The other day I bought some jazz music on the internet which was not available on CD. I made the mistake of downloading the 24/176.4 "Hi-Res" file rather than the 16/44.1 version. Once I had realised my mistake, I had already paid 12 EUR. I knew that my 4 year old main Hi-Fi CD, come external DAC, player could only play up to 24/96 music files. I let the download run on though.
The download was slow enough for me to water a medium sized garden and make a cup of tea with time to spare.
VLC on my computer could play the zipped files but my secondary music player which can play 24/176.4 files would not respond. I therefore had to unzip the files and it was time to make another cup of tea and read the paper.
The unzipped files would now play on my secondary music player but what about the player in the car? It would only play 16/44.1 files. And what about my main Hi-Fi?
I decided to convert the files to 16/44.1. I then compared the CD quality files to the "Hi-Res" originals. I could hear no difference, and no one has come forward to prove that they can hear the difference as part of a peer reviewed double blind test either. It was ,therefore, unnecessary to down sample the files again, this time to 24/88.2, to play on my main Hi-Fi as 16/44.1 would do the trick.
To keep things simple I have stored this music on my hard drives in 16/44.1 format for all playback.
The original downloads have now been backed up twice.
My conclusion is that it is better to buy music in 16/44.1 format when downloading. The files are much easier to handle and store and can be played on all music streamers and computers etc. You can make your own CD easily as well.
I have just bought some music from "Pristine Classic" on the internet but on a CD. A company like "Pristine Classic"is unlikely to mess around with loudness equalisation, so that you can be sure that the music will not be compressed like a Meatloaf album. "Pristine Classic" also provide an MP3 download for playing the music on a space restricted smartphone. It is all very simple and you are ready to go straight away.
There really is not much need for "Hi-Res" downloads even for classical music and for most pop music you might as well buy a 256 kbps MP3 download.
