A new audio format?.....

[Rod]

I see Naxos are releasing some recordings on Blue Ray Audio.... anyone heard these?


http://www.naxos.com/blu-ray_audio.asp

Rod

[Wild Rumpus]

Is this a new audio format, or are they just using the normal (DTS, Dolby etc) audio formats that you get on Blu-Ray disks?

[gamingdave]

As far as I am aware its just stored in PCM, and DTS Master Audio and/or Dolby TrueHD. If it was a "new" format then none of the current BR players would be able to play them.

So really jsut the same as any of the downloads from HDtracks.com or a number of other albums on BR disks.

I have a few albums in 192/24 and they do sound great. I'm currently using a M-Audio FireWire 1814 as the DAC from my PC in my work setup and comparing them to CD rips (to FLAC) of the same album there is a difference, it's not huge, but it is there. In an ABX test I can tell the difference, but if I left the room for 30 minutes between each test it would be a lot harder. It's the same at home with my PC but that is fed into my AV receiver via HDMI.

Assuming you have a receiver that does the decoding and you are connecting via HDMI there would be no difference between these audio BRs and a rip of it (or hdtracks download assuming the same source) playing from a PC. There should be no difference using a BR player from a PC as a BR player here either. If you are using a BR player with analogue outs and it's own internal DACs then that depends on your player.

[waynertron]

Here's a very interesting article http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

[gamingdave]

Interesting indeed, thanks for posting it. It must be the masters that are making the difference in the albums I have both as CD and 192/24. When I get the time I will downsample the 192/24 files and do an ABX in foobar and see what I find.

I don't doubt the science in the article and would happily save the space on my server if there is nothing in it.

Some of the high bit rate stuff is DTS HD though, and in those the 5.1 is something else entirely. I heard the DVD-Audio version of Brothers in Arms in 5.1 (96/24 IIRC) some years back and it was great.

[waynertron]

Some of the high bit rate stuff is DTS HD though, and in those the 5.1 is something else entirely. I heard the DVD-Audio version of Brothers in Arms in 5.1 (96/24 IIRC) some years back and it was great.

Absolutely. Multi channel audio is another thing entirely, wish there was more of it.