A DSD Download, plus other Hi-Rez to Compare.
NEW SONG to Download as DSD – “Silver Pen”
The new release “Silver Pen” from the upcoming DSD album “Slipper DSD Sessions – And The Bit Goes On…” is now online to download. If you are interested in hearing what some of the different Hi-Rez (HD) formats sound like compared to one another, you might want to try this.
You will get a DSF download of the original DSD source mix, recorded on Sonoma at Slipperworld.net in La Honda, California. This session recording featuring me, Charlie Natzke (guitar/vocal), Scott Beynon (Fender bass), and Ken Owen (drums) was done live to less than 8-tracks and used no overdubs or edits. It is pure DSD!
You will also get 4 other copies of the song “Silver Pen” in different audio formats (FLAC, WMA, WAV, MP3)… I know… keep reading…
Too Many Acronyms…DSFFLACWMAALACMP3WAVAIFFDon’tKnowDon’tCare…
Hi-Rez downloads are going nuts these days. Sometimes too many choices are just that. I have been working (my ears) on getting it right about lots of audio downloads issues since the beginning in the mid-90’s when MP3 started making it possible to get music online.
The tradeoffs then were file size (due to slow dialup Internet connections) and sound quality. MP3 at 128k is just about 1/10th the size of the CD quality WAV file. So a “pretty good” sounding file that you could download in less than an hour was a “pretty good” way to go. And boy it went…by the millions of songs.
Cut to 21st century cable modem at 10mbps (million bits per second) compared to the dated dialup modem at 19.2kbps (thousand bits per second) and you can suddenly get either a lot MORE music files in the same time, or…maybe… just BETTER SOUNDING files in the same time. (BTW, Apple iTunes has given us MORE files — 25+ Billion Sold — but not BETTER SOUNDING yet.. maybe we need to ask them about that!)
“Silver Pen” is a native DSD file you can download as DSF with tags (metadata) that includes song info and the graphic (above) for the player to present to you. It is about 150MB as DSD.
Other popular formats you get with the download include the 24-bit, 96kHz sample FLAC, and WMA lossless (for Windows users) at about 80MB. I also included the CD quality (Redbook 16-bit, 44.1kHz sample) WAV for your comparison across formats at about 40MB.
I also included the highest quality MP3 (320kHz) which is just under 10MB. This is to put in your Smartphone or tablet where size does matter…
It’s a new era for audio. Sony is calling it High Resolution Audio or HRA. (I always thought “acronym” had to be pronounced as a word, but I looked it up and sure enough, it includes abbreviations.)
With the new era it is important to learn some new things about what’s out there and how it might fit your taste for quality with the tradeoff for size and cost.
I’m putting this new track out there for those who want to compare quality. There are other choices, but I made mine for this selection and hope it helps give you a reference point.
Feel free to reply to this message if you have questions about this. I don’t think it’s simple, but I do think there are differences. “Better” and “Worse” are like the weather. They change from place to place and person to person. So education helps. That’s what I believe anyway.
Music is for enjoyment. Here’s to enjoyment!
And if you just like to buy music from iTunes, here’s the link!
PS – Muchos Mahalos to the outrageous CasualTees for playing to a full house in San Gregorio General Store last Saturday. It was like we never left…Roger, KO, Scotty, Gar, Reid and Marty – you guys rock!
TOMORROW – NOVEMBER 1st —
Scott and Marty and I will be back at the Store this Friday, November 1st, from 6pm to 8pm to give everyone the trio version of some of these original independent acoustic stories. Hope to see you there.
Aloha! – DE
the art of listening... 