Audio News for March 25, 2008

by | Mar 25, 2008 | Audio News | 0 comments

Chesky Records Launches Hi-Res Downloads – After three years of development, Chesky Records has launched a hi-res download service called HDtracks. None of the audio files have DRM and downloads that come from CDs can be purchased either as full-resolution lossless FLAC files or as 320kbps MP3 files (Amazon’s top resolution is 256kbps).  They will thus play on any portable digital player – not just iPods. The initial launch is for PCs only but Mac functionality is coming soon and will then include uncompressed AIFF audio files. They also plan to eventually offer 96K/24-bit FLAC hi-res files when available from some sources.

Chesky has negotiated with several other independent record labels and will also offer hi-res downloads from Dorian, MDG, ASV, Reference Recordings, Acoustic Disc, Tzadek, Cryptogramophone, Black Box, New World, Sundazed and others. The site will have information on all the downloads, and for the Chesky downloads there PDFs of all liner notes, composer bios, essays, discographies and more. The Cool Links section offers such tools as Slim Devices, Media Monkey and MacFlac. Genres include pop, jazz, classical, contemporary New Music, folk, reggae, soundtracks,  and Broadway shows. www.HDtracks.com

Higher-res Historical Reissues – Ever wonder why this audiophile publication devotes so much space to reviewing historical classical reissues from as early as the 1920s and 30s?  Well, with computer audio processing and other refinements in audio restoration, historical recordings – which could be recordings made anytime in the past without current professional recording equipment – have improved their fidelity in reissues released in the last decade or so. To the point that most, while mono, are no longer painful for audiophile-oriented ears. Now a new automated computer process known as Harmonic Balancing – or in the terminology of British restoration experts Pristine Audio, the XR Remastering System – has been debuted on a number of reissues both from that label and from the U.S. label Music & Arts Recordings.

It goes beyond previous efforts to minimize scratch, pops, tape hiss, speed variations, and other distractions by focusing on the inherent sonic faults in the original recording equipment.  These flaws are “reverse-engineered” to determine how the recording should sound.  None of this was possible before computers. When an old recording of a particular work is closely analyzed for average harmonic content over its entire duration, that work will display a specific harmonic pattern of amplitude and frequency for that recording. However, if multiple modern recordings (from different labels) of the same composition are analyzed, their harmonic patterns will be just about identical. So each piece of music has a unique harmonic fingerprint captured by modern recording. The trick is to identify and correct where this harmonic fingerprint is distorted or corrupted on the old recording, since even with cleaning up the noise and scratch, that problem is what makes old recording sound so “vintage” – nowhere near modern sonic standards.

The process is a predictive EQ system, which can at the same time reduce noise without the shortcomings of conventional noise reduction – such as losing some of the music frequencies along with the noise. It can dig into the previously-lost higher frequencies of early 78s and bring them up to normal levels – often doubling the frequency response of recordings from the 1920s and 30s. The process works even on acoustic recordings and can remove the odd colorations caused by recording horns. An interesting demonstration of the process might be to compare the Bruckner Ninth Symphony conducted by Furtwangler, reissued by DGG in a boxed set and Reviewed Here with our upcoming review of the same original recording, just reissued in a Bruckner Symphonies boxed set by Music & Arts using Harmonic Balancing. Visit Pristine Audio for some free online demonstrations.

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