1999 is the seminal masterpiece by Prince. It is his first to reach the Billboard Top Ten and was one of the bestselling albums of 1983. The outing features the breakthrough hits “1999,” “Delirious” and “Little Red Corvette.” The multi-instrumentalist incorporates thrilling synthesizers to produce one of his most innovative works to date. VH1, Slant Magazine, and Rolling Stone named 1999 one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2008, the album was inducted into the GRAMMY® Hall of Fame.

https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=artistdetail&id=10774

that cassette hooked me as a forever diehard fan especially hearing jill making all those NOISES on lady cab driver in the backseat at 3 yrs old....blew my mind......

Silly old man here

...asking whats HD and does it improve the album overall..

and is it a step towards desired re-masters...

or if it has been Oked with Paisley park?

jfrost said:

Silly old man here

...asking whats HD and does it improve the album overall..

and is it a step towards desired re-masters...

or if it has been Oked with Paisley park?

Also...why would I want to do this if I already own vinyl (which I can rip) and CD?

HDtracks is largely a joke. A sizable portion of their popular rock/pop catalog are simply upscaled transfers of dynamically squashed remasters from years prior. As for the rest, they can readily be obtained on CD elsewhere for about half the price.

Besides, the audiophile claim that high-resolution 2-channel audio (read: greater resolution than 44.1kHz/16bit) is in any way audibly superior to a normal redbook CD always faulters in double-blind testing.

comperic2003 said:

HDtracks is largely a joke. A sizable portion of their popular rock/pop catalog are simply upscaled transfers of dynamically squashed remasters from years prior. As for the rest, they can readily be obtained on CD elsewhere for about half the price.

Besides, the audiophile claim that high-resolution 2-channel audio (read: greater resolution than 44.1kHz/16bit) is in any way audibly superior to a normal redbook CD always faulters in double-blind testing.

A portion of it is upscaled yes and those suck but its not as large as you claim, a very good portion of hdtracks contains masterings that are UNIQUE to HDtracks and its the MASTERING that makes it better than most cds not just the higher resolution (which usually only makes a difference on high end systems). Be aware that almost any mastering in big label music that was done past 1995 is bound to sound terrible in most cases, its also continueing to get worse, the vast majority of artists that get remasters have the sound of their catalog destroyed with many examples being Queen, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Van Halen, Steely Dan, Elton John, AC/DC and many more. The masterings that can be obtained "on CD elsewhere for about half the price" usually refers to masterings that were taken from DVD Audios and SACDs and for most of them you would have to pay twice the price to get them plus you would have to own a special player to use them.

That being said its best to do research before you buy something on HDtracks because there is a chance it sounds just as crappy as the regular product (David Bowie's new album is a good example of this). But the reason its a big deal to have 1999 on HDtracks is because of the possibiliy of a new mastering done from the source tapes because the current CD mastering SUCKS and sounds like it was done from a used cassete. So has anyone listened to the new mastering

[Edited 3/26/13 14:14pm]

Just looked and it's not on there

Its there for me

One can hope this is finally a sign that Prince will allow Rhino to release a deluxe version with B-sides, outtakes, live cuts, etc along with a booklet with rare pictures, the works.

Found it on this link

https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HX603497923762

The samples sound like the 180gram vinyl remaster. The compression to my ears is noteable on the drums

[Edited 3/26/13 14:33pm]

If anyone can confirm that this is better than the regular CD I'll 100% be buying. The samples don't appear to be working for me on the site .

Please see this thread:

http://prince.org/msg/7/395226