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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: RE: Hmm.... posted by Dave_K on October 9, 2017 at 04:34:19:
This is a good post, making good points. I'm sure you're right that the record companies decide, or at least have an important say. For important recordings, there could be a conversation.
The first batch of WMG stuff that MQA encoded was, I was told, their "24-bit catalog"--stuff they had already transferred, often from magnetic tape, to 24-bit formats. My understanding was that these would the sources for MQA transfers, unless there was a reason not to use it.
I too have done some comparisons, both by listening and by recording analog output at high resolution and viewing the files and their FFTs. I've found many to be similar enough to assume they were sources from the same master file. I have found exceptions however. Unfortunately, I have access to only a pretty small number of high-res recordings for comparison. Another point is that I believe that many recordings are now available in MQA, especially via Tidal, that are not (yet?) available in DSD or high-res PCM. I could be wrong about this.
A final point: I've had a handful of short conversations with folks at one of the major high-res download services. This one has scruples and obviously cares about provenance--specifically, they want NOT to be selling upsampled CD-res files. These conversations--and subsequent observations by me--have made it clear that things are not always as they appear. One very well-regarded reissue of a classic recording, which, the company has said, was transferred directly from magnetic tape at 24/192, included an obvious (attenuated) mirror image above 22.05kHz. The company labeled this clearly on their website, refused to sell the 192 version--that version is on sale at the other major download site--and put the 96kHz version on sale. Props. Companies were provided to the company by a distributor at 96 and 192. In another case, a whole batch of important major-label classical albums, released at high resolution, included ambiguous wording in the technical information. When I asked about this, the download company's response was that they simply couldn't determine the provenance, and the distributor wasn't saying.
Still, it does seem as though many MQA releases are indeed available as 24/192. I can't afford to investigate how many.
Jim
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Follow Ups
- Thanks. - Jim Austin 10/9/1705:57:03 10/9/17 (0)
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