Some sites, such as Gimell Records, offer a variety of formats from MP3 to high-resolution surround-sound.Īlso, running the music through your Mac’s built-in audio hardware means you’re probably not getting all the benefits of higher-resolution files. Phish now sells its concerts in MP3, Apple Lossless, FLAC, and FLAC-HD (24/96) formats, and some people trading live recordings circulate them as 24/96 files as well.

The Classical Shop, offer a number of high-resolution files from the many labels they sell. Some of the most interesting to explore areĭa Capo, all of which are small, but provide high-resolution files. Others are record labels themselves, many of which are classical labels. ITrax (San Francisco Symphony, Afro Cuban Latin Jazz Project), which sell a variety of albums from different labels. HDtracks (Rolling Stones, John Coltrane, Eric Clapton) or Finding high-res filesĪ number of websites now sell such files. The files sold are often called “studio masters,” because they are the format that is used in the studio for the actual recording process. For new recordings, this is easy, because they are now commonly recorded in 24/96 format. But the growth in this sector has led to many pop, rock, and jazz albums being released in these formats. Initially, classical music was the first genre to offer such files, as many classical labels were already recording in high-resolution for SACDs (super-audio CDs) and and DVD-Audio discs, and needed to simply convert their existing files to the appropriate formats. The market for high-resolution audio files is clearly one for audiophiles but, while a niche within a niche, it is growing, and more and more labels and websites are selling files in these formats. How does this translate into file size? As an example, a 9-minute and 25-second live recording from the band Phish weighs in at 18.4MB for a 256-kbps MP3 file, 67MB for a CD-quality FLAC file, and 126.2MB for a 24/96 FLAC file.

Mac sound output