Blu-Ray Audio

Stereophile reports:

Universal Music Group (UMG) is currently fulfilling its promise to release hundreds of 24/96 High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-Ray (audio only) titles in 14 countries by the end of 2014. While many of these titles are from its rich back catalog, a few are new. These include, on the pop front, George Michael's Symphonica, and for classical, one of my 2013 R2D4s, Jonas Kaufmann's Wagner.

To fresh your memory, the data on Red Book CDs is limited to a sample rate of 44.1kHz—44,100 samples of data per second—and has a word length of 16 digital bits per sample. This yields a range of 65,536 possible values. UMG's High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-rays, on the other hand, are sampled at 96kHz—96,000 samples of data per second—and have a word length of 24-bits per sample, which yields 16,777,216 possible values. Among the sonic benefits of this increase are richer tonality, truer timbres, increased air and depth, and a greater sense of "you are there" reality. Utilized at their full sonic potential, Blu-rays up CD's dynamic limit of 96 decibels to 144dB. Not that anyone who values their hearing would want to listen to 144dB

They really do sound better than standard CD's.