DT12 available on HD Tracks!

[RaiseTheKnife]

I like the improved sounds of the HD tracks, but they will not play on my Apple nanno for some reason.

AFAIK all iPods can only support up to CD quality (16 bit / 44.1khz) so if you've put the 24/96 files directly from HDTracks onto your Nano, it won't be able to play them. You have to convert the files to CD quality first.

Thanks!!  So converting it back down to 16 bit CD quality is basically negating the quality of the HD tracks anyway, correct?  Or would there still be a noticable diffence, considering a different master was used in creating the HD tracks.

[BlobVanDam]

I like the improved sounds of the HD tracks, but they will not play on my Apple nanno for some reason.

AFAIK all iPods can only support up to CD quality (16 bit / 44.1khz) so if you've put the 24/96 files directly from HDTracks onto your Nano, it won't be able to play them. You have to convert the files to CD quality first.

Thanks!!  So converting it back down to 16 bit CD quality is basically negating the quality of the HD tracks anyway, correct?  Or would there still be a noticable diffence, considering a different master was used in creating the HD tracks.

You'd still get all of the benefits of the more dynamic master, but it would negate the 96khz/24bit benefit.
Personally I think the HD gain is negligible compared to the gains of the more dynamic master, so it will still sound equally better once you down-convert it.

[RaiseTheKnife]

This is most helpful, thank you Blob!!!

[BlobVanDam]

I just got the HDTracks.

It is wonderful to be able to crank this album and hear the nuances! I'm appreciating the drum sound more on this. I don't mind the snare sound at all now. A combination of getting used to it, and also it sounding snappier and more natural in the HDTracks master, because it's not as compressed/limited, and every instrument has much more room to breathe.

Even just skimming them, a lot of parts jump out at me that I'd never noticed before, especially the keys. When I listen back to the CD master, I can still hear it's all there, but I'd just never noticed it until hearing the HDTracks master where everything has more room and separation for my ears to pick up on it distinctly, rather than only as an overall whole. Seriously, every few seconds of any song I think "oh, there's some keyboard behind there!"

I can hear JLB clearer on TEI, although the mix on that song is still not optimal, even without the compression. The drums and guitar are too loud compared to everything else. But with the greater separation, it's still definitely better. I don't think I have any issues with the mix on the rest of the album now after hearing the HDTracks version though.

It's really a great sounding album, and I wish they'd stuck this master on the CD. I feel like I'm hearing the album for the first time, so hopefully I'll enjoy the album more this time.

If you're only listening on low end equipment, I'm not sure if the benefit will be huge, but if you have good equipment, it's a dramatic improvement.



I'm much more seriously considering picking up SC on HDTracks now, because that has a great mix, but the compression does hurt it a bit, especially that clipped out bass drum. Going to check out those samples....

[ariich]

Has anyone brought up the fact that these aren't true high-def tracks? Apparently they just padded the 16/44 tracks with random data and called it a day.

oi, really? can anyone post a spectrograph image of a song for proofs? that'd be mighty disappointing.

I'm fairly confident that isn't true, given the master is completely different. I don't know who this person is, but they seem to be just making stuff up.

[BlobVanDam]

Has anyone brought up the fact that these aren't true high-def tracks? Apparently they just padded the 16/44 tracks with random data and called it a day.

oi, really? can anyone post a spectrograph image of a song for proofs? that'd be mighty disappointing.

I'm fairly confident that isn't true, given the master is completely different. I don't know who this person is, but they seem to be just making stuff up.

A picture says a thousand words. Here's a random section of IT in spectral view-


And brightened up to give a better idea of the full extent of those peaks (I added the pink line so you can see what frequency it's at)-


As you can see, it contains audio information all the way up to around 29Khz, well beyond the maximum bandwidth of 22Khz that CD supports. This song would therefore require at least 58Khz to represent fully, well beyond the 44.1Khz of CD.
It doesn't use the full range of 96Khz (which is expected given that it's well beyond human hearing, and would not contain anything useful), but it's definitely utilizing the additional range above the next sample rate down, so it's definitely justified, and definitely not a simple upsample from CD quality, which would make no sense given that it's not even the same master, and that the album was recorded at much higher than CD quality.

[7StringedBeast]

Glad you got the HD tracks Blob.  I think you'll enjoy the album a lot more when you can hear the instruments clearer.

[BlobVanDam]

Glad you got the HD tracks Blob.  I think you'll enjoy the album a lot more when you can hear the instruments clearer.

