Nine Inch Nails released a new album today for free. It can be downloaded from http://www.nin.com. I thought it interesting that Trent made available a "high definition WAVE 24/96 (1.2 gb)
better-than-CD-quality 24bit 96kHz audio" version.

It's a torrent that I am getting now, but it is going to take a while. I want to hear it on the Axioms! I'm getting the mp3 version to hold me over in the meantime.

This free download made possible by all the people who've been stealing music for the past 10 years. Sometimes, crime does pay, I guess.

So I'm done downloading the high quality version. 1.42GB for 10 songs. I either need to burn 2-3 CD's to try this on the Axioms, or perhaps a DVD-A? I've never tried to create one of those, so I don't know how these wav files would work with that format.

Maybe I'll just copy them over to the laptop and hook that up to the receiver and play them that way.

If you burn it onto an audio cd, it will defeat the purpose of the high quality data as the audio will be converted to cd quality. Using the laptop's audio out is your best bet, as long as you're sure it can output at 24bit/96kHz.

cool! downloading the ultra high quality version now. I THINK I can stream wav files to my denon over my network... so this should be cool.

I don't know what the output jack of the laptop can output at. It's an HP 6230. Receiver is an Onkyo SR600.

According to this page, your HP can only do up to 16bit/48kHz, so you won't be able to squeeze all the data out of the audio jack.

Went home for lunch and I thought I could get a sneak peak (or listen) to the album. Unfortunately a storm came through and a power surge reset my computer so the download stopped. I think I am perhaps more interested in hearing the quailty of the recording than what is actually recorded.

I verified that the denon can stream WAV files- not sure how to get the songs to your axioms without networking though. I wonder if it will be a problem streaming this over the network too?

For those who own a PS3 that is networked, can you download the music directly to the PS3, and then play it from there (to your Denon 3808ci of course!)?

Rich

What about burning it to a DVD-A? Is this feasible and would it keep the better format?

I'm starting to think I'm not going to have a good way to get this to the Axioms, which will defeat the purpose of the better quality. I can check what my sound card in my desktop. If that can do 24 bit out, perhaps I can get a long cable and run it from the computer to the receiver.

If it is stereo, then you just need a regular DVD-Video which supports 24/96 natively.

Apparently I am not cool enough to listen to the "better than cd" quality version. My computers won't play the files, my network won't stream it to my denon, and even taking a usb drive directly to the denon does not work.

So I can somehow burn these files onto a DVD and play them with my Toshiba HD DVD player?

Aynway if someone can help me out i would really appreciate it.... (I have the flac files but would really like to hear the WAV files)
I guess the only other option is to see if my toshiba A2 or xbox360 will read a DVD file sof some sort with these songs on them...

So just burn it like I would a CD, just onto a DVD instead, and I'm all set? I'll have to see if I can use the DVD burner at the office, as I don't have one. I guess I should have brought the laptop home anyway so I could put the files on their. Didn't really want to run bittorrent at work to DL the files.

I don't know many (if any) DVD players that don't support 96/24 (pretty sure it's part of the original-or-close-to standard). Might require a good (or commercial) DVD burner though. I never tried it myself, but I do own a few DVD-Video (not -Audio) with that resolution and they played in all my players so far.

Just tried one in my HDDVD (A30) and it works fine (shows up at 96khz PCM on receiver)

If you have software that supports DVD-A burning, then you should be able to burn it. A DVD-Video disc needs a certain file structure, so simply burning the file to a DVD won't work.

This software can supposedly do it, and it has a free trial:

http://www.cirlinca.com/download.htm

I just dropped the files into iTunes and they played fine... now, I have no idea if my laptop outputs in this high of a resolution (I doubt it does), but it is at least playing them.

Your iTunes won't play them on any of your computers... maybe you need an iTunes update?

Confirmed this does not work either. The PS3 doesn't support the file format unfortunately. Darn!

FLAC can be played through foobar...it's a pretty simplistic and yet advanced media player. The FLAC and Apple Lossless files are NOT better than CD, they are simply exactly CD quality. They are like zipped versions of wav files with no loss of quality.

Foobar can also play the high quality WAV files. The best way to do it is have a high quality DAC coming out of your computer via USB or SPDIF.

Dan:
I can play the flac files fine (play them streamed over my network to my denon 3808) I also play flacs on my computer with windows media player (needed a bootleg patch to make it work). The download that is better than cd quality is the 24/96 WAVE file- about 1.4 gigs in size versus the 250mb of flac file

Myrison, I think the problem might be my sound cards on my computer? Either that or I need some type of audio codec. Either way- my computer speakers suck so that does me no good.

Anyway, I listened to the flac version for a bit... not sure that I like it anyway. Would be nice to get the high res DL to play but o well...

What type of sound card do you have? And what type of output? Right now I'm using an onboard Realtek. It gives me the option to select the "default format" for my any output (digital/HDMI/speakers) which includes 24/96. I'd be surprised if you didn't have this ability, the Realtek codec on this board is pretty old, I think. Maybe a driver/codec update is needed?

Good find on the NIN! I'm downloading it now, thanks a bunch for bringing this to my attention

WOW! some DEEP Bass on some of these songs...just my m60's going niiiiice. nothing like the feeling of the air pressure in your entire home changing!.. ran it to my receiver via optical at 24/96.

Yeah, but are the songs any good?

not all, but a few of them yes. For the price i have no complaints

I actually reeaaaalllyy like this album. I'm going to get Ghosts now.

I'm still getting used to the new one. It's not bad, but I'm not blown away either.

Ghosts is very different...all insturmental, with some influences not normally heard in NIN music. I like to listen to it, but have to be in the right mood for it, since I don't normally listen to that much continuous music without lyrics.

Anyone who likes the new NIN album might like the Puscifer album. It is a side project with Manard from Tool. It is... different- but ok. One thing that sucks with the puscifer album though is that there is a constant 'static' noise in the background- makes it sound like you are listening on an old turntable or something... not sure if that was on purpose or not.

I finally got this working yesterday. I used DVD-Audio Solo to burn a DVD-A. It worked for the most part. For some reason track two burned as track 1 and 2, but it seems as track 1 it cut off when track 1 would have ended. I got 2 thru 10 on there though.

It sounded good, but I couldn't say if it was any better than normal. I think I would need to listen to this version and the CD version back to back to be able to tell any differences.