Post by cameron on Oct 10, 2015 21:56:17 GMT
Anyone who follows Neil Young (and I suspect that's quite a few of you, given his close links to Graham Nash) will have heard about his new high quality audio player, Pono. If you don't know, basically, he's offering music in lossless quality (48,000khz up to 96,000khz) which is way beyond the scope of CDs and regular downloads at 44,000khz. In laymans terms, this number is a sample rate and the higher the number, the sharper the sound. It determines the quality of the sound. Think of the old fashioned reel to reel tapes - the faster the tape spins, the better the quality. Or even the various quality settings on YouTube - CDs are like 360 whereas Pono promises to be the equivalent of 1080HD if you like. It's like kind of like that.
Anyway, the streaming service officially opens in the UK in November 2015 and I've been browsing the Hollies section. Basically, anything that's available on iTunes or Spotify is here plus the Sundazed CDs. But what confuses me is that they're only available in 44,000khz for the time being. The system works whereby you vote for a higher frequency and if the album gets enough votes, Pono will offer it. But are they going back to the EMI masters or just converting the existing 44,000khz material? Anyone can do that already in something free like Audacity to extract the finer frequencies of a track. You just can't easily play it back and if you don't have a proper Hi-Fi or very good headphones, you won't notice the difference anyway. Is it worth voting to get our favourite Hollies albums in higher quality? In my experience, the higher streaming rate on Spotify is the best quality sound for recent Hollies releases. I think EMI grant Spotify access to the digital masters, surpassing the quality of a CD by far. It's all rather pointless really though, unless it's a full remaster and restoration/remix job, altering the sample rate is marginal in difference in the listening experience.
Anyway, the streaming service officially opens in the UK in November 2015 and I've been browsing the Hollies section. Basically, anything that's available on iTunes or Spotify is here plus the Sundazed CDs. But what confuses me is that they're only available in 44,000khz for the time being. The system works whereby you vote for a higher frequency and if the album gets enough votes, Pono will offer it. But are they going back to the EMI masters or just converting the existing 44,000khz material? Anyone can do that already in something free like Audacity to extract the finer frequencies of a track. You just can't easily play it back and if you don't have a proper Hi-Fi or very good headphones, you won't notice the difference anyway. Is it worth voting to get our favourite Hollies albums in higher quality? In my experience, the higher streaming rate on Spotify is the best quality sound for recent Hollies releases. I think EMI grant Spotify access to the digital masters, surpassing the quality of a CD by far. It's all rather pointless really though, unless it's a full remaster and restoration/remix job, altering the sample rate is marginal in difference in the listening experience.