Many Japanese digital music store provides hifi purchase up to 96kHz/24bit and I have many.
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Spotify Testing New Lossless Audio Quality Subscription Tier
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There are a number of places that allow you to purchase hi-res tracks up to DSD 256 (the highest I've seen) at ~11.2 Mbps (ww.21.no). However they charge exorbitant prices, on the order of $25 per album. In many cases you are wasting your money, as the original master may not be that good. To use a video analogy, if the original video was shot in VHS, a 4K or 8K version isn't going to be any better than the original VHS master.
http://www.soundandvision.com/content/hi-res-and-art-provenance#qZ24ocU8xFlG3vrw.97
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hi-res-audio-hijinx-why-only-some-albums-truly-rock-1425675329
There is a proposed Master Quality recording coding standard:
Master Quality Recording: A coding system devised by electronics and music industry trade groups to describe the provenance of digital music files for consumers, retailers and recording industry professionals. The four Master Quality categories include:
MQ-A: From an analog master source
MQ-C: From a CD master source (44.1-kHz/16-bit content)
MQ-D: From a DSD/DSF master source (typically 2.8- or 5.6-MHz/ 1-bit content). (DSF is a type of DSD master file.)
MQ-P: From a PCM master source 48-kHz/20 bit or higher (typically 96/24 or 192/24 content)
which would allow you to evaluate whether or not you get what you are paying for. Otherwise even on some of the best known (in U.S.) download sites, such as HDTracks, you just don't know what you are getting.
One place that is pretty solid is Linn Records:
http://www.linnrecords.com/index.aspx
where they make their own recordings and make sure that the end result is as close to the studio experience as is technically possible.
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Better quality would be nice but I'm not paying extra for it. That tier gives me nothing. What would I have spotify for if vinyl was my thing?
I use beats solo3 and AirPods. They won't give me much better sound with lossless encoding. The music I usually listen to is hardstyle or radio. Something that most likely isn't mastered in HQ anyway.
I use beats solo3 and AirPods. They won't give me much better sound with lossless encoding. The music I usually listen to is hardstyle or radio. Something that most likely isn't mastered in HQ anyway.
Spotify is great for discovering music whatever your preferred final listening equipment is and thats what i use it for. Its the old saying "Horses for courses" if you don't need it thats fine no one is forced to listen above a bit rate they don't require (or want to pay for) but its nice to have the option if you want it or fortunate to have the equipment that it will make a difference.
You might find this interesting:
http://www.tonepublications.com/review/why-mqa/
"For all the vinyl lovers in the audience (myself included), constant comparison between the recent 45 rpm LP remasters of the Neil Young catalog and the tracks available on MQA are nearly a dead heat. Nearly all of my non audiophile friends with no predisposed agenda prefer the sound of the MQA files to even LP, yet the same comments are made by everyone with no audiophile language; MQA sounds more relaxing, more real, more like music."
I have my Meridian Explorer 2 coming tomorrow so i can "unfold" the MQA music files fully and hear the difference for myself hopefully. I think it's the cheapest MQA DAC available and as its Meridian who developed the MQA system so i will be interested to see or should i say hear any difference. I own the Explorer 1 and was pleased with the sound from that and there are improvements in the 2 and interestingly its cheaper than the one I bought originally but this may well be down to the fact there is so much more competition now in the compact DAC range. I cancelled Spotify and swapped to Tidal as they have MQA music available although Spotify may have them in the HiRES version when its available to all.