What is High-Resolution HD Audio?

"The difference between hearing and listening."

An HD Audio file is a one-to-one exact digital copy of the master tape. There is no better way to hear recorded music than hearing an HD Audio hi-res file played back on your device with headphones or a good pair of speakers.

From the early days of audio recording, engineers have pursued the highest sound quality with the technology that was available to them. In the early 80s, CDs offered good sound and portability, but had limited storage. MP3s later made music sharing easier than ever, but its compressed file format contributed to significant loss in sound quality.

With its digital lossless capture, High-Resolution Audio returns to the rich, full sound of original analog audio sources. Easily collect, enjoy, and share your playlists with friends at this outstanding quality level.

It Just Keeps Getting Better & Better!

Just as HDTV revolutionized our television viewing with its huge leap in picture quality, High-Res Audio (DSD, FLAC) is doing the same for the music we listen to. If you’re wondering if your ears really need it, just ask your eyes if they’re willing to go back to old, standard definition TV.

Whether you’re talking analog or digital, sound engineers and musicians have always pursued the highest quality recording with the technology that’s available to them. When CDs came out, they offered high quality digital sound and portability, but were limited to how much they could hold by their physical size. In contrast, the MP3s made music transfer and sharing easier than ever, but the files needed to be compressed due to storage and bandwidth limitations — leading to a significant loss in sound quality.

With the growth of High-Res Audio technology, we’ve now come full circle. By enabling digital loss-less capture of original analog audio sources, it’s now possible to listen to performances exactly as the artist intended. Add in the decreasing cost of storage media, plus faster internet speeds and our ability to have music in its purest form wherever we go has never been greater.

HD Audio music downloads sound tremendously better than MP3s or even CDS. With an HD Audio download you are in the recording studio with your favorite artist!

Advanced Specifications

High-Res Audio, which is typically referred to as “96kHz/24bit” or something higher, is made by digitally sampling an original analog audio source. The number of times at which sampling is performed (in one-second increments) is called the sampling frequency, which is expressed in hertz or “Hz”. Digitizing refers to the audio process where the sampled signal is converted (or quantized) into binary digits, consisting of 1’s and 0’s, and expressed as “bits”. The higher the number of bits, the closer the sample is to the original source. CDs are standardized at 44.1kHz/16bit, but there is no single standard for High-Resolution Audio.

An alternative way of digitizing an analog source is a method called DSD or FLAC, which captures sound information as a sequence of single bit values with an extremely high sampling rate of either 2.8MHz or 5.6MHz. This is approximately 64 or 128 times the sampling rate of CD audio. For some engineers, DSD or FLAC is the closest a digital file sample can get to an original analog source.

It is important for you to understand the limitations of the system you are listening on. If for instance you are operating a computer/device that plays back in 16Bits, then listening to the 24Bit stream is meaningless as your computer/device is downsampling them to 16. Also, make sure that you have the FLAC codec installed in your system or you cannot listen to it, We recommend downloading VLC.