geir ove rapp’s weblog

Previously I have mainly been writing about technology and then digitized music. But some times I get the pleasure listening to the original. Yesterday Neil Young was playing in Oslo, and I was there, of course. It was a great concert, despite the bad location in Oslo Spektrum, with two hours of mainly old classics and full of energy from the Old Man. The set list contained classics like “Hey hey my my”, “Cortez the killer”, “Cinnamon girl”, a fantastic acoustic version of “Helpless”, “Heart of gold”, “Old man” and of course a very energic version og “Rockin’ in the free world”.

Finally things start to happen. HDtracks is a new online record store offering DRM free downloads of uncompressed music. Currently they are offering AIFF, FLAC and MP3 (320 kbps), which means its files are compatible with all digital players, and they even they plan to extend their offer to also include downloads in HD, meaning 24 bit/96 kHZ, which match the quality of DVD-Audio. I really need to buy the Slim Devices Transporter soon…

The catalog of HDtracks is currently quite limited, but it holds some titles of i.a. Henry Rollins Band, Ray Davis and The Kinks, Norah Jones, The Byrds and some other interesting artists. The price charged for a complete album is $ 11.98 which is quite reasonable.

I’ll test it out as soon as I get home to my Squeezebox. You should test it out too at www.hdtracks.com.

Nine Inch Nails have just released their latest album “The Slip” for free download on the net! This is the second album available as download from NIN, the previous being “Ghosts”.

The Slip is available in both MP3 (320 kbps), FLAC and high-resolution WAV (24 bit/96 kHz). Downloading of the largest files are offered as torrents and downloads in just a few minutes. And not only is it free, but they even encourage to distribute it and share it with friends under the Creative Commons licence. The physical CD will not be available before July. It will be interesting to see how much that will sell… But even though NIN offers this download for free I would be happy to pay for such services in the future.

As you may have notices from my previous postings, I have been waiting for someone to do this for a long time. Until now I have been forced to by the CD for then ripping it to achieve this quality. Now I finally get full CD-quality and above without having to go via the physical media. (Unfortunately my Squeezebox only supports 24 bit/48 kHz).

This is the way to go, Trent!

Download the album at www.nin.com.

This is fabulous news for those of us who are pure Neil Young fans and audio freaks :-) Neil Young, well known for being an audio freak himself, has announced that he will launch his “Archives” on Blu-ray. The Archives project has been going on for a while, and will be a complete biography of Neil Young’s more than 40-years musical career. First out is the ‘Volume 1: 1963 - 1972′ a ten-disc collection including previously unreleased studio recordings as well as live performances. Release date will be sometime this fall. The 2006 ‘Heart of Gold’ DVD was fantastic! This will probably be even better!!!

Previously Neil Young has released many of his albums on DVD-Audio as his high-resolution audio format and I guess Blu-ray will be comparable to DVD-Audio regarding quality both formats supporting 24 bit/192 kHz in stereo, although it will not match SACD :-(

One of Young’s main arguments for using Blu-ray is the possibility to navigate the extras while listening to high-resolution music. He also plans to release even more extras via the Internet. To get this you will need a player supporting the Internet functions of profile 2.0.

OK, I admit it. I am a follower! (That was hard for a guy who claims to be a techno-geek) 

Just recently I bought a pair of Koss PortaPro headphones to replace my crappy earplugs. The PortaPro has been in the market for over 20 years, launched in 1984, and is just as image building as the iPod for portable music, and they are more popular than ever. I must admit that is quite impressive.

The PortaPro sounds great, maybe a little too much BASS, but very open and clear. They are also very comfortable to wear, and they have a open construction, meaning you hear the surroundings good as well (important feature to avoid being hit by a bus or bicycle sneaking up from behind :-). I can now even look street cool and listen to good music at the same time.

Source of music from this brief test was Steely Dan’s Aja, which is a fantastic album, encoded and compressed at 192 kbps WMA and played back from my Sony Walkman. I haven’t tested the PortaPro on my Hi-Fi setup yet, and I very much doubt they will even get close to my AKG K 240 studio monitors, but then again, they weren’t designed for that purpose either.

Please share your experience!

For those of you who have read my previous posting on this issue, R.I.P. audio CDs, here is the paradox. After spending several hours ripping my CDs and storing them in my basement I finally thought I was rid of them. But no! In my search for new music to my collection, I can hardly find any web shop offering music download in a lossless file format. Most shops offer MP3 or WMA. The only legal sites for downloading FLAC I can find is Metallica Live and Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts. Thumbs up!! The rest of music industry; get a grip!

So I guess I still have to go to my local record store to buy the CD, just to rip it and put it away…

As you may remember from previous postings I have ripped all my music and stored it as audio files on my network storage server. So, you might ask, what are you gonna do with it there? Well, I agree, music is no good on a server if you can’t listen to it. So to listen to it I have bought a network music player called Squeezebox. Squeezebox from Slimdevices (now Logitech) is a Hi-Fi network music player supporting almost all music formats including MP3, WMA, AAC, AIF, WAV and FLAC. It also has a hi-grade Burr-Brown DAC with solid stereo cinch connectors in addition to both electrical and optical S/PDIF output for connection to a even more serious DAC, if you have one. I have connected mine to my Rotel Processor, not because of the audio quality, but because this one supports even more audio formats like HDCD and DTS.

The audio quality of this device is very good! At least in my ears. It is definitely as good as a dedicated CD player in the same price range (299 USD). As a consequence my Pioneer SACD/CD player is no longer in use. At least not for playing ordinary CDs. SACD and DVD Audio however is an other story. But anyway, I’m to lazy to get up from my chair to put on a SACD so I end up listening to the standard CD version through my Squeezebox anyway. That’s how good it sounds. If you want something better, you can either upgrade to Slimdevices Transporter, which is their absolutely high-end alternative, or add a Benchmark DAC 1 to your Hi-Fi system. (more…)