compressed and lack that airiness and dynamic range that you are looking for in a great recording.

I had been into high-res since the late 1970s when I first got my hands on a Sheffield direct-to-disk and the early Telarc disks. The Telarc disks often came with warnings about protecting your speakers but not playing them loud on the first pass. I discovered DSD recordings when they first came out and, of course, had to have an SACD player - in fact, two, one Pioneer and, by accident, the Sony PS-2 (I still have both of them). So, given the choice of purchasing a CD or SACD of the same recording, I would select the SACD. I have been unimpressed by the dual-level disks because I felt that the engineering was often done for the CD version and just transferred to CD. I do have a couple of recordings from HD-Tracks that were DSD, to begin with, and, of course, I have some Chesky DSD recordings as well. As to MQA, I can tell the difference between a standard cut and the MQA cut to the point that was I about to purchase another DAC, its ability to handed MQA would be important to me unless I were considering a ladder DAC. I do think that an MQA- processed recording sounds better than one that hasn't been. In addition to Tidal, I also listen to Amazon Music HD. While it sounds good, I think that the Tidal MQA versions of a recording sound better than the Amazon Music uLTRA version. The reason for listening to Amazon Music at all is that it's more tolerant of my flaky ISP variations in bandwidth than is Tidal, so for just listening, rather than LISTENING, I stream from Amazon Music HD. I can't rely on Qoobz getting signal through to me because of my flakey ISP. So, I'll download from Tidal and Amazon as well as from HD-Tracks. I also purchase vinyl when I have heard the recording sound great when streamed. (I'd purchase the SACD if it were available and had been engineered to be high resolution.).

I agree with you Steve. Many years ago I had bad TV reception, I could go buy a signal booster but it would also boost the bad signal as well. A bad recording will always be just that "bad" regardless of the Hi-Res label. I've heard good recordings in mp3 which were impressive to say the least.

Interesting discussion topic. I like hi res downloads as I am heavily into classical music - I play classical violin. My favourite downloads come from NativeDSD and eClassical. Also 2L have excellent recordings really giving space. I use a Denafrips DAC and ATC pre amp and active speakers from my i7 MacMini. These modern recordings can sound amazing - way better than Tidal.

Steve, I stream exclusively from Apple Music, so I suppose my take on hi res is obvious. I don't even thin about it. I do choose lossless whenever it's available, which seems to be nearly always, and I'm perfectly happy with that, and I couldn't agree more that the quality of the original recording is of primary importance!

Steve Wilson’s work was the primary driver for most of my entire audio system. Denon flagship AVC x8500h, Oppo 203, Infinity IRS Beta and Kappa speakers for surround. It just so happens that he was remixing and re-releasing all of my favorite bands - Yes, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, early Genesis, Jethro Tull, ELP etc - into the surround format that really fascinates me. The Denon includes a mono block design with 8 AK “Velvet Sound” DACs ... whatever the DACs are doing as far as analog stage coloration and warming up of the sound, it’s a good match for my planar speakers, to my ears. A big improvement over my Denon x6200.

I'm old school and you are bang on correct, it's the mastering of the original recording and the skill of the engineer that's key. Hi res is mostly marketing hyperbole. I watched a presentation recently with David Solomon (Qobuz) and he said only about 10% of their content is Hi res, so if you have your panties in a twist about hi res then you're severely restricting your options. 16/44 is perfectly adequate for petty much all audiophiles ears and the majority of audiophies are aged 45 - 65, so I would actually question how good their ears anyway? So enjoy the music and ignore the numbers, a good recording is a good recording.

Hey Steve, great topic as always. But even better are the music suggestions. Foxwarren record is really well done. Listening through a recently acquired Vali 2 and some Grado Headphones. All purchased with the advice of the Audiophiliac! Thank-you Steve.

You're absolutely correct about tidal and the like. Compression !