Is HDtracks really selling you Hi-Rez music?

I sent a first e-mail to HDtracks about a week ago to complain about the quality of the Santana album without any reply. I have sent them a second e-mail requesting an answer on my first e-mail. Got a reply asking to send them back my first question....

So their official answer is that HDtracks is just a reseller, they do not remaster any records and perform no over sampling.

They offered no excuses, no credit on future purchases, etc. They take absolutely no responsibility in the quality of the product they sell. This is so ironic for a company that bases all of its advertising on improving the audio quality of Red Book CDs when selling you their supposedly hi-Rez version.

I did send a follow-up e-mail asking for a refund which HDtracks has accepted. So this is the end of the story, but I would have preferred that they offer me a refund on the first occasion.

Onhy61,

You bring up a good point that requires clarification. The uploaded file is really a 176kHz/24 bit format. The problem is that there are no difference in audio quality between it and the Santana Abraxas 1998 remastered 44kHz 16 bit CD version. I really was expecting to get a copy of the master recording of Abraxas. To me, it sounded like I purchased the CD version again, it was that bad!

I have purchased a few good 176kHz/24 bit hi-rez titles at HDT (Kenny Burrell's 'Midnigth Blue',Chesky Record 'The World's Greatest Audiophile Vocal Recordings', Milton Cardonia's 'Cambucha') that really sound fabulous.

I have also purchased hi-rez 176kHz/24 bit albums that were really disappointing like Rush 'Clockwork Angels', Bloom's 'The Hours', Deftones 'Koy No Yokan'. So my batting average is about .500 on HDT hi-rez titles.

So my whole point here is when you advertise a product on the base of improved audio quality, at that your customer segment is the audiophile community, it is truly disapointing to receive such a lame excuse that HDT is not responsible for audio quality of the product it sells, just because it does not process/manipulate in any way the product being purchased. If so, they should put a disclaimer that goes like this:

'We resell audio files purchased from recording labels for which we cannot guarranty the master recording quality they used during the hi-rez file construction. There is no implicit warranty on the audio quality of any album downloaded from HDT, but you may get lucky once in a while.'

If you are a product reseller, you have the responsibility to support the claims of your product advertising strategy. Why would you sell a 88kHz/24 bit and 176kHz/24 bit version of an album when there are NO audio improvement at all?

This brings a question of how HDT performs its quality control on data files they purchase from the major label record companies. IMHO they should verify if there is any audio quality improvements between the latest CD version of the 'classic' album available (typically a remastered version)and decide if the audio quality improvement justifies the release of a hi-rez version.

I can assure you that HDT has privileged sales/profit arguments over the quality of the product when releasing Santana Abraxas hi-rez versions. Truly disappointing. I hope they get the stick from music reviewers in audiophile magazines.