I'm definitely enjoying it more. Not as much as most people, but now I feel more motivated to listen to it, and I've picked out a lot more that I didn't before, which is helping me appreciate the music, especially IT.

One big difference is that I can better understand what's going on rhythmically, because I can hear what MM is doing on the cymbals better now.
There's a section in IT where I finally understood it, where I believe JP was playing a straight up simple shifting lead pattern, and MM was accenting it with who knows what. But now I feel like I can "get" those parts, and follow along with it, which is important to my enjoyment.

And most importantly, the production is much more pleasing to the ears, which is also important to my enjoyment of an album.

[7StringedBeast]

My biggest holy shit this sounds great moments are during Enigma Machine and then The Bigger Picture.  Those two tracks benefit from the dynamics so much.  Especially the Bigger Picture.  When that first chorus hits and you have it cranking loud, damn.  It's powerful as hell.

[Nefarius]

Same for Behind The Veil. After the ambient atmospheric intro the riff is so in your face and punchy and the huge change in dynamics makes it seem even more powerful and louder than on the regular master.

Greetings...
Nef

[Prog Snob]

Has anyone brought up the fact that these aren't true high-def tracks? Apparently they just padded the 16/44 tracks with random data and called it a day.

oi, really? can anyone post a spectrograph image of a song for proofs? that'd be mighty disappointing.

I'm fairly confident that isn't true, given the master is completely different. I don't know who this person is, but they seem to be just making stuff up.

A picture says a thousand words. Here's a random section of IT in spectral view-


And brightened up to give a better idea of the full extent of those peaks (I added the pink line so you can see what frequency it's at)-


As you can see, it contains audio information all the way up to around 29Khz, well beyond the maximum bandwidth of 22Khz that CD supports. This song would therefore require at least 58Khz to represent fully, well beyond the 44.1Khz of CD.
It doesn't use the full range of 96Khz (which is expected given that it's well beyond human hearing, and would not contain anything useful), but it's definitely utilizing the additional range above the next sample rate down, so it's definitely justified, and definitely not a simple upsample from CD quality, which would make no sense given that it's not even the same master, and that the album was recorded at much higher than CD quality.

What did you use for that analysis Blob?

[BlobVanDam]

That was from Adobe Audition.

[Prog Snob]

I know I could probably use Google for this question, but I figure I have some knowledgeable people here to tap into.  I was using JRiver to do an analysis to better understand all of the bit rate, bit depth, dynamic range, and other terminology.  What is the difference between DR and DR(R128) ?

[Meatrose]

Holy crap! I just got home from a business trip last night and the first thing I did was to go online and buy these HD tracks. I have yet to listen to them properly but I tried the first 10 seconds of The Looking Glass and the difference is huge in my opinion. The drums really stood out but even though I was thrilled I decided to stop right there as I want to sit down and listen to the entire album this way on my high end system tomorrow. I've only heard the album once (twice if you count the listening party) cause I was expecting that this album would, like ADTOE, see an HD Tracks release. It was worth it in ADTOE's case but this time I would have gladly paid 50 bucks for the "HD" version. I really think it should be included in the deluxe box.

[Nefarius]

I played the full HDtracks album through my system last night, just lying in bed and concentrating on the music. It was really like listening to a brand new album. I deleted the days with streams and the regular flacs and mp3s from my mind and could simply enjoy great music. I like the album now. Only time will really tell how much of course. But 90% of my complaining until now was the fucked up master, only 10% me and the songs not clicking. And from the feedback here I'm not the only one who may very well have given up on this album if it wasn't for the superior master. I really don't mind giving a few extra bucks to DT but I start to dislike the thought of giving extra bucks to .

Greetings...
Nef

[dongringo]

I've been listening to the HDTracks exclusively for two days now after listening only to the ripped cd flac and mp3 before that. The difference is night and day. I love being able to crank it up without ear fatigue. In fact, the louder I turn up the volume the better it sounds. The headroom really widens and the instruments seperate, which was the opposite before, which I still say didn't sound THAT bad in this day and age, but was definitely bricked. I'm to the point that I don't care if I have a physical copy at all. I just want it to sound good, plus the HDTracks comes with the booklet anyway. All good in my book.

