Dumb file size question.

I bought this album, Blak and Blu by Gary Clark, Jr.,  for two reasons. First, it is an incredible album. Style all over the place and amazing talent in every one of those places.

Second, the CD has severely depressed DR and the low res streaming version (iTunes and Amazon) sounds okay but not great. The vinyl for this album has exceptional DR but my phono setup is low end. No sense spending money on quality I cannot access. I was surprised to see that the download version has decent DR. Not as good as the vinyl but close. This is unusual since the DR on most new music is similar on the CD and the download.

I had a 15% discount at HD Tracks so I bought it for around $16.

It sounds good. But at $20 without the discount and 1.2 GB in size I will probably not be buying much from HD Tracks except when they are the only option (for me) for a quality recording that I really like.

@lowrider57  Agree, but many hi res download files have similar DR compression to the CD so you can't just assume the hi-res file has been engineered differently. In the case of this album it clearly has though.

I think there are bar code and catalog numbers that coincide with the CD but I have not confirmed that.

As much as I hate that CDs are being engineered this way and as much as I hate buying what, to me, seems, like a bloated file at a bloated price......at least with this album there is a digital option with decent engineering.

You are right. And I’ve already done it. I’ve got about 60 of my 150 or CDs on the hard drive of an old iMac via iTunes running into a Schiit Modi 2 Uber DAC via USB cable.

A very modest setup no doubt. But very convenient. Apple Remote works very well from my cell phone.

SQ? Well, not that bad really. When my Arcam CD92 was fully functional I felt like played CDs were a bit brighter through the CDP. My wife agreed but actually liked the warmer less strident SQ from the ripped CDs.

Now that the DAC in the Arcam is dead I’m using it as a transport running through the Schiit and there is very little difference in SQ between a played CD and the ripped CDs.

This suggests to me that a better DAC will yield some SQ improvement. I’m watching Bifrosts on eBay.

But to be completely honest, when I’m listening to a well produced high quality ripped CD through the DAC I don’t feel like anything is necessarily lacking.

Definitely not inclined to fill up my hard drive with massive HD Tracks files whenever I can get a used $6 CD that sounds just as good, ripped or played.

Have also been studying the BlueSound Vault 2i. Seems like a one component solution. But that's $1200. My current set up set me back $110.

I use ALAC.