Sony Walkman NW-ZX2
At the big CE Week event in New York this week, the consumer electronics industry made another push to promote Hi-Resolution Audio. But industry insiders are expressing their frustration that the efforts to promote high quality digital music aren’t getting more traction. There were two significant announcements to promote the Hi Res movement, one from an industry group, the other from Sony, which has been the biggest player in the space. The first involves setting standards for the creation of new Hi-Res Audio content:
The Recording Academy® Producers & Engineers Wing® announced during CE Week in New York City, that it has embarked upon the creation of a series of Hi-Res Production Guidelines, with the goal of further clarifying the technology and techniques essential to producing great high-resolution music. In June 2014, a coalition that included the Consumer Electronics Association, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group and The Recording Academy agreed upon a common definition for Hi-Res Music. However, some misperceptions still remain when it comes to the correct methods for recording, mixing and mastering these titles resulting in the creation of Production Guidelines.
“Hi-Res Music is becoming more popular every day, and demand for these digital files is increasing rapidly,” said Maureen Droney, Producers & Engineers Wing Managing Director. “Our members want to ensure that there is enough music product in the pipeline to satisfy this demand. These professionals, who represent some of the best ears in the business, have volunteered their time, energy and expertise in order to demystify and simplify the overall process of creating Hi-Res Music. The guidelines they will create will go a long way towards realizing this.”
Sony, which has spearheaded the Hi-Res Audio movement is launching Hi-Res Audio listening stations at more than 70 Best Buy stores with Magnolia Design Centers nationwide beginning this fall.
Customers will experience high-resolution music on a number of Sony audio products that meet nearly every lifestyle need, including Walkman portable players, headphone amplifiers and music servers. Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group support the program and the display will promote a variety of high-res recordings that are available via participating digital music providers.
“We’re delighted to assist Magnolia Design Center in its efforts to provide a higher quality listening experience for their customers,” said Mike Fasulo, president of Sony Electronics. “Thanks to this program, music enthusiasts will finally get the opportunity to hear their favorite recordings digitally, just like the artist intended.”
Each Hi-Res Music Station will include a variety of clips from both new and classic recordings across every genre, in addition to offering information on accessing hi-res digital files from participating music providers. Select Magnolia Design Center locations will also be used to promote numerous hi-res activities, as well as album artwork, launch parties and receptions.
If you don’t know much about Hi-Res Audio and you like good music, listen up. Hi-Res Audio is also known as HD Audio or Hi-Definition Audio, or Lossless audio. And there are a slew of Hi Res formats such as AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, and WMA . While that jumble of names and letters has made some sense to audiophiles, it’s also been one more barrier to broad consumer adoption and understanding.
Way back when most of us bought vinyl records. The recording quality was generally good, sometimesd superb, and you usually heard most of what was originally performed. The tracks were recorded on analog audiotape, then pressed into the vinyl. Then came some tape formats like eight track and cassettes, which had some tape hiss, but weren’t squeezed down for size. Next we had CD’s, the first digitally encoded music. They didn’t suffer from scratches and dust like vinyl, but they weren’t quite as good either. Then the recording industry decided (and convinced us) that portability was more important than quality, and they gave us the MP3, digital files that let us put hundreds, or thousands of songs on a single device, but we lost much of that original quality: the highs, the lows, the scratch of the strings, the ambiance of the live performance. Hi Res Audio, or Lossless Audio (in contrast to compressed or lossy audio) uses digital recordings that preserve those original subtleties, the highs, the lows. But the digital files are much larger than MP3’s, often ten times as large, so you need a lot more space to store them. That’s okay, because the price of digital storage has come down so much that it’s no problem to store 128 GB on a single micro-SD card. There are a variety of Lossless formats, which made the adoption confusing and daunting for the layman. Then the industry, largely under the leadership of Sony and others like Korean based Astell&Kern, began producing devices that would handle almost all of the Lossless formats, taking the worry out of being a Hi-Res Audio consumer. The problem is that most consumers still aren’t buying. In many cases it’s simply because we’re unfamiliar with what’s out there. Hi Res tracks do cost a bit more than MP3 albums, but not all that much more. Generally albums range between about $15-$20. If you want to know what’s out there, one good site is Find HD Music, another is Digital Trends. The leader in Hi-Res Audio tracks is HD Tracks, followed by Acoustic Sounds and ITrax. There are a number of other smaller sites with specialty catalogs. One of the most innovative is AIX Records.
Astell&Kern AK Jr player
If you’re looking for gear to play the Hi-Res tracks, there are an increasing number of options, some quite affordable. Sony has the most complete range of gear with everything from music servers and speaker systems to Hi Res equipped televisions, soundbars, portable players and headphones. Korean based Astell&Kern makes high end players and headphones. 
Monster, best known for cables and headphones, recently introduced three Hi-Res speakers in its SoundStage line. Chinese based FiiO offers a line of lower priced Hi Res players. And singer Neil Young is behind Pono, which offers both a Hi-Res streaming service and a lower priced portable player.
Content is King
Several factors are holding back the growth of Hi-Res audio. First and foremost is the lack of available content. Even though companies like HD Tracks and Pono are pushing out dozens of new tracks every week, they only represent a fraction of the total music library of millions of songs. And while most recordings in the vaults of the record companies were mastered in Hi-Res quality, it still costs them money to re-release them. And making new recordings in the top of the Hi-Res formats is costly. In some cases, entire genres are virtually missing. If you’re a fan of Broadway musicals, like I am, the pickings are pretty slim. That’s because show producers who own those rights are still pushing CD sales.
Another issue is quality and format. While CD quality is considered the lower end of Hi-Res, without getting into numbers, there are other Hi-Res formats that have significantly better quality. And just as we’ve gone through various definitions of Hi-Definition television from 720p to 1080p to 4K, the Hi-Res audio industry is still sorting things out. You can also take your existing CD collection and convert those files to Hi-Res using a variety of programs. I’ve had great success with a free download called EAC (for Exact Audio Copy) that even a beginner can use to convert music to Hi-Res for a portable player or music server.
Another obstacle to consumer adoption is just a lack of awareness. With HDTV, seeing was believing. With Hi Res Audio, it’s hearing that’s believing. And so far consumers haven’t had much opportunity to compare MP3’s to Hi-Res tracks side by side. The decision by Best Buy to start featuring Hi-Res Audio displays may well be a big first step to getting out the word.
Is it worth it to you to make the transition? Depends entirely on how much good music and great quality mean to you. Hi-Res audio is a way of rediscovering the music quality many of us enjoyed when we were younger, without the hassles that went with the care and feeding of vinyl albums. My suggestion is to try it out. It might truly turn out to be a sound investment.
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