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Hi Resolution download - question on authencity of the files

Hello all,
I have never downloaded a hi-rez album till date.
I recently heard samples of Norah Jones Day Breaks album and was thinking of purchasing the hi-rez album via acousticsounds.com or hdtracks.com or prostudiomasters.com. Question is - are these REAL hi-rez files or are these just up-sampled CD version? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I am currently listening to "Celtic Woman - A New Journey" and the recording on this CD is superb. I wondered how much the "quality" of such a nicely recorded album can be improved. Hence the question. I am not sure if the FLAC 96kHz/24bit version is a real one that I would be able to distinguish from a CD 16/44 version.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
128x128milpai
milpai's avatar
milpai OP
2,402 posts
 
Got the CD today. Pretty nice music. I like Norah Jones songs.
Oh and the recording is also nice...slightly dark sounding. Highly recommended.
I am intrigued by the Kitsune and Bryston BDA-3 DACs.
erik_squires
16,138 posts
 
@dbtom2

You are correct, and in my case, correct as well. My previous DAC had pretty mediocre jitter control EXCEPT via USB, which I did not have a source for.

I was however able to compare the Mytek to the previous DAC using the same source, Squeeze Touch via Coaxial.

Since then I built a Linux server (I'm typing this now on it) and switched to USB exclusively. It's fab.

Erik
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,379 posts
 
prov·e·nanceˈprävənəns/noun
  1. the place of origin or earliest known history of something."an orange rug of Iranian provenance"synonyms:origin, source, place of origin; More
    • the beginning of something's existence; something's origin."they try to understand the whole universe, its provenance and fate"
    • a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality.plural noun: provenances"the manuscript has a distinguished provenance"
Not providence, that's a city in Rhode Island and a failed tv show. 

However, provenance is the key to the original question and many broad brush posts above are just plain wrong. You can't conclude anything about Hirez overall from listening to an HD Tracks demo. Sure those will sound good. Almost anything from Blue Coast will sound great. Not enough of what's for sale for $25 sounds great and shame on those selling upsampled redbook and calling it Hirez. 
HD Tracks and all others need to follow far higher standards of disclosure so the public knows what they are paying for. It's true that with many better DACs (especially R2R DACs and some others) and today's better servers and other digital sources redbook(i.e. CD) quality files can sound better than most associate with playing CD disks, and this quality regularly surpasses what is heard on some poorly produced hirez.
 It just ain't fair! We need somebody with real musical cred like Neil Young fighting the good fight! Oh wait, that didn't work so well. Cheers,
Spencer
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