 Hi-Rez is de buzzword in het audioworld met veel discussies over de aardbilliteit. Er zijn 5 dingen die je moet weten over Hi-Rez Audio. Hi-Rez Audio was begonnen door Sonny en Philips als ze als ACD introduceren. Hele grote recordcompanies volgden door de DVD Audio introduceren. De beide standaards gingen een brede marktacceptatie. Alleen de kleinere audio file labels konden deze formaten produceren, volledig als ACD. Active audio files begonnen om die Hi-Rez disc te rippen naar files om te kunnen spelen op hun netwerkplayers. Wanneer de audio file labels begonnen om downloadpurchages in Hi-Rez Bekijken de labels. Recentelijk kwam MQA naar de markt om het makkelijker te streamen en te downloaden in Hi-Rez files. Maar bewaren, Hi-Rez is niet altijd wat je denkt dat het is. Hi-Rez has now been defined by trade organizations as anything that has higher resolution than CD. Dit betekent dat, volgens deze definitie, 48 kHz 20 bit files are already Hi-Rez and are allowed to carry the Hi-Rez logo. Hi-Rez audio can be stored in WAV, Apple Lossless, Flag, AIF, DFF en DSF file formats. Streaming services like Cobas and Tidal, that stream lossalously compressed CD quality files are sometimes also called Hi-Rez since they provide higher quality than MP3 files that usually are provided by streaming services. Not all Hi-Rez files contain true Hi-Rez music. Unfortunately there are companies that think they can fool the public by upsampling CD quality files to higher sampling rates or to DSD. That also happened when SACD and DVDA was introduced. I have been to a demo on the AES convention in Munich where an SACD was played that was recorded on 48 kHz 16 bit. They even admitted this and were surprised that I could hear that. The Digital Entertainment Group, together with the Consumer Electronics Association and the Recording Academy has defined four categories of audio files. MQP is produced from a PCM master source at 48 kHz 20 bit or higher. MQA is produced from an analog master tape. MQC is from a CD master source, thus 44.16 bit kHz en MQD, that is produced from a DSD of DSF master source. Wether this will work is questionable, as we have seen in the previous item. Can you hear the difference? Well, that depends. Playing Hi-Rez music in a noisy spot like a car, train or outdoors in the city might not pay us efficiently. Strangely enough, Hi-Rez music can pay off significantly when played at well-designed budget stereo equipment, like my Set 3. See the link in the top right corner, while the difference is smaller in my Set 1. The Shannon Nyquist theorems prove that 44.1 kHz sampled signal in theory will store all audio information up to 22.05 kHz. But Nyquist published his theorem in 1930, when technology was far from able to implement this idea. The first implementations came only half a century later and were far from perfect either. It is my belief that it is still impossible to implement the Nyquist theorem perfectly. And I'm not alone. Who you ask, 192 kHz of 384 kHz sampling makes a decent digital reconstruction filter possible and thus very good digital to analog conversion. Others say that far more computational power is needed to construct a perfect reconstruction filter. I believe that on the analog to digital side things are slightly less critical. MQA is introduced very recently and is a way to store high-res music in less space without quality getting lost. It also protects the file integrity and correct timing errors that occurs during analog to digital and digital to analog conversion. See my videos on how MQA works. The link appears in the right top corner now. For as far as I can tell now and January 2016 it is a very good way to store high-res files. The same thing applies as to the other high-res files. It's just a container. If the studio decides to fill it with junk it will play back the junk with high precision but it will remain junk. MQA files can be stored in any file format that can store uncompressed PCM audio so web, apple lossless, flag and ARF file format. High-res is no guarantee of a good sound. High-res is the container as a tin can is a container for food. It is a very reliable form of conserving food making transport and storing far less critical. But it won't improve the food. If you put in low quality food the best you can get out is low quality food. I won't even mention what happens when the food processing was not done properly. The same goes for high-res music containers. They can contain very high quality recordings but also very poor quality recordings. I'll end with an old joke that puts it in perspective. After long years John bumped into Paul again and asked him how he was doing. Paul told he had bought a container of peaches for only 19 euros a glass. John asked him to sell him a pallet and they agreed on the price. A week later they met again. John was rather cross and said to Paul your peaches were inedible. What a junk. Sure said Paul, but they were for business not for eating. So you see every market knows its crooks and I will try to keep you up to date. So follow my Facebook or Google Plus page or my Twitter account to stay informed. You can also post questions there but please view my questions video first. See the link in the top right corner. You'll find the information below this video on YouTube. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and tell your friends on the web about it. I am Hans Beekhuyzen for the HB Channel. Thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on thehbproject.com and whatever you do, enjoy the music.