HDaudioplus "Audiophile MP3 for the 21st Century" site, Gave me a good laugh Options

[_if]

I ran across this comment on an article on Neil Young's Pono thing:

I'd like to introduce another alternative to "HDTracks" and "Pono"- HDAudioPlus 320.48KHz "audiophile mp3".

Nearly 20 years in development and created especially for Classical music, HDAudioPlus delivers all of the the audio quality of hi-rez - and more - minus the bulk. By packing our "not-mp3" codec into the mp3 envelope, we can keep file size to a bare minimum.

But here's the best part:

HDAudioPlus doesn't require ANY special player, device, or software WHATSOEVER.

It was designed to PLAY ON ANY DEVICE on ANY PLATFORM - Windows PC AND Apple!

Too good to be true?

Hearing is believing: Check out our stunning MTV-style Demo Gallery on Vimeo

http://vimeo.com/channels/nobodydoesitbetter

Likewise, please visit our commercial R+D website for documentation and "before and after" evaluation files remastered in HDAudioPlus (available for download) in all genres:

http://hdaudioplus.com

Last but not least, chill out and tune in to our Baroque Classical radio station broadcast in breathtaking 320.48KHz Baroque 24/7 http://baroque247.com.

Paula Wertheim
Executive Director-HDAudioPlus, Israel

This is so pitiful that I almost feel bad for singling her out, but apparently she's trying to sell a product so I think that qualifies it as fair game. Never mind the typos and bad grammar and the mind-boggling claim of "FACT: Music that sounds better, sells better." Just listen to the comparison MP3s on the site. I'll hide this next bit in case you don't want the surprise of the sound spoiled.

It sounds like she ran it through some terrible "enhancement" of the caliber that comes with something like Windows Media Player that boosts the bass and treble while dynamic range compressing quite heavily, and resamples to 48kHz (because that's obviously going to improve on that CD source). And somehow she's deluded herself into thinking this sounds better and is worth money. Just listen to it on the fade at the end of the samples! It doesn't take an audiophile to tell that's bad.

I doubt anyone on this forum would have any experience with a processor of that level, but does anyone have any idea what exactly was done here? Maybe it's even good software that's been abused.

[ErnestS]

Jesus, I couldn't listen to it for more than a few seconds. It sounds awful.

I wonder what speakers/headphones they used.

[Seren]

Jesus, I couldn't listen to it for more than a few seconds. It sounds awful.
I wonder what speakers/headphones they used.

Same, but the original was equally as bad, as if the sample was 96kbps MP3s...
I only listened to one though, anymore and I'd have a headache...

[Nessuno]

I listened to Charpentier's Te Deum samples and… no: maybe they are not into classical, but they cannot think that the average Joe classical listener can bear that grotesque reverb ("spatial enhancer" DSP effect?) and maybe smiley eq that seems they applied. No, definitely!

Anyway, this one is ridiculous, but so that for the concerns I just expressed in another thread about the possibility of surreptitiously differentiate between digital delivery formats for sole marketing reasons!

[hlloyge]

This has to be a joke.

[eahm]

This has to be a joke.

Delusion is more powerful than placebo.

This post has been edited by eahm: Dec 8 2012, 20:17

[extrabigmehdi]

I don't know I enjoy a slight reverb, and little bass boost, maybe they've overdone the dsp.
It's not a good idea to test music at youtube.

[Batman321]

It sounds like those crappy DFX enhancers for Winamp or WMP.

[gregs1104]

This takes me right back to when I had a Hughes AK-100 Sound Retrieval System box. That connected like an equalizer but instead it added a similar sort reverb to music. Chain that with a dbx "dynamic range expander" and it would sound just like this hideous HDaudioplus processing.

[soundping]

Just listened to the samples..

Not impressed at all.
It sounds like a pop-music preset was used.

[Neuron]

The "HD" sample has a sharp 15 Khz cutoff while the "normal sample" has a weird "mountain" around 18-19 Khz that kind of looks like aliasing . And both samples sound bad but the normal one is better.

[Woodinville]

Wow. Just wow.

No idea what it is offhand, not going to load any material to find out, since it's not FLAC, and "fits in the MP3 container", hey, folks, I wrote some of that, and you know what? You know what fits in the MP3 container? MP1, MP2, and MP3. D'oh!

Terribly inefficient and 20 years out of date, Inefficient and 20 years out of date, and merely 20 years out of date and mostly inefficient, respectively.

