Does anyone know what is going on with them? For the past week I get this message when I go to the site:

503 Service Unavailable

No server is available to handle this request.

This works for me:  https://www.hraudio.net/home.php

That's a different site. Try this one: highresaudio.com or highresaudio.com/en/genre/Classical/new-releases

I stumbled on this a couple days ago and forgot to post about it. I wonder what’s going on. 

I check it at least once or twice a week looking for new releases, and I haven't seen any messages stating they were closing. I certainly hope they haven't, but even a serious server problem shouldn't take this long to sort out,

On 1/25/2024 at 5:15 PM, 88Keys said:

I check it at least once or twice a week looking for new releases, and I haven't seen any messages stating they were closing. I certainly hope they haven't, but even a serious server problem shouldn't take this long to sort out,

I found a facebook page for them and looks like there's some commentary as to what happened that's publically available--server issues. They said they hoped to be back up 1 Feb. Good to hear as I've had lots of great musical discoveries checking their latest releases and value them highly.

https://www.facebook.com/highresaudio/

deleted

Yes, I found that Facebook page tonight. At least there's a glimmer of hope! It must have been a doozy of a server problem!

I heard yesterday that the current server host is having serious problems. Highresaudio.com is working on alternative solutions and is setting up its own server/storage system in parallel. They hope to be back online in one or two weeks at the latest.

New message at Facebook account translated by deepl:

Quote

Not finished yet. Moving 80TB from the backup to the storage takes a bit of time. If all goes well tomorrow - fingers crossed. Thank you!

2 hours ago, klassikmann said:

New message at Facebook account translated by deepl:

 

Wow.

Signs of life but looks like they still have a ways to go...

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/site/index

Update on Facebook (looks like they'll be adding new releases next week):

https://www.facebook.com/highresaudio/

I'm done with Highresaudio.

When a certain hires album was upsampled they do downsample it by themselfes without clarifying.

They simply state:

"We offer this album in its native sampling rate of XY kHz, 24-bit. The provided version was up-sampled and offers no audible value"

Sounds reasonable at first glance.

But!

I have some albums that are available in 96k and Highresaudio offers them downsampled to 48kHz.

But the respective native sampling rate is clearly 44.1kHz.

So they take the upsampled 96k version and downsample it again to 48k. The resulting version still contains aliasing artefacts and mud around Nyquist.

They also seem to irgnore if the source is quite obvioulsy DSD. For instance the 96k version of Stings album "Sacred Love" shows the typical shaped noise of DSD64. So the provided version was not "up-sampled" but converted from DSD64 to 96k PCM. They offer this album downsampled to 48k PCM and state it's the "native sample rate"

I've asked them two times where they get their so called "native sampling rate" albums from (not available anywhere else) and specifically asked them if they do the downsampling by themselfes. They did not respond.

According to their quality guarantee they should not offer upsampled ablums at all.

OR - alternatively - they should post a clear warning, that the ablum was upsamled. Then I can decide by myself whether or not I am willing to buy it.

But downsampling an already upsampled ablum and selling it as "native sample rate" (which does not apply in some cases) is really a scam.

Of course I could still buy those albums, that are natively hires - but I don't want to support such a store and so they lost me as a customer.