Looking for lossless:
What.cd (private)
Rutracker (public)
Looking for lossy:
Here is how you can get 320/CBR music.
It's surprisingly hard to find. There's a french website that specializes in lossless albums that has all his stuff up, so you could try it. If you're short on euros, you could try the seedier sections of the interwebs. There are some pretty good torrents up. Here's one good one:bam.
I'm sure you already know this, but I'd encourage you to pony up the money for the albums as opposed to torrenting. But if you already bought it, you should be fine.
This is probably the highest quality available (for RAM) - http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/random-access-memories-edition-studio-masters-daft-punk/0886443927087
Original 'Studio Masters' in 24bit-88.2KHz
My friend bought this edition, I got a normal CD, they sound identical to me.
All other albums, I'm not aware of anything beyond standard CD quality, except discovery, where there are 5.1 versions available from Interstellar 5555.
If you're in Europe, you should check out Qobuz ( http://www.qobuz.com). They sell and stream lossless audio. I'm not a user myself so I can't vouch for the quality and the catalog, but in France they've clearly made a name among audiophiles.
Perso je suis abonné à Spotify (qui sont Suédois d'ailleurs, tout le monde les crois Américains). J'aime bien leur logiciel et API, et ils ont quelques exclus qui m’intéressent en électro. Mais j'imagine que tu cherches d'autres options.
Deezer est bon, et français. Pour moi ça se vaut avec Spotify, c'est une question de préférence sur le logiciel.
Il y a Rdio, moins connu mais de bons avis.
Un autre français, Qobuz. Ils sont spécialisés dans la haute qualité audio (FLAC), et plus chers du coup (20€/mois). On peut aussi y acheter les fichiers.
Buying lossless is, if you're in the US:
The fourth alternative, often ignored is to buy the CD on Amazon or elsewhere and rip it yourself, using EAC if you are on Windows, or XLD if you are on Mac. Linux users can turn to Morituri to find a ripper with AccurateRip support.
Should you be based somewhere in Europe, you can look for local availability of Qobuz and WiMP - Qobuz offers tracks for download, and both Qobuz and WiMP offer lossless streaming (FLAC/Apple Lossless) (with offline support, at least in the case of WiMP), and both have catalogs comparable to Spotify in size.
Different 1 minute samples, higher quality, someone should stitch them together in audacity.
here is the explicit (i cant find fever [clean version one]):
aHR0cHM6Ly9kcml2ZS5nb29nbGUuY29tL29wZW4/aWQ9MTB3TVA4LXJ3S1dXa29iVnUzUEVqcVoyeFc2bzNTbU1n
PW: www.qobuz.com (this one is the password lol)
I'm posting this here in hope that I can have an answer to my question.
This entry claims to have high DR values for this particular release, which can be purchased here, as a digital download: http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/the-essential-michael-jackson-michael-jackson/0827969428726
The problem is that when I purchase one isolated song (in my case, You Are Not Alone from CD2, a few months back), I'm getting a DR8, which isn't what appears on this DR entry (it's supposed to be DR12).
So, I'm asking, for those who already purchased the entire album or only selected songs if they're indeed getting that magical uncompressed released or if instead they're getting the same thing as me.
In hope of getting a proper answer, thank you for your understanding.
There are some horrible vinyl pressings too. Lots of artists record digitally these days. If the master is clipped, the pressing will be too.
Personally, I use Qobuz for hi-res digital.
The Xonar Essence ST (should be almost identical to the STX) uses the following IC's in the analog/headphone signal path:
TI TPA6102A2 for the headphone amplifier. It sounds pretty good for something that costs $1.50. I've tried it with my HD650's, and while it doesn't sound nearly as good as my made in China tube amp (which I have measured with a distortion analyzer at about 0.1% THD at full scale into 32 ohms, which I find acceptable) it is a lot better than an iPod or typical PC motherboard audio. The Xonar uses some kind of switching power supply to generate +/- 15V for the analog output stage. I have not measured the ripple under typical operating conditions.
TI PCM1792 DAC It is a 24-bit, 200kHz sigma-delta DAC. It can be had for around $7.50.
That's it. There's an LM4562 which drives the RCA stereo outputs which is a halfway decent opamp, but I wouldn't ask it to drive anything other than a line-level input to something else. The I2S data stream comes from the AV100 ASIC, which acts as the PCI to I2S bridge.
