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Naim Label – A new website, a new name and a new URL

Steve — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:37:21 +0000

The new Naim Label website supports downloads from 320kbs MP3s to 24Bit 96kHz wav and FLAC. Sign up and if you are in the UK you can download a free track from the Naim Label’s new signing William Fitzsimmons. Licensing restricts the download to the UK only.

Naim Label information

Enthusiasm, Over Selling or Spam?

Steve — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:48:26 +0000

Mid April I bought a few downloaded tracks from Blue Coast Records. They were hi-res recordings and not too bad at all.
Since then the guys at Blue Coast have not left me alone. Every few days I get another email trying to flog me some more.
Am I alone in thinking that this is Spamming me? One email a month trying to sell me some new stuff would be absolutely fine and in fact I might do exactly that and buy some more. But all these emails are just a PITA and I’ve sent the please unsubscribe email.

No more business for them from me.

Times Online reports younger music fans deaf

Steve — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:31:59 +0000

The Times Online reported recently that younger music fans are beginning to prefer the sound of MP3s to better quality sound.

Article

Jonathan Berger, Professor of Music at Stanford University, California has theorised that young people are getting used to the sound of MP3s to the point where they are beginning to prefer the sound. For the past eight years his students have taken part in an experiment in which they listen to songs in a variety of different forms, including MP3s. “I found not only that MP3s were not thought of as low quality, but over time there was a rise in preference for MP3s” Professor Berger said.

Professor Berger says that the (presumably lower bit rate) digitising process leaves music with a “sizzle” or a metallic sound.

Google let me down when I was searching for the original paper or quote from JB. Just wonder if he actually said MP3 as most iPods are loaded with AACs? However, does it matter? At 128kbs both sound pretty rough.

Seems us older music fans should play as much vinyl as possible.

iBotnet – my chance for humour

Steve — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:27:08 +0000

A once only comment, purely for fun, in a small way payback for all my Mac owning friends that have pushed the virus free credentials of the Mac for years.
Now it seems that Mac owners downloading and installing pirate copies of iWork 09 and possibly Photoshop 4 are also installing some malware.

Welcome to the club. Time to invest in some anti-malware software maybe?

Hot Tuna Hi-res audio download

Steve — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:35:38 +0000

This could be the start of an expensive time.

Having found and downloaded FestivaLink presents Hot Tuna at MerleFest 4/28/06 and Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss both in 24/96 from www.hdtracks.com I started to look around for more Hot Tuna live material. I found www.hottunatunes.com. While the downloads on hotunatunes are only available as mp3 or CD res Flacs there are hundreds to choose from. This could get very expensive.

The Hot Tuna hi-res download Hot Tuna at Merlefest is hi-res of sorts. Looking at its frequency content it looks suspiciously like an upsampled 44.1 or at best 48k DAT recording. Sounds rather good though. My first download for the HT site doesn’t sound as good but the music is just wonderful. Jefferson Airplane was (is) one of my favourite bands and HT may be currently be running close behind. These guys may not be the springiest of chickens but they can sure play. My first paid for download also came with a free older gig recording in 128MP3. Sounds rather inadequate in comparison but totally worth a listen they are obviously on a roll that night.

The hi-res Raising Sand is quite different from the CD rip. It definitely sounds as if it has a higher bandwidth: it sounds smoother, more detailed and just more classy but it doesn’t have the punch or the impact of the lower res CD rip.