Which High Res releases are worth buying?

Ben,

I hope this thread will serve everyone, regardless of respective musical preferences, so my personal musical tastes are unimportant. What I *do* hope is that people will compare reissued recordings with the original Redbook before recommending the High Res version. The High Res version should be audibly better. If it isn't, I think we'd all be better off supporting new artists as opposed to supporting reissues that represent no improvement.

That said, I have no Redbook versions of the recordings posted so far but trust that most people buy reissues of recordings they've at least heard before and that their recommendations are based upon at least a comparison by memory. If *you* think it sounds "better" than how you've heard the recording sound before, then some improvement has probably been accomplished by those who produced the High Res reissue.

Posts like yours are extremely helpful, so please keep passing along your discoveries!

I recently compared the 44.1 CD of Beck's "Sea Change" to Mobile Fidelity's 44.1 remaster. The original recording sounded great so I was not prepared for the DRAMATIC difference in the Mobile Fidelity reissue. The recording's soundstage, bass response and midrange have all been unveiled due to the remastering work of those involved in the project. The biggest reason for the improvement is that no compression was used. This reissue justifies a $25 purchase. I want to hear the same level of improvement when I spend that much money for a High Res recording I can otherwise buy for $9 on Amazon. HdTracks is offering a 24/88 download of this title. If anyone's compared it to the MoFi version I'd love to hear what you think.

Alas, I can’t give a hearty thumbs-up to the recent HDTracks hi-res release of The Doobie Brothers, “Captain and Me.” I nearly forgot what a great recoding this is. Unfortunately, while the dynamics are there, the detail and clarity are there in abundance, there simply is no semblance of the warmth, dimensionality and air that the original vinyl version offered.

While analog/vinyl comparisons may be a high standard of reference for digital, some hi-res releases have come close to duplicating air, warmth, three-dimensionality and sound-staging (Blue Coast Records recordings come to mind).

I will be anxious to hear from someone else who has downloaded this otherwise excellent (album).

Neil Young's catalog has been re-mastered in 24/172 and the 44.1 releases of these remasters KILL the old CD releases. It'll be very interesting to see whether Neil eventually authorizes dowload sales of the high res masters themselves. If he does, we'll be able to do a direct comparison of Redbook's presentation of that material versus a high res dowload.

Oh I definitely want to get a hold of some of those. Let us know when/where to purchase hi-res files from Neil's 24/172 catalog...