New York — Wireless carrier Sprint is teaming up with HDtracks, the high-resolution music-download service, to offer a free music sampler to Sprint subscribers who own the LG G2 smartphone or the new Sprint-exclusive HTC One (M8) Harman Kardon edition.
Both smartphones store and play back music files encoded in the lossless FLAC format with up to 192kHz/24-bit resolution. HDtracks supports FLAC and other file formats up to 192/24.
The free sampler consists of classic and contemporary music selected by HDtracks. The songs include “Truckin’” by The Grateful Dead, “Queenie Eye” by Paul McCartney, “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye, “Trouble’s Lament” by Tori Amos, “Gimme Three Steps” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Always with Me, Always with You” by Joe Satriani, “A House Is A Home” by Ben and Ellen Harper, and “St. Thomas” by Sonny Rollins.
To access the sampler, users download the songs to a computer, plug a phone’s USB cable to the PC, and drag-and-drop the songs onto the phone. The sampler can also be played back on any device that supports 24-bit FLAC, including PCs and select Sprint accessories.
Titles from HDtracks are created from studio masters “so every recording sounds like the artist and engineers intended,” HDtracks said.
The LG G2, launched last year, plays back high-resolution WAV and FLAC files with up to 192kHz/24-bit resolution. Audio can also be recorded in resolutions up to 192/24 when the phone is capturing videos.
The G2’s successor, the G3, is due this summer in the U.S. and will also record and play back 192kHz/24-bit WAV and FLAC files, the company told TWICE.
The HTC One (M8) Harman Kardon edition, unveiled in April, is HTC’s first phone with high-resolution audio playback, enabling native decoding of 192kHz/24-bit FLAC files. The phone also supports CD-quality WAV files and multiple music formats from MP3 to AAC+ and Ogg Vorbis.
HDtracks.com was founded in 2008 by three-time Grammy nominee, record producer and musician David Chesky and his brother Norman. Their site offers music from every major label and hundreds of independents. The company said it was the first download service to convince the major music labels that a viable market existed for high-resolution audio.
The Chesky brothers have produced more than 500 albums and operate Chesky Records, an audiophile label that created the first 24-bit/96kHz recordings, the company said.
