January 2015

Dazed And Confused About Hi-Res Audio? Here's Help...
Article By Len Schneider, President of TechniCom Corp.
Originally published August 6, 2014 at Strata-gee.com

(PHOTO: Len Schneider)

  Who is this man and what is he doing? Read on… 

Quick: What’s the most misused term in audio next to "subwoofer"?

You, yeah, you in the back there – did you say "hi-res"?

No more calls, folks, we have a winner!

The Recent Past...
Almost lost in the firestorm of publicity about Dolby Atmos, that company’s new surround sound technology, was an announcement by a consortium of industry organizations that purported to de-confuse the world of high-resolution ("hi-res") audio.

Long needed, this effort brought heavy hitters from various segments of our industry and resulted in both a definition of high-resolution audio and four categories of this hi-res universe that would – or so it was intended – guide the music industry and component manufacturers in their efforts to promote this supposedly better way to reproduce music. And, yes, the consumer would get a heads-up of what to expect when considering the purchase of a one of these new "hi-res" sources.

The industry organizations include The Digital Entertainment Group (The DEG), the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the Producers and Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy (the folks who bring you the Grammys), and major record labels such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.

Call In The Consortium...
The definition of "hi-res," took some effort as there was little agreement among these entities at the beginning of the process. And, indeed, the effort was designed more to unify marketing efforts as the consortium recognized at the outset that "hi-res" meant pretty much whatever anyone wanted it to mean.

There is much more to this story. Read the rest of this article at Strata-gee.com by clicking here.

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