Verve Music Group, the jazz label and a division of Universal Music Group, announced a new agreement with HDtracks whereby it will provide consumers with access to many of the world’s chart-topping and seminal jazz recordings in pristine 96kHz/24bit quality sound.

According to the statement, “with HDtracks, Verve continues to bring consumers more choice in how they enjoy music online,” stated Nate Herr, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Verve Music Group. “Along with the digital revolution, sound quality online has suffered. And for jazz fans in particular, this has been an issue. At least until now. Through HDtracks, jazz lovers will now be able to download DVD quality sound, as well as get full artist biographies, album descriptions and reviews, all of which creates an even richer musical experience.”

Transfer of Verve 96K masters was done using a combination of the best new and vintage equipment available. The carefully chosen original analog masters were played back on vintage Studer 820 tape machines. These machines provide the most stable transport for handling these priceless analog tapes. The analog masters were converted to the digital domain using classic DCS 972 and Lavry analog to digital converters and recorded directly onto a SoundBlade Workstation with minimal processing in order to allow the music to be formatted for digital distribution. The shortest signal path and highest quality cabling were used to prevent any signal loss and additional noise from being introduced into the transfer. The entire digital process was driven with the Antelope Audio Atomic Clock, the industry leader in digital clocking technology. It enables the entire digital process to reference the same highly regulated clock master, preventing any loss in the digital signal due to jitter and clock degradation.

For more information visit: www.umusic.com ; www.vervemusicgroup.com ; www.hdtracks.com