Recording - December 2015 - 72

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I'd like to advocate for what I am seeking as a consumer: a greater availability
of hi-resolution content from artists I enjoy,
that I can listen to through my costly and
carefully assembled Hi-Fi system. What is
the point of a really good system if I can't
listen to new material by worthwhile
artists at the greatest possible fidelity?

It wouldn't hurt if there was a consensus
to better gauge the level of consumer
interest in purchasing this content and the
size of the potential audience. Since the
conversation over Neil Young's Pono has
been divisive, a supportive consensus by
consumers needs to be developed for hires formats to gain more traction.
Getting artists involved is challenging,
too-we have to get younger, current
artists interested in high-res, so the catalog
of hi-res isn't limited to "dinosaur" rock and
jazz from the 1950s and 1960s. There
are a handful of younger bands with street
cred, like Elephant Revival, Band of
Horses, and Dan Auerbach of The Arcs,
embracing hi-res. Hopefully this will make

many hi-res titles are readily available.
Existing and forthcoming iOS devices have
sufficient capacity to store dozens of hi-res
albums, and iOS supports hi-res audio
playback (although, as with most Windows
phones, you'll need an external D/A converter to listen to them at high resolution).
On the home-listening front, Bluesound,
Polk, Definitive Technology, Wren, Phorus,
Athem, McIntosh, Wadia Digital, and now
Yamaha and Paradigm, offer multi-room
wireless streaming. Sony, Astell & Kern,
Acoustic Research, and Lotoo offer
portable players specifically built for hi-res.
And Onkyo, Sony, and Pioneer recently
launched home stereo receivers that support hi-res audio.

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Some examples of recent releases that
fit this bill are New Order's Music
Complete on Mute, Keith Richards'
Crosseyed Heart on Universal Music
GmbH, and Slayer's Repentless on
Nuclear Blast-all in 24-bit/96 kHz.
Major artists are clearly embracing and
offering hi-res downloads of their newest
albums, but there's lots of room for the
selection to increase.
Recent releases by (just for an example
or three) Lana Del Ray, The Libertines, and
Motörhead were all conventional CDs; this
demonstrates that the availability of hi-res
albums appears to be contingent on what
artists and producers want and that the
decision isn't necessarily predicated on a
label's financial resources. As a case in
point, Keith Richards and The Libertines
share the same label. While Richards definitely has a larger fan base to purchase his
album, which can justify a more involved
production, The Libertines could likely advocate for use of the same resources and
launch their album in hi-res as well, if they
so desired.
Producers and artists should know that
a consumer demand for this type of content exists. I will happily pay above and
beyond the $12 iTunes charges for a 16bit MP3 album to hear the Silversun
Pickups' Better Nature, offered in 24bit/48 kHz, for a few dollars more ($18
from HDTracks.com). The marketplace
hasn't yet compensated artists and producers for the extra effort required to
release albums in hi-res, but it should,
and in time I think it will.
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an impact on other artists and help to grab
the attention of consumers at large.
The existing audiophile community-
somewhat affluent with some discretionary income-has been the group of
earliest adopters in this movement, but
the technology's success depends on far
wider exposure, both to artists and to
their audiences. For the most part, neither
artists nor their fans realize that hi-res
even exists as a possibility!
The average consumer's audio world is
limited to MP3, and 16-bit audio is "good
enough," because those formats encourage and provide the convenience of mobile
listening. Many listeners don't know that hires is portable, too, or that they have the
option for a substantially better listening
experience. Sure, not everybody is going
to want to spend more money to achieve
better sound, but it needs to be made clear
that "more money" doesn't have to be "a
lot more money."
There is a perception that hi-res playback gear is supremely expensive, but
there are plenty of options to suit different
budgets. Manufacturers have not
embraced hi-res playback as ubiquitously
as, say, Bluetooth speakers, but there is a
vibrant ecosystem of products for every
type of listening-be it computer-based,
phone-based, Sonos-like wireless streaming to speakers around the house, on
portable players, or on home receivers
hooked to speakers.
The Windows 10 platform, both for desktop and phone, will have expanded support for the FLAC format playback, in which

Recently, when I was backstage with
Justin "Duddy B" Bushnell of The Dirty
Heads, a Billboard-chart topping alt-rock
and reggae fusion band, I had Duddy listen to The Doors' song "Strange Days" in
24/96 through a set of high-end headphones with a high-end D/A. He
exclaimed, "That is dope!" What more
need be added?
All comedy aside, there's a lot to be
said for a listening experience that fuels
your passion and genuinely fulfills the
marketing phrase "hear music as the
artist intended it." That's why I only use hires audio files as demo tracks in my
reviews in Stereo Times Magazine. These
files reproduce instruments with greater
clarity, and place fans up close and personal with their favorite artists. Listening
to Nirvana's In Utero and Nevermind in
24/96 was spine-chillingly visceral, as if
I was in the same room as Kurt Cobain.
I look forward to the availability of
more hi-res content; there is a growing
consumer demand for it, as well as
dozens of manufacturers that support the
format for every type of listening and
price point. I urge all of you to help out
by recording in hi-res and making those
recordings easily available.
Mark Abell (abell@recordingmag.com)
would like to thank Eric Dawson Tate, a
Denver-based recording engineer who
has been in the industry fifteen years, and
Marc Sheforgen, an executive at Acoustic
Sounds, for useful background when writing this editorial.
http://www.HDTracks.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2015
