Seperate 32 and 16 bit quality releases on streaming services with different barcodes

MusicBrainz Style
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1

For releases earlier than about this year, secondary releases seem to be being made on streaming services for the high resolution lossless versions (48kz 32bit interleaved) that are only released on Tidal/Apple Music and the normal lossless versions (44.1bit 16bit interleaved) which are released everywhere. These releases have different barcodes. I’ve observed this on bultiple different artists, so it seems to be a common pattern. Example:

The duplication seems to be continuing for new releses in these formats, although the all-services barcode seems to be high res for 2025. Example:

Questions:

  • Should the releases be different (I think yes, because they’re different barcodes)?
  • should the recordings be different or merged?

(this seems to make a matrix of 16bit/32bit/Atmos to clean/explicit that often results in six different releases and barcodes for one release group in streaming services, which is fun :pleading_face:)

2

Different barcodes = different release.

Same barcodes = same release as long as the artwork and labels are the same even if they are different bit rate. Recordings are the same as Musicbrainz doesn’t separate recordings when only the mastering is different. Only if the mix is. There was a time when many editors did create different releases even if the barcode was the same. So, this is why you will sometimes see them in release groups. You can merge them if you are sure they are the same with the exception of bit rate.

See - Style / Release - MusicBrainz

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