Recently there's been an industry wide effort to promote higher quality music sources, primarily spearheaded by Neil Young's Pono effort and Sony's high resolution hardware and software products. A fair number of hardware and software companies have jumped on board this initiative. With minimal effort you can find High Res capable Digital to Analog converters (DAC) in lots of products: streamers, portable players (but not so many high res capable cell phones) along with integrated amplifiers, receivers and processors that now include high resolution capabilities. For personal/portable listening lots of higher performance headphones and ear buds have come along to embrace this higher resolution playback.
High resolution audio has been defined as: "Lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better than CD quality music sources." Along with that definition four different Master Quality Recording categories have been released describing recordings made from the "best quality music source" available:
- MQ-P: from a PCM master source of 48kHz/20-bit or higher - typically 96kHz/24-bit or 192kHz/24-bit
- MQ-A: from an analogue master source (master tapes, vinyl or other source)
- MQ-C: from a CD master source (44.1kHz/16-bit)
- MQ-D: from a DSD/DSF master source - typically 2.8MHz or 5.6MHz content (This is Direct Stream Digital, the recording format developed by Sony/Phillips for the SACD Super Audio CD standard)
Another Option - Master Quality Authenticated™
Bob Stuart, the founder and primary engineering brains behind Meridian audio equipment and considered to be one of the leading experts in the world of digital encoding and reproduction of audio, has developed a recording/playback system called Master Quality Authenticated (MQA). This is a variation of PCM recording which is and has been the industry's digital recording standard. According to Bob, "MQA captures every subtle nuance of the original master, "folds" it into a standard lossless stream or file and "unfolds" it for the listener, recovering the original sound exactly. MQA brings together the three ideals of: studio-quality sound, convenient distribution, and end-to-end." The claim is listeners benefit most from playback using an MQA enabled device but even playing back MQA content using a standard CD player or DAC the system is claimed to enhance the source beyond standard CD quality. As of this writing in early 2016, several major and specialty audio companies have gotten on board and will be offering MQA enabled players and source material. Another benefit of the MQA system is the files are significantly smaller than other HD format files and therefore are great for portable device storage and for streaming.
Can you hear it?
Many of you are aware that 4K televisions are on the market and they offer 4 times the resolution of 1080P sets. Experts will tell you that unless you're relatively close to the screen or using a huge set, it can be difficult for the casual viewer to see the difference between the two from a "normal" viewing distance. There's a similar situation going on concerning High Resolution audio as well. There's some controversy as to whether people can actually hear the difference between CD quality recording and high resolution formats. This same kind of controversy swirls around higher bit rate ripped MP3 files versus the non-compressed originals too.
The GoldenEar team listens to a lot of recorded music for development, demonstration and just plain enjoyment purposes. Our experience has been that upon careful listening on the revealing GoldenEar speakers, using high quality systems, High Resolution recordings can enhance musical enjoyment. Certainly, some of the improvement we've heard may be due to more carefully engineered recordings and sources irrespective of the technical recording process. But even if that's the only difference, we've enjoyed the improved sound without reservation. We recommend that you try a High Resolution recording either on physical media or through streaming to see if you feel the benefits outweigh the effort involved.
What do you need to hear High Resolution audio?
If you search you'll find several portable HR players that can be connected as a source to high quality residential audio systems. They also can be used as portable music players and many let you use their built-in DAC for playback of other digital sources.
If you're just getting into HD music and aren't sure if it's for you there are relatively inexpensive ways that you can "stick your toes (ears?) in the water" and give it a try. Below we've listed several USB DACs on the market that can be used with a computer to play back streamed or stored music files (HD included) and let you listen over headphones or through a connected audio system. Some are more sophisticated than others and the retail prices range from about $150 to $300. They represent an easy way to listen to HD music files and evaluate their worth to you. In addition, many are small and include high quality headphone amplifiers so they would also improve your enjoyment of all music when you're traveling. These are in no particular order and there are others available that aren't listed:
- Audioengine D3 DAC/headphone amplifier
- Audioengine D1 DAC
- Meridian Audio Explorer DAC
- CEntrance DACport
- High Resolution Technologies MicroStreamer
- Audioquest Dragonfly v1.2
- Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS
- Oppo HA-2
- JDS Labs 02 + 0DAC combo
- Mass Fidelity Relay HI-Fi Bluetooth DAC
- Creative Sound Blaster E5
- Schiit Modi 2 Uber (don't yell at us, that's the company's name...)
There are any number of music players, software programs, disc players, preamplifiers and receivers that now include HD source digital decoding. Many include on-board storage or have the ability to connect with a computer with attached storage. These too will allow listening to higher quality digital files in addition to potentially improving the playback of all your digital music. Prices are wide ranging and we suggest that you consult with your GoldenEar dealer for further advice and guidance regarding them.
Below are several sites that are offering High Resolution downloads. There are others as well.