As the others have said, Qobuz or Beatport would give you the best quality, but at a slightly higher price. Both will give you 1411 kbps audio. Qobuz offers the entire album with continuous mixes in a variety of formats including FLAC. Beatport does not have the continuous mixes, and only offers WAV or AIFF. The CD version would also get you the highest-available quality audio (provided you rip it to a lossless format). Also keep in mind that lossless audio takes up much more space than lossy (the album from Qobuz in FLAC is ~1.5 GB, vs ~500 MB from iTunes).
iTunes will give you 256 kbps VBR AAC audio, and Google Play, I believe, gives you 320 kbps CBR MP3 audio. Both are lossy formats, and AAC is generally considered to be superior to MP3 (most people argue that a 256 kbps AAC file is of equivalent or better quality than a 320 kbps MP3).
That being said, you generally need some pretty good audio hardware to tell the difference between a high-bitrate AAC/MP3 file and a lossless file (and even then, some audiophiles struggle to tell the difference).
Edit: A word
Beatport has it in WAV or AIFF, but they don't have the continuous mixes.
Qobuz has it in a variety of formats (including FLAC) but the Disc 1 continuous mix appears to have been cut short (hopefully they'll fix it). Also Qobuz isn't available in some countries (like the US), but you may be able to email support to get access.
I'm not sure where you live, but if you're in Europe, you could try getting the Studio Masters from Qobuz: http://www.qobuz.com/album/random-access-memories-daft-punk/0886443927087
Even if it won't let you buy them, you could try emailing Qobuz customer support and they may remove the region lock from your account (that's what I did -- I'm from the US. It's also worked for other people).
If you don’t mind taking Tidal for a spin, check their free trial. Both Tidal and Qobuz offer best streaming options out there with offline listening (download).
This might be the best option for you to test the DAP and headphones without getting into Flac or Dsd/Dff.
http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/discover
They are brilliant. You can also purchase lossless and hi-res tracks from their store and you can download and/or find it in your purchases section of the Qobuz Player. It integrates with lots of network streamers and as I say the sound quality is exceptional. They recently stopped streaming MP3s and only do CD Quality and above.
Tropical Suite by Poni Hoax.
The hi-res version is taken from the vinyl master and sounds incredible: https://www.prostudiomasters.com/album/page/10987 http://www.qobuz.com/ie-en/album/tropical-suite-poni-hoax/0191018575847
I have read here the lightning jack adapter can supports until 192kHz.
The iPhone is limited to 48kHZ if we use the jack output.
The correct answer was:
[http://www.qobuz.com/es-en/album/pink-money-wargi-ronni/3614972961183](/spoiler)
[^ this one](/spoiler)
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This inspired me to finally get this working on my SMSL M8.
These two guides helped me stumble through it and I have DSD64 working!
http://www.audiostream.com/content/how-play-dsd-file-using-foobar2000#Gq031WMwXIUPrdOZ.97
http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/info/hi-res-guide/s-m-s-l-m8-reach-up-to-32-bit-384177528
i've been meaning to add a dedicated DAC to my audio setup and settled one this deal until reading this article claiming my smartphone's DAC to be reasonable enough.
if anyone can say with any certainty that a dedicated external DAC will be a very noticeable improvement over this phone's DAC i'll happily grab the emerald physics one listed (or the schiit product i keep reading about). thanks thanks
I've gathered that this is mostly for hardware related questions so if there is a better place for me to post this please point me in the right direction.
On Qobuz I've found that there are different download options for certain albums. For example, Green Day's American Idiot is available to download in 16-bit CD quality or Hi-Res whereas something like Torch This Place by The Atomic Fireballs is only available as 16-bit CD quality.
Do the 16-bit versions on Qobuz have a better dynamic range than the standard CD releases or would I simply be buying an expensive version of something that I can rip from the CDs that I already own?
Just want to add that upon further reading it seems that the volume pot is an analog controlled digital volume attenuation - basically the system measures the Alps pot position and then digitally adjust the volume, similar to how Benchmark DAC2 HGC is doing it.
> The volume control is part of a separate circuit (upper left portion), and comes with a motorised Alps potentiometer (it would appear that this controls an NJW1194W integrated volume circuit which is present on the main circuit, by means of position detection), while the circuit which receives the digital input signals and treats them is mounted along the flank which is on the left of the photo.
If I'm not misinterpreting what this means then definitely no worry about channel imbalance at all.
>With an arresting bandwidth of 16Hz to 25kHz, crisp high tones are combined with Mariana Trench deep bass notes that are not manipulated through any boost functions.
ahahahahahahahahahahahaaa
all from this thingy
oh my sides!!