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IV. Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto, 1963 Recording Corcovado (Quiet Night of Quiet Stars)
  • 24/96, source HDTracks – louder by 7-9dB
  • 16/44.1, source: K2HD, Verve/Lasting Impression Music, LIM K2HD 036
This compared two files of an analog recording. The files came from different sources. The 16/44.1 version was ripped from the reference disc K2HD CD prepared by Winston Ma and issued on silver CD by First Impression Music. The 24/96 file came from Verve and its master was prepared by their engineers.

Opinions. Janusz: "Hmm, this was different. The CD file sounded no worse than 24/96. FIM is brilliant!"
Rysiek S: "Indeed, the intensity of the sound, its softness etc. showed FIM to its best advantage. But the voice was still better from the 24/96 file, more fluent and less mechanical."
Andrzej: "Yes, the vocals were better with 24/96 but the rest seemed better from the CD."
Tomek: "For me both were good but not identical."
Rysiek B: "I was trapped and identified the FIM file as 24/96. This probably was because I did not know what to expect from the hi-res file. In direct comparison the CD seems more intense and stronger. Although the FIM seemed better to me, the vocals were better on the other file - deeper, free from all compression and any plastic tarnish."


Summary: The ambiguousness of opinion here is starkly apparent. The difference between files was always clear and most listeners correctly identified the higher-resolution versions as better – but not always. A certain trend emerged however. Except for Forcione, the 16/44.1 versions sounded more substantial as though certain elements of the sound were brought up to the surface. The 24/96 files were more relaxed and calmer. But our panel missed the palpability of CD.


To add my own 3 cents I would point at the lack of file history. With a CD we know its origins – who issued it, who mastered and remastered it. The files are mute, their origins uncertain. We can edit and forever change their file ID. And as we saw, a carefully mastered CD can sound as good as a 24/96 file version.

That’s why I’m sure that soon we’ll see an influx of Japanese files similar to how Japanese CD imports nearly always beat their European counterparts. I expect that Japanese files are what we’ve been waiting for. It seems that the art of creating 24/96 files is still being developed. Increasing word length and sampling frequency clearly has big potential but how it is being exploited depends, as always, on the people involved.

Hi-res files are in their infancy still. A lot more needs to be accomplished before a wholesale switch to them becomes sensible. As the Japanese sampler and Forcione showed, it can already be done very effectively. With the latter the 24/96 advantage was really shocking.

How about 24/192 files? They’ll get their day with us next time. I already prepared the HIFIDIY Mini SD player for a 24/192 comparison but we ran out of time for this meeting. We actually listened for 3.5 hours and after that were too tired to continue...
opinia @ highfidelity.pl