[ErHaO]

Does anyone know wether the Vinyl edition of DT does use high definition tracks or just the normal loud CD versions pressed on the disc? Bands like Blind Guardian do the latter, which is why their Vinyls really do not sound all that good. I had the vynil at home, but it was severely damaged by shipping  So I had to send it back.... I guess I will have to wait for a proper listening session. Liking the album so far though, as I also have a digital version to take along for the ride   

[dongringo]

Does anyone know wether the Vinyl edition of DT does use high definition tracks or just the normal loud CD versions pressed on the disc? Bands like Blind Guardian do the latter, which is why their Vinyls really do not sound all that good. I had the vynil at home, but it was severely damaged by shipping  So I had to send it back.... I guess I will have to wait for a proper listening session. Liking the album so far though, as I also have a digital version to take along for the ride   

I HEARD that the ripped vinyl sounds great, but it's hearsay. I haven't personally heard it.

[sylvinception]

Soooooooo glad to live in france, so I can not buy those HDTracks...  

Reading all your posts is probably a sign that I'm a bit masochistic.

But at least I beat the record of the post with the greatest number of smileys...
Ah ah.

[dparrott]

I don't understand why the over-compressed version is on the CD.  I can understand for the portable devices, but I doubt people still walk around with CD players anymore!  They need to start selling a downsampled HD master on the CD for higher end players.

[Mebert78]

I'm really bummed hearing you all say how great the HD tracks sound, while I'm listening to the muddy CD in my car.  I feel like DT made this album with the HD Tracks in mind, but a large portion of us still use CDs -- so they should have kept that in mind.  I'm not a computer person.  I've never even purchased any music on iTunes and I don't even own and iPod.  For me to download HD tracks and figure out how to "downsample" them or whatever terms you guys are using, and then burn it to a CD is kinda complicated to me.  I haven't even burned a CD in like 10 years, and when I used to do it often came out as a data CD.  I don't have the patience to set aside hours to figure out how to put HD tracks on a CD to listen in my 2004 car stereo -- and potentially waste the $20 if I can't figure out how to do it.  That's why I'm paying Roadrunner, so I don't have to do all this.  Why don't they just offer the HD audio on CD as best as possible?  Make the fans happy.  There's a demand for this, so I hope they listen and do it.  (Sorry, just venting.)

[dongringo]

I'm really bummed hearing you all say how great the HD tracks sound, while I'm listening to the muddy CD in my car.  I feel like DT made this album with the HD Tracks in mind, but a large portion of us still use CDs -- so they should have kept that in mind.  I'm not a computer person.  I've never even purchased any music on iTunes and I don't even own and iPod.  For me to download HD tracks and figure out how to "downsample" them or whatever terms you guys are using, and then burn it to a CD is kinda complicated to me.  I haven't even burned a CD in like 10 years, and when I used to do it often came out as a data CD.  I don't have the patience to set aside hours to figure out how to put HD tracks on a CD to listen in my 2004 car stereo -- and potentially waste the $20 if I can't figure out how to do it.  That's why I'm paying Roadrunner, so I don't have to do all this.  Why don't they just offer the HD audio on CD as best as possible?  Make the fans happy.  There's a demand for this, so I hope they listen and do it.  (Sorry, just venting.)

I agree the loudness wars are beyond frustrating, but its still going to happen no matter what we think of it because of various factors none of which make any sense. I for one will celebrate anytime a band releases an alternative dynamic version because it shows that while they have a ridiculous obligation to the record company, they still care about those of us who do still about what our music sounds like. If more people bought HDTracks dynamic versions than those who by the standard record company CD versions things could swing back around, but so far there just aren't enough people who care enough because they are primarily listening on ibuds, crappy computer speakers and sound cards and stock car stereos. We unfortunately are still in the minority. For now on I will only buy the dynamic version if its available. If its brickwalled but not over cooked I'll still probably buy it, but I'll never buy anything that sounds like the new Queensryche ever again because that was just plain consumer robbery. Let's celebrate DT for caring. They know the problem with the industry and immediately offered a solution.

[Zydar]

Here's hoping the new QR will come out on HDTracks with a new master. Or is that one beyond any salvation? There is a great album underneath it all.

[cool34231a]

I'm really bummed hearing you all say how great the HD tracks sound, while I'm listening to the muddy CD in my car.  I feel like DT made this album with the HD Tracks in mind, but a large portion of us still use CDs -- so they should have kept that in mind.  I'm not a computer person.  I've never even purchased any music on iTunes and I don't even own and iPod.  For me to download HD tracks and figure out how to "downsample" them or whatever terms you guys are using, and then burn it to a CD is kinda complicated to me.  I haven't even burned a CD in like 10 years, and when I used to do it often came out as a data CD.  I don't have the patience to set aside hours to figure out how to put HD tracks on a CD to listen in my 2004 car stereo -- and potentially waste the $20 if I can't figure out how to do it.  That's why I'm paying Roadrunner, so I don't have to do all this.  Why don't they just offer the HD audio on CD as best as possible?  Make the fans happy.  There's a demand for this, so I hope they listen and do it.  (Sorry, just venting.)

