Blu-ray Pure Audio Discs: No Compression, No Compromise. Blu-ray Pure Audio Discs Offer True High-Resolution 24-bit/96kHz Audiophile Sound. Universal Music Group has gone back to the original master tapes to deliver fully uncompressed, high-resolution versions of many of your favorite albums on Blu-ray Pure Audio Disc. Mastered at 24bit/96kHz, Blu-ray Pure Audio Discs deliver the sound the artists originally heard in the studio when these classic albums were recorded. These discs provide all the recorded musical information. While convenient due to their small file size, today’s heavily compressed music files do not represent the true fidelity of the original album. Recordings are transferred from the original master tapes and delivered in high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz audio. No compression is utilized, and the sound quality is vastly superior to MP3 or standard CD. Three separate choices of audio file format for playback: PCM 2.0, Dolby True HD, or DTS-HD Master Audio (5.1 available where noted). Your preferred audio format is chosen either by pressing the “Audio” button on your Blu-ray remote or via your onscreen menu display.
UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. Unlike conventional CDs, UHQCDs are not pressed from polycarbonate, but rather cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. Another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied to protect the softer photopolymer from scratching. The combination results in a significantly reduced reflection of the laser light inside the CD and an unmatched precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with normal CD players. Musically, the result is a sound that is strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.
The discs offered by Universal Japan are also MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) encoded. Anyone who outputs the digital signal from the digital output of their CD player or the previously ripped data stream from their music server to a corresponding MQA-DA converter can generate a 24-bit signal with a sampling frequency of up to 352 kHz from the CD data.
