Lossless Songs from HMV

shailenderb

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HMV on its site, Saregama, is now allowing download of its songs in lossless quality at Rs. 50 per song (irrespective of length). MP3 versions are available for Rs. 9 each.

I think all language songs from their labels are available for download at these rates.

Buying 20 or more songs will get you 50% discount on your invoice amount. 30% on 10 songs and 10% on 5 songs. In effect, you can get some 20 songs at Rs. 25 each (after discount).

Regds
 
Have you confirmed the file format?

I think lossless in their parlance is 320 MP3s...not wav or flac that you may expect...

besides 50 bucks is way to expensive
 
From what source are they offering the lossless format. That's important to know. If the source itself is compressed then it's a non starter
 
Way back I used to order CDs from HamaraCD web portal (affiliated to HMV SaReGaMa). The condition varied from album to album.

Some of my friends were telling these songs have been up scaled from mp3 to wav for CDs. If that is the case for lossless format then this does not make sense.

Recenly I bought Sansani OST in mp3 format. The condition was excellent.

regards,
Sourav
 
Have you confirmed the file format?

I think lossless in their parlance is 320 MP3s...not wav or flac that you may expect...

besides 50 bucks is way to expensive

Agree 50 per song is too expensive, but most of them sound better than they do on older CDs. Not yet tried downloading. In the process of adding songs to the cart. Shall keep you informed once I buy them and download.

Regds
 
Way back I used to order CDs from HamaraCD web portal (affiliated to HMV SaReGaMa). The condition varied from album to album.

Some of my friends were telling these songs have been up scaled from mp3 to wav for CDs. If that is the case for lossless format then this does not make sense.

Recenly I bought Sansani OST in mp3 format. The condition was excellent.

regards,
Sourav

That's true...I had got one CD from them some time back. I ripped it into FLAC and took its spectrogram...there was a sharp cutoff at 16khz...the CD was transcoded from 128 MP3!

Agree 50 per song is too expensive, but most of them sound better than they do on older CDs. Not yet tried downloading. In the process of adding songs to the cart. Shall keep you informed once I buy them and download.

Regds

Thanks...let us know your experience...
 
All lossless files are in Wav format but still 50 Rs is too high when you could get the CD for itself 100 or 125.

But still I got tempted, I download a old Tamil song of 80s and when I compared it with my iTunes download, the sound quality is so good, I was further encoraged to go for some selected 10 songs (30% discount on 500 Rs). And now I was stunned by the sound quality :sad:which was,except only one song, soo bad to say it is a lossless:mad:. Now my expectation from saregama Sara chlagaya. No more lossless format from their site.

Reds
 
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Finally bought 20 nos at Rs. 500 (50% discount for 20 or more nos). The files are in wav format. Audio quality is better than their CDs. I am interested only in old Hindi songs and all my downloads are old songs. Just completed downloading all the 5 songs from Mrig Trishna and I am happy with SQ. Long ago I had an LP 45 of this album, which I failed to rip before discarding. Hence this purchase.

Will be downloading the rest tonight.

Regds
 
I also did a 20 song purchase taking the 50% discount, mostly old Malayalam songs in WAV format. I definitely noticed some kind of "digital remastering" artifacts for most of the songs. Even my dad who is more used to these songs in their original format from LPs said that most of them sound too artificial.

I was so happy to see the WAV version, but disappointed by the "digital remastering".

On a positive note, you might be able to find some old songs that are not available elsewhere.

May not buy again.

-John.
 
Hi

Was motivated by this thread to click my way to their site and look for some old favorites and may be buy them

The tracks I streamed (Kishore, Lata etc) and heard, took me right back to my childhood.

They sounded exactly like they used to in my memory.

Sadly that memory involves a valve radio. Or a barber's shop. I could even smell the old shaving water without closing my eyes.

I love the songs and would like to listen to them in decent quality. But no way I am buying them from this site.

ciao
gr
 
Any idea why the recording quality of earlier era sucks?
Lack of multi track recording?
But then live music can be wonderfully captured and recorded.
 
My last (and first) purchase too, from Saregama. Rest of the songs are of very very ordinary recording quality. Not worth the price. But at least the curiosity factor is killed.

Regds
 
I ordered my set of 20 too...yet to download and check...most of the songs are the ones I had bought as a CD from them many years ago. Will be interesting to compare how these wavs sound compared to them.
 
Actually, they try better when you try them online (90 sec clips) than they do when you download and play them on your desktop or a stereo system. Any specific technical reason?

Regds
 

That which you have highlighted is a different issue.
I am talking in general. Compare Indian recordings with say Beatles or Pink Floyd.
Same era.

Listen to the instruments, the clarity, the quality.
These will deteriorate only slightly when encoded into mp3.
However, it looks as if the bollywood music of earlier era simply misses the >10 kHz and <100 Hz spectrum altogether.
how should I describe it? It sounds "blurred".
 
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However, it looks as if the bollywood music of earlier era simply misses the >10 kHz and <100 Hz spectrum altogether.
how should I describe it? It sounds "blurred".

Maybe some of the Bollywood vinyl guys should pitch in.
 
First of all Indian classical songs were in stereo avatar and vinyls released in stereo from late 60s. The OSTs were mostly in mono till the time Sholay released.

We have had a discussion in other thread that why the producer/directors refrained themselves from stereo recording. Some pointers were on the mono movie track. As an example for the movie The Great Gambler, Producer/Director Shakti Samanta did the entire shoot in Europe. But the recording is pathetic mono in late 70s. Hence it's not a matter of fact of funding issues or equipment.

But the vinyls physically sound excellent in comparison to it's digital avatar or Made in UK ACDs. I doubt the digital transfer were done from the original spool or master tape. As we all know there were disastrous fire in HMV studio and water logging in 1978/79 in HMV warehouse.

Please remember the live recording we listen to were mostly in Royal Albert Hall or US. EMI Abbey Road crews were duly credited on records. Inference is the good recording.

So what we listen at portal is the lossy conversion or improved gain with distortion in loss less avatar. This is waste in terms of money. I admit there are few good CD recordings like Alibaba Aur 40 Chor, The Burning Train, Harjaee, Sitamgar to name a few.

Vinyls also sound great in my humble set up. But the western recording is way forward the Hindi OSTs recording in that era.

My 2 cents based on my limited understanding of Hindi OSTs

Thanks,
Sourav
 
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