What they should do next time is use a blu-ray disk and put CD Audio images such as .cue/bin of compressed, uncompressed versions, DVD-Audio, MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV, ALAC, etc... with different quality settings. So people can choose whatever they want. On 50GB dual layer disk they could even store interviews, behind the scenes and more, in perfect quality.

[dongringo]

That all sounds great, but there are still those of us who wouldn't be able to afford such luxury...those of us who simply want one good sounding version without all the bells and whistles.

[ErHaO]

Does anyone know wether the Vinyl edition of DT does use high definition tracks or just the normal loud CD versions pressed on the disc? Bands like Blind Guardian do the latter, which is why their Vinyls really do not sound all that good. I had the vynil at home, but it was severely damaged by shipping  So I had to send it back.... I guess I will have to wait for a proper listening session. Liking the album so far though, as I also have a digital version to take along for the ride   

I HEARD that the ripped vinyl sounds great, but it's hearsay. I haven't personally heard it.

Well, let's hope that is the case!

And as for the loudness discussion. I think they should just include a download code for the HD versions with any special edition in the future (2-disc versions, box-set etc.). Or even better, just make the regular version less loud. I like the mix of DT very much, but the mastering is indeed a bit too loud, which detracts from the experience when listening to it on high end audio systems.

[Tis BOOLsheet]

Does anyone know if I will benefit that much from the HD Tracks if my primary listening devices are an iPhone, a Bose radio connected to my computer, and Grado i80 headphones? In other words, I have pretty common, stock listening equipment.

Also, what is the difference between ALAC and AIFF?

[seasonsinthesky]

Does anyone know if I will benefit that much from the HD Tracks if my primary listening devices are an iPhone, a Bose radio connected to my computer, and Grado i80 headphones? In other words, I have pretty common, stock listening equipment.

Also, what is the difference between ALAC and AIFF?

you will benefit on any listening equipment. period. even laptop speakers.

ALAC = Apple Lossless (their version of losslessly compressed FLAC), AIFF = Apple version of uncompressed WAV (the byte order is reversed, otherwise the exact same thing).

ultimately, the only real differences are 1) file size is smaller for ALAC and 2) ALAC has tagging support.

[volwrath]

The HDtracks version is >> 5.1 downmix >> amazon mp3s

Driving into work listening to mp3 version of hdtracks was a phenomenal experience.  Cant believe that it sounds that much better than 5.1 downmix although I must say this is definitely subjective and maybe I screwed up the downmixing.

[Tis BOOLsheet]

thanks!

By the way, in case people missed it DT gave the code dream15 for 15% off the HDTracks. I'm downloading them now.

[chwik]

Soooooooo glad to live in france, so I can not buy those HDTracks...  

Reading all your posts is probably a sign that I'm a bit masochistic.

But at least I beat the record of the post with the greatest number of smileys...
Ah ah.

Check your Messages . I used a Visa-card (debet card) and not a credit card to pay via Paypal.

[Tis BOOLsheet]

holy shit I can hear the cymbals now. This is definitely worth the extra money.

I just tried to put the files on my iPhone but it didn't work. Does anyone know how to go about this without ruining the quality?

[drew512]

holy shit I can hear the cymbals now. This is definitely worth the extra money.

I just tried to put the files on my iPhone but it didn't work. Does anyone know how to go about this without ruining the quality?

I used an app called r8brain (https://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/) to "downsample" the 24/96 files to 16/44.1, suitable for iDevices and normal CD playback. I believe it only deals with .wav files, but xrecode (https://xrecode.com/) makes it trivial to convert between lossless formats (WAV/ALAC/FLAC) with no loss of quality.

I haven't done extensive comparisons of the two, but to my ears the downsampled version sounds just as good as the high res. The far better master used by this release makes much more of a difference to the final sound quality than the added resolution.

[hipodilski]

I've got the "FLAC Player" iphone app and it plays the 24/96 flacs just fine.

[Kotowboy]

holy shit I can hear the cymbals now. This is definitely worth the extra money.

I just tried to put the files on my iPhone but it didn't work. Does anyone know how to go about this without ruining the quality?

I'm using VLC to play the HD version & will listen to the CD version on my iPhone.