Famed turntable brand Technics plans to launch a high-resolution music download service. For what it’s worth, the service, unlike Neil Young’s high-res service Pono, will not hit the states. Starting in January, the platform will spin (get it?) 24-bit tracks to users in UK and Germany.
Called Technics Tracks, it’s said to be launching with tens of thousands of tracks encoded in 24-bit FLAC. This isn’t your grandfather’s iTunes. The high-resolution file format doesn’t compress the files in the same way as a traditional music format like MP3 resulting in a better sound quality as long as the song is played through equipment that can take advantage of the larger files.
Neil Young recently launched a similar service that also offers high-resolution audio downloads. Called Pono, the service complements Young’sPonoPlayer, a portable FLAC player.
MusicWeek reports that Technics Tracks was built by 7digital.
The last Technics-branded turntable may have rolled off the lines in 2010, but Panasonic announced in September 2014 that it would revive the brand. This is clearly part of the larger picture.