Nice! Thanks Al!
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In general I let the music lead the way, sonics are fine when the performance is up to measure; vice-a-versa not so much IMO. Of course all of us enjoy a great value, but it does depend on who is defining value. Al makes some rather good points regarding the value notion.
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Why should there be a cost-based reason for a higher price? (The marginal cost of selling you a music file in any resolution is close to zero.) But there is a good value-based reason …
The customers who enjoy higher-res files more than lower-res might be happy to pay a higher price; the customers who don’t see (hear) a difference will buy lower-res files and save some money.
It’s much the same for other software: there is no big cost based reason why for example MS 365 Family should be $30/year more expensive than MS 365 Personal.
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Good post Al. Just a quick comment, since I was not aware of the Audiophile Society Site, I’m a tail-end boomer and grew up on the music of the 60s and 70s. In Canada, boomers make up 25% of the population and Millennials 33%.
Unless you have jazz, classical or opera in you DNA, I don’t see the musical tastes of the boomers and millennials reflected in the hi-res offerings from re-sellers.
Cheers!
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I believe the Audiophile Society is a try before you buy site. The try won’t be hirez but it will let you hear the compositions.
Indeed!
Also check out NativeDSD.
Most of the posts in this thread are focusing on the price of downloaded files in general, and while I don’t want to discourage anyone from commenting as they wish (including Al who equates the thread with “gossiping”), my point was different. I have no interest in rehashing the argument that media without a physical component shouldn’t be as expensive as the same information contained on a disc. That discussion was exhausted when e-books came on the scene. What I had hoped to explore is the question of whether there’s a cost-driven reason for higher prices for higher resolution files.
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High Definition Tape Transfers is another place that you can pay for the highest resolution file and get free download of lower resolution files. They charge $26-28 for a DSD256 file but you get DSD128/64 and other PCM files. I think their cost for high res file is justified for this reason. I believe they do file transfer themselves from open-reel tapes.
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I personally agree that HDTT deserves the price they ask. I actually am trying to think of a single example of a company that doesn’t deserve what they ask and I am coming up blank.
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I think e.g. the 75$ charged for an Esoteric SACD and the 100$ charged for a 33 RPM LP is too much as one example.
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They’re just ahead of inflation…
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I am done done done with $100+ vinyl. The more expensive it is the more likely it will be flawed.
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Especially if it’s new or new remaster!
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Ok…that’s bad. My flattener runs 24/7 indeed, but otherwise I had very few problems with audiophile vinyl so far and I buy regularly.
If you mean warped records I agree. Quite every record nowadays is more or less heavily warped and at least slightly warped since the 90’s/2000’s, no matter if ‚quality‘ is in the name of the pressing plant or not.
I suspect even with a vacuum hold down player, many new records can’t be flattened for playback, so especially using a platter/clamp player, the disc flattener got mandatory for me. Since then all my records have a tight connection to the platter.
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Jazznut, which flattened do you use?
The ORB DF-01i A+
It is virtually identical in construction to the Furutech at a fraction of the cost. ORB produces for Furutech.
It works flawlessly - always - and is the cheapest on the market.
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From my perspective, delivering a Hi-Rez file should always be cheaper than physical media (LP/CD) as you eliminate all the standard costs of production, maintaining physical inventories, and shipping costs. Servers do cost money and require maintenance, but the cost of storage continues to decrease by the day (the capacity/cost of a flash drive or thumb drive should give you an indication).
The cost of Hi-Rez files in my opinion is predicated on a few related factors:
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Vendors are selling the perception, whether real or not (you decide - many opinions on that one - for another thread), that Hi-Rez will always sound better than standard resolution (e.g., “Audiophile Sound”, “Master Recording”, etc.).
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To maximize the monetization of the musical commodity, the industry must continue to offer new vehicles for playback with claims of an improved musical experience (e.g. CD perfect sound forever, SACD, DVD-Audio, Hi-Rez (PCM/DSD). The prices charged for each evolution of musical formatting commands maximum prices (~$20 per album).
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Greed/profit motives - I think that the huge music conglomerates that have amassed these huge musical catalogues are under a lot of pressure to realize the value of their assets and to push the limits of what the public will tolerate. Much of the music we grew up listening to is no longer under copyright so essentially it can be distributed royalty free.
In the end, economics is the driver, but the consumer must decide.
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Do you know if there’s a difference between this and what shows up online as the ORB DF-01ia?
The + has adapters for flat profile discs (like later Classic Records releases), which can’t be flattened otherwise with it.
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