Nirvana Nevermind 24/96 Remaster from HDTracks

[kevinkr]

[beau2317]

I've got about 20 HDtracks downloads and only one of these is not real HD.

Looking at the two graphs that have been shown above, the first looks nothing like any HDtracks I've downloaded. I'm guessing the HF content is noise shaping. Not such a great thing imho. Most noise shaping moves noise to a much higher freq than that. Some systems will not like that noise there and may react badly to it.

The second one is mighty odd, for several reasons:
1) There's no music content above 12kHz - hardly HD material!! But this is just a piano recording so that might be kosher.
2) There seems to be an inverse of the music at the top of the freq range, some of which is only -20dB, which is as loud as some of the music! This is sure to mess with some systems.

I'd recommend both of these posters write to HDtracks with a copy of the graphs, and request a refund. If enough people do this then they might tighten up their QC a bit. How hard is it to check recordings before making them available??

[buzzforb]

I agree with the assumption if both the test and test environment are such that give accurate measurements. I am not saying that this is not the case, but we must tread carefully. I am a business owner and in the modern times of of mass communication, someones misinformed opinion can spread like wildfire. I have no issue with confronting them with the issue and i have done so, but to go beyond that and move into accusations, we must have valid and repeatable proof.

[beau2317]

Yes I am a business owner as well.

You can see that I've shown the same result with two different programs. That's all there is to the test environment - it's program-analyzes-file - simple as that. And the fourier transforms that are needed to calculate the frequencies are well known undergraduate math. (ie - It's not rocket science)

Please also note that I gave HDtracks a week to reply before I posted anything here. That should have been ample time to get a response.

I agree with your sentiments to some extent, but in the particular case I was highlighting, I don't see any question about the data. And anyone who chooses can easily reproduce the findings.

On the other hand, they have taken my money and delivered a sub-par product. They refuse (so far) to give me a refund. What other recourse do I have? And I do think I have been careful here - I feel that I understand the technical issues sufficiently to be able to explain in quite some detail what's going on in the tracks I bought (I won't make the same claim about the other tracks presented here - that would need more investigation and I don't have access to those tracks, and am loathe to give HDtracks more of my money until this issue is resolved.)

[buzzforb]

I agree completely with how you have handled it, I am more concerned with others taking this example and expanding it beyond its appropriate application. Audio people tend to be full of opinions, just want to make sure they are backed up by facts, like in your situation.

[erin]

Originally Posted by beau2317

erin - btw, what program were the screenshots from on page1 of this thread?

Adobe Audition

[erin]

Originally Posted by pompon

Here a 24/88 download from hdtracks ... from the SACD they tell
It's seem false 24/88 ... The part up ... noise ? antipiracy codes ?

That one is really interesting. Is it sourced from analog tape?

If it is a digital recording, perhaps it is recorded 44.1khz PCM and then converted to 88.2khz without appropriate filtering? All the noise is sitting right at the 44.1khz sampling frequency. Something very strange is going on there.

[beau2317]

Update : HD Tracks have done the right thing. They have agreed that there is a problem and they need to "clean house". Also they have allowed me credit for the tracks.

[erin]

Thats good news. For me, this was never about bashing HDTracks. I'm very critical of modern "remastering" techniques involving brickwalling, but that is a result of the record lables.

HDTracks has to be commended for being a pioneer of lossless audio downloads, and also what appears to be good customer service.