Of Restorations and snow

Storm Goretti has struck at the dorm as I look through the window while putting my Pj's on as I write this having charged up my torch and cellphone in case of emergency as the phone goes over the internet so if the power is down everything stops.

Back to things that are still being worked upon, we're rebuilding the classical micro sd cards adding what was missing but for some material actually you don't need the cds you might have around but the HD downloads as from around the mid 1990's onwards albums were recorded in higher resolution than the regular cd format could carry.

As well, older analogue recordings were increasingly retransferred digitally to higher resolution than in the early digital era where they were issued on cd and often they are available as downloads too.

I have the record version of this which is a stunning account of John Williams's film scores and taking advantage of the classical music store Presto's January sales got the HD download used for the record.

This then new recording of all Mozart's Violin Concertos was one several sets issued in 2006 whose masters were in much higher resolution than the cd sets I bought at the time

Although issues with the Laptop such as having a faulty lcd caused some difficulties initially, we've made great progress restoring these two cards given much of the material wasn't backed up and one card had a high proportion of Mp3's that today had I of even had them, I would certainly redone over time as with better players and headphones you can hear the difference.

We're nearly done with the rock and pop cards and carefully tuned the output of the players to cut a slight "sting" in the top response and restore a bit of the low end that using my DT770 headphones on them would otherwise get.

The future of Higher Quality sound and me

 

Sailor Moon was an early special interest of mine, righting wrongs having her own unique quirks which as I sit reflecting on events in the last few days playing some HD downloads back I did find of classical music mainly from 2014-17 considering the future of that.

HD (High definition) is about getting great quality to that of regular cds to reveal more of the music making and venue but in an age that is more focused upon convenience, in the 2000's the iPod with its hundreds of poor quality lossy 128kb files or today with streaming, eating your data allowance on your smartphone when you have no right to expect anything to be there, it didn't become a everyday thing beyond musicians and hifi fans.

Part was and today remains it takes over £800 to get a super audio cd player and then only a few handfuls of discs are issued per year which was why I spent money improving on the regular cd reproduction even though I have a Super audio cd player in  the hifi.

HD Downloads were easier in that you selected them from the store and most digital audio players of the portable sort would just play them - the players could be had for around £100 upwards but much of that marked has moved from playing downloads to streaming music.

It's a pity as while as with anything based upon digital files you need to keep them backed up, they leave your mobiles data allowance untouched and as you own them, there's no question of a performance becoming unavailable in the way sometimes labels and artists pull things on the likes of Spotify.

As the number of  super audio discs Chandos puts out has dropped in the last two years not helped by there being only a handful of plants world wide that can make them, I can see a return to more HD downloads not least where I may have "classic" performances on cd or even record

Filling the digital gaps

One of the good things about digital download sites is sometimes albums that aren't currently available on record or cd are made available in that form.

This is a good example of one, the tenth Commodores album form the Fall of '83 which was not issued on cd in the UK or States and to whom had been long deleted  on  tape and record featuring the hit Only You.
Well as part of the Apple's Mastered For iTunes program all the Commodores albums have comeback out, freshly mastered and in with them was this, which I've only ever owned on pre-recorded cassette and my only digital copy was that copied to MiniDisc several years back.
Also included in it are the Caught In The Act and Movin' On albums the latter does sound a lot better than the PTG cd taken from a rather distorted record and the classic Hot on the tracks,Zoom,Natural High and Midnight Might albums, the home of hit 45's Brick House, Sweet Love,Just To Be Close to You,Three Times a Lady and Still.
Naturally I topped up on titles I don't have on cd for my music collection as these AAC 'lossy' encoded versions do sound rather good.