We all love music. And everyone has their own style in music. But in order to really enjoy it, we need a good music player, so we can listen to high-quality music. Not only a good player, but also high-quality headphones or speakers that will be able to play the high-quality music that we so love.
As a kid I used to listen to music on my Walkman. An Aiwa Walkman that my father got me when he visited America, a Walkman that had an internal speaker in addition to headphones. Something that if you could find in Israel of the 90s, you probably had to take out a mortgage to buy… Later on, I got my first Discman at my bar mitzvah. A Sony Discman that cost more than 1,000 shekels, which was considered very pricey back then.
A few years later, with the rise of the Internet, new gadget emerged – the MP3 player. The Rio company was the first to present its MP3 player, which was the coolest gadget around back in 1999. You could barely load 20 songs on it, but it was compact, cool, and you could shake it as much as you wanted and the songs still played (as opposed to the Discman that was very sensitive to vibrations). I got my Rio MP3 player when my friend from college went to visit his parents in New York, and brought me back a Rio MP3 player which he bought in the J&R Music store. In 2021, Apple released its own music player, the iPod, and the rest is history.
Since then, compact MP3 music players have become the standard in playing music, and today there are many of them available in almost any Best Buy or Walmart store out there.
But many people don’t know that MP3 is actually not considered high-quality music. It’s a format which was invented back in the days when bottleneck was an issue and band pass was not really available. The MP3 format actually compresses the file by cutting the high frequencies that our ear is not so sensitive to. MP3 uses what is called lossy compression to encode data. The advantage of it is relatively small files. Back in the days with limited bandpass and limited memory on music players, it was a big advantage. But the main disadvantage of MP3 is low sound quality. In order to have really high quality sound – sound which includes all the frequencies – we need a much bigger file. And for this, we have the lossless files, which essentially are files that contain all the information without any compression.
There are few formats of lossless files. Most popular are FLAC, ALAC, and uncompressed WAV. The general term for it is HiFi Music, which stands for High Fidelity (HiFi) Sound. Or also hi-res audio. HiFi files literally bring the music as it sounds in the studio. The file size in these formats is very big because there’s no compression. But the quality is very high.
So now let’s get to the bottom line: How do we get these files, how do we play them, and most importantly, where can we find and buy Jewish music in these formats?
In order to listen to hi-res music, we need a special music player which can play these files. These players are relatively expensive, but they are worth the price. There are a few brands which offer hi-res music players, but I’d say the most known and popular are Astell & Kern and Sony. My own music player is Astell & Kern and it’s pretty good. Their players start at around $600 and can run to a few thousands. Sony players are more pricey and can cost a few thousand dollars. There are some smaller and less known brands that also sell hi-res players. But if you want a good player I’d recommend either Astell & Kern or Sony.
A dedicated hi-res player is not enough – you also need headphones which are able to play hi-res music. In order to enjoy the lossless formats, you need headphones which are able to play this range of frequencies. Obviously, these headphones are more expensive than regular headphones. When you look to buy headphones for your hi-res player, you need to make sure they support hi-res lossless audio. Such headphones usually start at around $100-150 and can go up to $5,000 and even more.
Hi-res lossless audio cannot play through Bluetooth because of the size of the files. If you listen to hi-res lossless audio through Bluetooth, you’ll not experience the quality of hi-res lossless audio.
Where can we buy hi-res music? There are few stores online which sell hi-res music. One of my favorites is Qobuz (https://www.qobuz.com), which surprisingly has a nice range of Jewish and also Israeli music. Not all the songs are considered hi-res. In order for a file to be consider edhi-res, it should be at least 24 bit and 44.1 KHz. That is pretty much the entry level. A really good quality will be 192 KHz and higher. A song which is in hi-res will have the Hi-Res Audio icon next to it. Not all the songs in Qobuz are in hi-res format, and many of them are just in regular CD-quality, which is lower quality than hi-res lossless audio. The reason is that many artists just do not offer songs in hi-res lossless audio.
Other online stores are https://www.hdtracks.com and https://uk.7digital.com, but I find their selection of Jewish music relatively small. I mostly shop at Qobuz.
To be honest, I’d be very happy if Jewish stores, such as MostlyMusic.com for example, would take up the mantle and start offering hi-fi music in their online stores. The same goes for the artists who sell music directly on their websites. Right now it seems that they only offer music in mp3 format.
There’s also a way to find hi-res lossless audio on iTunes, but it’s not straightforward and a little tricky – you’ll have to Google it. It’s better to look in stores which specialize in hi-res lossless audio like Qobuz.
I was able to find and purchase some hi-res lossless audio of Avraham Fried, Mordechai Ben David, Isaac Honig, etc. on Qobuz. But most of their albums and songs on Qobuz are CD-quality. MBD, Shwekey, Lipa Schmeltzer, and Benny Friedman also have some hi-res lossless audio to buy in Qobuz. Most of it is in 24-bit/44.1 KHz, which is the minimum for hi-res, but it’s a good start.
You might be asking, “Why to purchase music if everything is on YouTube?” I have few answers:
Quality. The music on YouTube is compressed. YouTube does not offer lossless music. YouTube is good to try new songs in order to decide if you like the album/singer. However, if you decide that you like the music and you really want to enjoy the album in high quality, I’d recommend purchasing the song/album in lossless format.
Availability. We do not always stay in a place with available internet. Considering that often people like to listen to their favorite music while traveling, flying, on vacation, etc., it’s convenient that when you have it on your music player you don’t need the Internet. You just plug in the headphones and start listening.
But there’s another reason. And perhaps it’s the most important reason. Music is not just generated randomly. There’s an artist behind the music. And the artist invests time and money in order to generate music. Music is an expensive business. And at the end of the day, the artist also needs to make a living. Now, I’m sure no one wants to listen to music that sounds like it was recorded in the garage by a bored teenager… When shopping for music we want high-quality products. Polished, completed, and sounding professional. This costs money.
When we listen to music, we want music that was created by someone for whom music is his profession. Someone for whom this is what he does the whole day. Not as a side business. And again, producing music is expensive. So not for the artists, but for ourselves – if we want to keep getting the music we like from an artist, we need to do our part and purchase his music. By purchasing music, you not only support the artist, you also benefit yourself by ensuring the artist will keep working for you and continue to generate the music you love.
Now that you have the basics, you can continue your research in Google and start enjoying hi-res lossless audio.
