Dumb file size question.

Right, that's why a symphony that runs 70 min. is a larger file size than a 30 min. rock album,  for example.

I bought this album, Blak and Blu by Gary Clark, Jr.,  for two reasons. First, it is an incredible album. Style all over the place and amazing talent in every one of those places.

Second, the CD has severely depressed DR and the low res streaming version (iTunes and Amazon) sounds okay but not great. The vinyl for this album has exceptional DR but my phono setup is low end. No sense spending money on quality I cannot access. I was surprised to see that the download version has decent DR. Not as good as the vinyl but close. This is unusual since the DR on most new music is similar on the CD and the download.

I had a 15% discount at HD Tracks so I bought it for around $16.

It sounds good. But at $20 without the discount and 1.2 GB in size I will probably not be buying much from HD Tracks except when they are the only option (for me) for a quality recording that I really like.

@n80, DR numbers are very good for a vinyl release in these modern times.
We have to assume those terribly compressed tracks are for the Redbook CD, although the source is not indicated.
The difference in DR for the download is because it is hires, so it was mastered as such.

@lowrider57  Agree, but many hi res download files have similar DR compression to the CD so you can't just assume the hi-res file has been engineered differently. In the case of this album it clearly has though.

The recording at the studio was mastered at either 24/96 or more likely 192 kbps. The file was sent to the mastering studio where it was processed for CD, vinyl, and download. All started with a hires file.
As you say, in this case the download is vastly superior.

Nowadays iTunes or streaming services are all sent the hires file. They compress it at their end.