Sure I love streaming and the fact I have access to eleventy-three billion songs. But I grew up with records, reel-to-reels, then CDs, then downloaded digital files. There is just something about physically OWNING something that just still feels right to me. And it compensates musicians and engineers, etc. There are still a few audiophile-focused labels around that I like to download from and a few of those only offer downloads and no streaming.
David Chesky’s successor to Chesky Records is called the Audiophile Society. I’ve seen some of their material on Qobuz, but I like that for $10 (if you join the Society at $3 every 4 months), I can download a package that contains several formats and even speaker or headphone mixes. I’ve downloaded a few that aren’t great when it comes to the music itself, but most is pretty good.
2xHD - I’ve also seen some of their stuff on streaming, but I’ve also seen where they only offer samples on Qobuz. I’m a big fan of their approach and almost everything I’ve downloaded is good musically as well as audioly (I made that up).
High Definition Tape Transfers - I love love love this thing! It’s right up my alley as far as that I’m big into jazz and classical and fascinated by how great were the early days of stereo. There’s a great thread on this forum covering many of their releases.
I have bought some things from a few other audiophile labels, like Reference Recordings, and Stockfisch, but it seems they’ve gone streaming as much as anyone.
Oh yeah, there’s this outfit called Octave Records somewhere around here. Seriously, I hate that their 24/96 downloads went up to $29, which makes me have to pick a bit more carefully, but I’ve gotten some great stuff.
Who else?
Oh, PS: I didn’t even mention vinyl. That’s still a lot of fun, but it occupies about 1/4 of my listening these days.
That looks like a good site for buying high-res titles. But I was looking more for audiophile labels that keep their materials for download-only, unless I missed something on their site. It looked like a competitor to HD Tracks or Qobuz’s store, etc.
Many of the labels listed at NativeDSD are download only. Not all, but many. And all are available in DXD and DSD256 resolutions, which are not offered elsewhere.
I also use the UK-based company PrestoMusic quite a bit. They predominantly serve the Classical and Jazz market and are similar to Qobuz. Like Qobuz, they also have many movie, television and game soundtrack titles, my schtick
Another favourite of mine is Bandcamp. Also similar to Qobuz except they’re more performer-focused and cater for performer publication. They claim more of their revenue goes to the performer. Although I notice that the commercial soundtrack label ‘Lakeside Records’ has their own page. However, I think the highest resolution I’ve seen on Bandcamp is 24/48.
