Another “High Resolution” Music Store
Technics entered the “high-resolution music download” business today. Like their competitor Onyko, they launched “Technics Tracks” in Germany and the United Kingdom. The site is powered by 7digital, the same digital music aggregator that is behind Onkyo’s onkyomusic.com and claims to have “a catalogue of the worlds leading record companies, currently includes over hundreds of thousands of 24-bit/44.1kHz up to 192kHz hi-res tracks (available in FLAC) and millions of 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality files. The rapidly growing catalogue ensures the service offers users a best in class experience.”
They describe themselves this way:
“Technics Tracks is a music download service specializing in high quality lossless audio. We provide a wide selection of tracks in FLAC format from 16bit 44khz (CD quality) up to 24 bit 192khz. The catalogue is constantly growing. We will keep you in touch with exciting additions to the catalogue via our newsletter.”
Should we get excited about yet another site offering the same catalog of major label transfers (currently around 5000-7000) of older standard definition albums in big bit buckets? No, this is more of the same jump on the bandwagon strategy that other high-resolution, digital music download sites have adopted. I doubt that there is really enough demand to sustain all of these players. HighResAudio in Germany and Qobuz in France can’t be too excited about the dilution factor that another vendor will bring to their market.
The site seems well designed and is quite stark in comparison to most of the other sites. I like that you can filter the “Hi-Res” content from the rest of the standard resolution stuff. But what does it mean when you have Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti” available with a bright yellow “HI-RES” virtual sticker pasted on the upper left hand corner and right next to it the same album without the sticker. The price for the “Hi-Res” version is £21.49 (today worth $33.37 U.S. Dollars) and the price for the “standard definition” version is £18.99 ($29.48 U.S.). The high-resolution version (called “deluxe”) is encoded in FLAC at 96 kHz/24-bits and the “premium” version is $44.1 kHz/16-bits.
There is no information provided as to the provenance of the tracks. If I’m going to pay over $33 for another digital copy of Led Zeppelin’s classic album, I would like to know more than just the year of the release and that it comes from Atlantic Records.
The people behind the Technics site (possibly 7digital) have also decided to be somewhat loose with what is and what isn’t a high-resolution audio release. They have the new Bob Dylan record in both “premium” and “deluxe” versions. The only “res” difference between the two versions is the additional 8-bits used in the high-resolution or deluxe version…and the price is three pounds more. The sample rate for both versions is 44.1 kHz. Ouch. Nothing high-resolution here. Remember 24-bits makes a difference during the recording of the project but the improved dynamic range doesn’t usually survive the mastering process…we get files and recordings with much less than 16-bits….forget about 24-bits.
“Shadows in the Night”, Bob Dylan’s new record would have been the perfect record to do in real HD-Audio. I simply cannot understand why they choose to limit the sampling rate to 44.1. According to the bobdylan.com site, the record was produced like I record my own projects. Bob commented, “We knew these songs extremely well. It was all done live. Maybe one or two takes. No overdubbing. No vocal booths. No headphones. No separate tracking, and, for the most part, mixed as it was recorded.” I’d love to check out the sound on this album…if they didn’t compress the hell out it during the mastering process, it might sound really great. The track I heard on Vimeo sounded pretty good…but they used a lot of artificial reverb.
iTrax.com is still the only site on the web where every track is a real HD-Audio recording. No upconversions, no transfers from standard resolution analog masters…just original recordings done at 96 kHz/24-bits or better. The catalog is very limited but the fidelity of the recordings is not.
They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity?
Just maybe all this HDA promotion will start to embed the technology in the public’s mind and start to push the recording studios into using the latest digital tools. If we get to the point where the public wants to see “Recorded in 96/24 HDA” in its sales marketing we’ll really start to get somewhere.
Many of the studios are using higher specs for their productions…but the model for great sound is much more than just specs.
For sure, but it’s a start over Neve consoles and analog tape recorders. 😉
There is a reason why my pono player currently does only hold tracks from iTRAX plus I am trying to spread the “real high res”- message in the pono community; still, not sure if anybody from there did order from AIX/iTRAX following my recommendations. b. t. w., iTRAX files do sound really great on the pono (headphones: Audio technica ATH M50), guess I will step by step purchase the iTRAX catalogue and pretty much just smile about all the “big” highres-stores …….
Wow, I’m obviously pleased. My guess is that these tracks sound dramatically different than most of the downloads from PonoMusic. Still, the public wants music that they are familiar with and those tracks are not high-res. I produced almost a 100 recordings to demonstrate what’s possible…
Dear Mark,
You must read the Brent Butterworth article at Audiophilereview.com, http://audiophilereview.com/cd-dac-digital/dsd-class-d-and-great-marketing.html, about DSD recordings and Class D amplifiers. Very interesting and perceptive article.
Thanks, I read the article this morning. I would quibble with a couple of the details about the DVD-Audio and SACD history but Brent spells it out pretty well.
Mark.. Since this industry lives for the numbers (the larger the better), How can AIX record / Itrax compete with the HD-Tracks, Technics and everyone else with their large catalog?
Yes, we know that only a handful of the downloads from those providers are truly HD but they have a much greater selection of titles. People like having MORE and MORE choices.
Another question:
How does your side of the industry work? Meaning, do you contact the artists and ask them to produce a “record”? Or do they come to Aix because they want their project to be recorded in the highest quality available?
I gave up trying to compete by having more items in my catalog or large numbers in my specifications. As I look out at the McLaren, Ferrari, and Maserati repair place outside my window, I’m convinced that quality trumps quantity.
Most of the artists I’ve recorded are either friends or were recommended to me. Some…including Wallace Roney…contacted me after hearing one of our tracks.
Mr. Butterworth hit it right, I believe: http://audiophilereview.com/cd-dac-digital/dsd-class-d-and-great-marketing.html