An Old High-Res Audio Format Returns

I recently wrote on the Forbes blog about the potential problems that Neil Young's Pono high-resolution audio service might have when it launches. This is nothing against hi-res audio (I'm an audio person, after all, and have recorded my share of hi-res over the years), just an observation that the public always goes for convenience and not quality when it comes to formats.

No sooner did the article post when I read a press release that audiophile music retailer Acoustic Sounds launched superhirez.com, a site that offers DSD (Direct Stream Digital) downloads, among other types. DSD, if you recall, is the technology used on the highly-hyped but rarely purchased SACD disc that was launched in 1999. Until now, no company has offered true DSD downloads to my knowledge.

Acoustic Sounds actually started as a specialty vinyl pressing house and gradually morphed into the largest seller of SACD discs in the world. The company also sells hi-res album downloads both in Apple Lossless Audio (ALAC) and FLAC as well as DSD.

Right now the company has about 30 DSD download releases for sale (although more for the other formats), with albums by Shelby Lynn, Nat "King" Cole, Counting Crows, and Norah Jones the most recognizable.

Of course, you can't just download a DSD album and expect it to play. You'll need some software first and it'll cost you around $130. That means your investment in the format is more than just buying the files, so you really have to be committed to the format.

That said, today there are more hi-res audio formats than you can shake a stick at, and I hope they all survive. We really need to preserve the best quality audio every chance we get, and there's still no other audio experience that sounds better. I'm pleased that there are at least some people out there who think highly enough of audio quality that they're willing to pay extra (at around $25 per album) for a superior product.

That said, I still think that our best chance for a common high-quality audio format lies with Apple's Mastered For iTunes (MFIT) program, which considers any file that's 24 bit as hi-res but prefers a 96kHz files sampling rate. During a brief visit with my friends at Oasis Mastering yesterday, they said that most major labels now order MFIT mastered files on their orders, which is a major improvement from this time last year.

In the end, Superhirez.com is definitely cool, but Mastered For iTunes is where the high-quality action really is at the moment. If you want to learned more about how to prep your songs for MFIT, check out the Lynda.com Mastering For iTunes course. You can get a free 7 day Lynda.com trial, which you can use for lots of other programs and courses as well, here.

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New Music Gear Monday: Neil Young's Pono Music Service

Many of you might not have heard that music icon Neil Young gave a sneak peak of something that might turn out to be really cool last week on David Letterman's show (see the video below). Neil has railed for years against the poor quality of MP3s, the iTunes Store and streaming music, and has now put his money where his mouth was with the new Pono music service.

We don't know all that much about Pono, but here's what we do know:

• All the files in the service are at 192kHz/24 bit.

• There's a new player that goes with it, similar to an iPod, but with much higher quality digital to audio convertors (see the graphic on the left).

• The Pono player has two headphone jacks, presumably for sharing.

• Dolby and Meridian are involved, presumably to license the Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) codec to Pono to decrease those big 192k files to about half their size.

The major labels are already on board (with Warner Music licensing their 8,000 album catalog to Pono) and the release is scheduled for sometime in 2013.

It appears that this is a download service, but a major question is how consumers will deal with the long download times of such a huge hi-res audio file. Even if MLP encoding is used, we're still talking about a file much more than twice as large as a regular CD file at 44.1kHz/16bit. According to one account, when asked the question Young replied, "That's what overnight is for." That may be so, but in this new Music 3.0 world of instant gratification, I don't think that will cut it for most of the potential audience.

That said, you have to love that we may be getting a new hi-res audio format that may actually have a shot at catching on. For more on the industry implications of Pono, check out today's post on my Music 3.0 blog.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.