Download "Master Tapes"

Stereophile's News Desk reports as following: "January 27, 2007 — Out of all the audiophile phrases, none stirs the hearts of music lovers like "true to the master tape"—not even "the absolute sound" of the original instruments, which even audio idealists realize is simply too much to demand. But true to the sound of the recorded master tape, now surely that's a goal within reach. "

And furthermore "Linn Records is taking a slightly different approach by offering select titles from its catalog as "Studio Master" 24-bit WMA lossless downloads. The label says the recordings "are what we used to produce the production version of our CD releases." No DRM is attached (yay!). The cost per track is $2.75; whole discs cost $24, no matter how many tracks are involved, which makes the 138 minute Messiah (Dublin version, 1742) by the Dunedin Consort a stone bargain."

I checked Linn Records site, and although cataloque is quite limited, access to "master tapes" is intriguing and shows that audiophiles should not see downloaded music and computer audio categorically evil.

The explanation of Linn Records' download formats is available here, but remember that most streaming media players akin Sonos ZP80 do have compability issues with 24/94 WAV-files.