digital-audio.org
Information centre for all about digital audioHigh Resolution Digital Audio
The future
New High Resolution Possibilities
For many years we have been limited to CD quality digital audio as the best quality available at home. For some time studios have been recording at higher quality, but there has not been a way of getting this higher quality audio to the consumer. In recent years a few higher resolution hard formats have arisen and with the advent of high speed broadband to most homes, it is now possible to download audio that exceeds the quality of Compact Disc by some margin. Here are the current formats available:
HDCD
CDs are fixed at 16-bit 44.1kHz quality level. A higher specification CD format is available known as HDCD ( High Definition Compact Disc ). This format increases the resolution to 24-bit, though the sampling rate remains at 44.1kHz. There are quite a few CD players that will play this format, but there are virtually no commercially available HDCD's for purchase.
DVD Audio
There is an audio only specification of the DVD format known as DVD Audio. This format has a specification of 24-bit, 96kHz maximum resolution and can include up to six channels
SACD
Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) is a newer high resolution audio format. Its specification is not easily compared in terms of sampling rate and resolution, but it is comparable to DVD-Audio in quality. Invented by Sony it uses a proprietary data format known as Direct Stream Digital (DSD).
Download
With the use of high speed broadband you can now download high quality audio from many sites that is better than CD in specification. The main standard is 24-bit 96kHz and there are many places you can download - see our recommended sites below. As well as this, there are some record companies offering the ultimate 24-bit 192kHz recordings for download. The only problem with these is the file sizes are enormous - as much as 2-3Gb of data for one album!
Recommended Download sites
The following sites are recommended by us for their high resolution content
HD tracks, look for the 96kHz/24bit section Go to the HD Tracks site
Linn Records Go to the Linn Records site