Now, if it required a special player, maybe, just maybe it might be using the ancillary data (you know, what MPEG-2 BC used for the other 3 channels) for error signal reduction, but no, it doesn't require that. It works in any player. So what are they claiming here?

Of course, who knows what they mean by the "mp3 envelope". I don't. Do they? Does anyone?

And no, MPEG-2 AAC transport stream is not MP3. I'm more than slightly sure of that.

Anyone looked under the hood?

[Kees de Visser]

To my (classical) ears this is murder in the first degree.

[Woodinville]

Ok, I listened to that.

It sounds like 3-band compression run amok.

[LithosZA]

The originals sound soooooooooo much better than the HD+ crap.

[Kohlrabi]

The originals sound soooooooooo much better than the HD+ crap.

This reminds one of the remasters of classic popular music done in the 2000s: "The 70s were not loud and obnoxious enough, let's change that!"

[ktf]

The website it claims to be a subsidiary of (http://baroque247.com/) is even more ridiculous in some respect. It says

Brilliant 48-bit HD+ audio streaming

Whatever that's supposed to mean... Really, labeling yourself as 'world-leading' and having a website like this... Indeed, this has to be a joke

This post has been edited by ktf: Dec 23 2012, 15:34

[Woodinville]

The website it claims to be a subsidiary of (http://baroque247.com/) is even more ridiculous in some respect. It says

Brilliant 48-bit HD+ audio streaming

Whatever that's supposed to mean... Really, labeling yourself as 'world-leading' and having a website like this... Indeed, this has to be a joke

48 bits.

48 bits

Now let me think.

48*6.02=288.96.

Put the noise floor at atmospheric.

That means ... 295dB SPL.

Of course, that's a meaningless measurement, but let's think more.

295-194=101dB.

That's, um, 112 atmospheres, give or take.

Are we talking core of the earth? Jupiter? Inside the sun? What? Not quite high enough for neutronium.

[_if]

My guess is it's supposed to say 48kHz, because that's what the MP3s on the other site are resampled to. The level of ineptitude is unbelievable and is almost enough to make me think it is indeed a big joke. Reminds me of the thing in psychology where those who excel at something tend to underrate their abilities and those who are actually bad tend to be really confident.

By the way, thanks for MP4, JJ!

[rick.hughes]

...Reminds me of the thing in psychology where those who excel at something tend to underrate their abilities and those who are actually bad tend to be really confident.
...

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains a lot about a lot of things

[greynol]

I imagine this is yet another case of a technically inept marketing department going unchecked. I'm guessing the technical people at the company are watching from the sidelines, annoyed and powerless.

This post has been edited by greynol: Jan 8 2013, 15:14

[Neuron]

The website it claims to be a subsidiary of (http://baroque247.com/) is even more ridiculous in some respect. It says

Brilliant 48-bit HD+ audio streaming

Whatever that's supposed to mean... Really, labeling yourself as 'world-leading' and having a website like this... Indeed, this has to be a joke

48 bits.

48 bits

Now let me think.

48*6.02=288.96.

Put the noise floor at atmospheric.

That means ... 295dB SPL.

Of course, that's a meaningless measurement, but let's think more.

295-194=101dB.

That's, um, 112 atmospheres, give or take.

Are we talking core of the earth? Jupiter? Inside the sun? What? Not quite high enough for neutronium.

Actually it is only a bit higher than the pressure on the surface of Venus (~92 atmospheres) or the pressure 1 km under the ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_mag..._%28pressure%29 . Or the pressure generated in an average bomb explosion. And according to Wikipedia, 130 dB aka the threshold of pain is 0.000986923267 atmospheres for sound waves.

This 48-bit stuff is so hi-fi it can reproduce giant explosions without any noise .

[Rotareneg]

Damn, I guess I need to get better speakers then!

[BFG]

I imagine this is yet another case of a technically inept marketing department going unchecked. I'm guessing the technical people at the company are watching from the sidelines, annoyed and powerless.

Sadly this is true for a good majority of marketing strategies, not just this one!

[_if]

I seriously question if there are any departments at all. It all seems to be handled by the same person to me, including the Twitter account. It's just so painfully amateur that I can't imagine there being some department that developed that awful processing, complete with things that should be blatantly obvious not to do to anyone with a basic grasp of digital audio, and then another department tasked with marketing it with only a lazy middle schooler's grasp of English.

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains a lot about a lot of things

Yes, thank you, that's what it's called.