Universal 24-bit treasure trove is Studio Master milestone

[giladt Linn Staff]

The first Studio Master releases from Universal have hit linnrecords.com:

http://blogs.linn.co.uk/giladt/2012/02/u...estone.php

Regards,
Gilad

[LinnFan2011]

Thank you for these great news! There is going to be so much more music to "discover" with Linn!

[tokenbrit]

Deutsche Grammophon and Decca downloads from linnrecords are not available in the US Are there any discussions ongoing that might change this?

I looked at deutschegrammophon.com, but that doesn't offer studio master; only FLAC lossless, "encoded from 16 bit/44.1 kHz master" in the case of the Mahler...

[Gussy]

Great news but do you have any further info on how and when these transfers were made...?

[Vereina]

Great! Releasing old analogue recordings at higher than CD resolution is something I have always hoped that labels like DG would do eventually. Good for Linn for helping make this happen!

The question is (hopefully) now going to be: is it worth buying studio master downloads of recordings which one already owns on record? This is going to provoke some interesting LP12 vs. KDS comparisons!!

Gussy, there are a few words on the remastering on the Linn Records website, here. Seems like they have remastered from the original master tapes, which I presume is the right approach.

Perhaps we should have a poll on which recordings DG should be encouraged to do next ....

[NickP]

(2012-02-24 18:00)giladt Wrote:  The first Studio Master releases from Universal have hit linnrecords.com:

This has to be a major coup! Well done, Linn. I've already bought my third copy of Mahler 8/Solti! Vinyl; CD; now studio master.

And, these guys ultimately own Mercury, don't they? HDTracks.com has finally realised that my IP address is in the UK so I'm now banned from buying Mercury Living Presence recordings, so perhaps we might start seeing these amazing recording appear on Linn Records in due course - unless the claimed "copyright" restriction is insurmountable.

I do wonder about the pricing, though: the same price is being charged for a forty-year old orchestral recording as for a brand new one, and it looks as if Linn Records has just changed the currency symbol (from USD to UKS, $ to £) on the price - $18 typically on HDTracks; £18 at Linn.

[Vereina]

(2012-02-25 12:59)NickP Wrote:  I do wonder about the pricing, though: the same price is being charged for a forty-year old orchestral recording as for a brand new one, and it looks as if Linn Records has just changed the currency symbol (from USD to UKS, $ to £) on the price - $18 typically on HDTracks; £18 at Linn.

"Dollars to pounds" pricing is always a bit annoying although, conversely, I don't feel it is too unreasonable to pay a bit more for a studio master download than a full-price CD.

I certainly don't mind paying the same for a forty year old recording as for a new one, though. Conductors in the 1960s and 70s might have been a touch more autocratic, but they didn't half produce some great recordings! And I don't believe musicians played any worse then than they do now ....

This does prompt one question, though, regarding the quality of older recordings and master tapes:

Would it be a waste of time remastering recordings older than a certain age (and, if so, what age would that be) at 96kHz / 24-bit?

What I am wondering is whether there would be any value in remastering great recordings from, say, the early '60s or '50s. It would be interesting to get an opinion from somebody who is sufficiently familiar with recording technology.

[Paulssurround]

(2012-02-24 18:00)giladt Wrote:  The first Studio Master releases from Universal have hit linnrecords.com:

http://blogs.linn.co.uk/giladt/2012/02/u...estone.php

Regards,
Gilad

Brilliant

[linnrd]

Nice to note that the Studio Masters are at 24/96 and not hyped up to a higher resolution. A clear win for ststem architecture vs marchetecture.

[giladt Linn Staff]

(2012-02-24 20:18)tokenbrit Wrote:  Deutsche Grammophon and Decca downloads from linnrecords are not available in the US Are there any discussions ongoing that might change this?

I looked at deutschegrammophon.com, but that doesn't offer studio master; only FLAC lossless, "encoded from 16 bit/44.1 kHz master" in the case of the Mahler...

Whilst we don't at this time have the rights to sell the Universal back catalogue in all territories, it would appear that they are committed to the non-DRM Studio Master format for their content.

Even if they don't eventually find a way to allow LinnRecords.com to sell globally, I'd imagine they'll find a route to the customer one way or another.

Best
Gilad