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On Monday January 5, Naxos rings in the New Year with the worldwide launch of their ClassicsOnline HD•LLclassical music streaming and download site. ClassicsOnline HD•LL streams music in both "high-definition"—Naxos' term for high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/192kHz sampling rate—and full CD quality (lossless, or, in Naxos' lingo, LL). The site also sells high-def, lossless, and MP3 downloads in FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, and 320kbps MP3 formats.

At the October 2019 Audio Engineering Society convention in New York, Yuki Fukuda and Shunsuke Ishimitsu, both of Hiroshima City University, presented results that show quite clearly that listeners can distinguish sounds encoded and reproduced at different sampling frequencies. Their trials differed from the previous ones in one important way: Instead of exposing test subjects to music at different resolutions, they used test tones.

Following Apple">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11396/">Apple Computer's lead in bringing high-resolution audio to the computing environment, Creative">http://www.soundblaster.com">Creative Technology announced last week several audio products intended to facilitate DVD-Audio playback via personal computer. The company is also offering suggestions for making a PC quiet enough for use in a dedictated listening system.

Last week we reported Dolby's announcementhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/092704mlp/">announcement; that varying versions of their audio technologies have been selected as "mandatory formats" for HD">http://www.dvdforum.org">HD DVD and Blu-rayhttp://www.blu-raydisc.com">Blu-ray;. Significant for audiophiles is that MLP and high-resolution PCM audio will be available both as two-channel and surround formats on HD DVD.

As some readers may suspect, more music is heard in the automobile than in the home. Taking a clue from this trend, many high-end audio companies are finding their way into your car, and factory installed systems are getting better and better. Examples include the Mark Levinson audio system found in cars from Lexus, the debut of Lexicon's L7 surround system in a BMW at the 2002 CES, Linn's partnership">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11285/">partnership with Aston Martin, Harman's partnership with Mercedes Benz, and the Dynaudio/Dolby Surround systems found in several of Volvo's cars.

That, somehow, the "absolute sound" of live music is locked up within the grooves or pits of the discs we play and can be retrieved in its entirety if only we had a a good enough playback system is one of the enduring myths in high-end audio. Yet the art of recording is just that, an art, and it is entirely possible that a better playback system will sound worse with some recordings. And with the mainstream press telling would-be audiophiles that low–bit-rate MP3s are of "CD quality" and that even CD is overkill for audiophile sound quality, why would anyone need high-resolution recordings?

Many audiophiles eager to try their new high-resolution disc players have been disappointed to discover skimpy offerings of Super Audio CDs and DVD-A recordings at their local music marts. Fortunately, several online sources stock such discs, and are constantly updating their inventories.