Hi Paul I tried to play the preview tracks and they do not play, anything special I need to do?
magicknow
They work for me. What are you trying to play them on?
I have the same problem. I click on a title, the Play button (triangle) changes to the Pause symbol (two vertical lines)–which should mean that it’s playing–but nothing happens. I use Firefox with most recent update, 45.0.2. I also tried the Edge browser that comes with Windows 10 and it works, so something’s going on with Firefox.
Huh. I use Chrome and it works fine. Let me see what we can do to fix that and thanks for the heads up!
Paul McGowan said They work for me. What are you trying to play them on?It works on Chrome but not on Firefox, The Edge or Internet explorer
Order placed 
looking forward to trying it
Paul when I was at Evolution Audio for your presentation (I was the guy asking about making Direct Stream sound more like LPs). One of the Evolution guys was playing some files on the Direct Stream Junior, BHK setup and they sounded fantastic. He said they were very high quality WAV files. He then played a run of the mill CD file and it was astounding the difference.
I am hoping these files are like that
cheers
magicknow
Samples work fine with Safari and so did the download of the files. I don’t have time to listen to them today, though.
Have only listened to the first few tracks using the 176kHz WAV files on my Sprout and… FANTASTIC! Well done! 
Dan W.
Mac Mini -> Roon -> Sprout -> B&W P7 Headphones
Thanks! Yes, I believe these to be some of the best sounding tracks I own.
I had a listen to the whole album today at medium listening level.
Track 10 is clearly my favourite.
I agree with those mentioning the absent of noise in the recordings.
I admit that I had hoped for a few jazz tracks because bluegrass (?) is not my favourite genre, however you can’t have everything. There will always exist different opinions in musical taste.
What’s most important to me is that now I at least have a PCM and a DSD track that I know is coming from the same Master in case I want to compare.
I ordered the box set and downloaded the tracks today. Haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, so can’t comment on that. This may be the most I have ever spent purchasing a single album, but I wanted the disc in addition to the hi-res downloads. More importantly, I wanted to support this project of Paul’s as I think it is a highly laudable endeavor. I wish him the best of luck with it.
I also foresee that when new DS updates are released and we are discussing SQ improvements, tracks on this album might be used to exemplify what someone hear in order to distinguish between those.
Avadia said I ordered the box set and downloaded the tracks today. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, so can't comment on that. This may be the most I have ever spent purchasing a single album, but I wanted the disc in addition to the hi-res downloads. More importantly, I wanted to support this project of Paul's as I think it is a highly laudable endeavor. I wish him the best of luck with it.Thank you, and know that it's for a good cause. Most people that have written me have been pretty blown away at the sound quality we've managed. It is extraordinary. The guys did an amazing job.
And you can hear that even on an mp3 demo records in the store. Great!Paul McGowan saidThe guys did an amazing job.
Frode said What's most important to me is that now I at least have a PCM and a DSD track that I know is coming from the same Master in case I want to compare.Paul, can you confirm whether the PCM version is just transcoded from final DSD track or if both are output directly from the Sonoma WS in both formats?
Thx.
frode
All tracks were recorded in DSD in the first place. All were mastered by Gus on the Sonoma system. I’ll see if I can find out what generated the PCM - but definitely from the DSD master.
The Sony Sonoma DAW is a recorder/editor and is typically used with EMM Labs ADC8 DAC8 DSD/PCM 8-channel converters (Mytek is now an option as well). The ADC8 can be used as a digital format converter from DSD to PCM and I assume this is where the conversion took place. (The DAC8 can go from PCM to DSD.)
As a bit of trivia, the Sonoma edits in PCM at the point of the edit, such as crossfades.
I am very interested in anything you can pass on from Gus Skinas. He is the expert on the Sonoma.
Here’s what Gus just emailed back. Not sure I really get fully what he’s saying.
The PCM came from the DSD - much in the way most AtoDs work. Where they sample with acquire with sigma-delta. So it is a valid test and probably helps PCM in the comparison because the decimation to PCM is of much higher quality. Especially with the cd layer.
He seems to be indicating the conversion was done in the box; i.e., in the workstation. But I am unsure.
It’s done by doing a simulation of an A/D and in particular it looks like what happens in virtually every A/D these days: the signal is converted from analog to sigma delta and then decimated to the final PCM. Since the input is already sigma delta, all that happens is the final decimation to PCM. IOW: The PCM is mathematically derived from the DSD and hence it’s mastered identically. At worst there may be an overall level difference (but I doubt it.)
So this is accomplished in the workstation and not sent by ST optical to an ADC8 for conversion?
It really does not matter as it is functionally the same thing, but I am curious. I admit I am a bit biased and prefer it to be done in the box to avoid sending the signal out, and further admit this is pretty much groundless paranoia.