OraStream Interview

Audiophile Style

An interview with Frankie Tan and Kelvin Lee of OraStream.

Based in Singapore, OraStream offers both behind the scenes technology and services to music streaming companies such as the Neil Young Archives, Naxos, and Primephonic, and it offers a direct to consumer application and service called Brio.

If there is one technology that should be embraced by all the music streaming services, it’s Orastream’s MPEG-4 SLS offering. It’s a solution to real problems, that requires no special hardware or decoder, and leaves the audio signal 100% unaffected for those streaming with a good network connection.

As you’ll hear, The OraStream Service is an end-to-end audio delivery platform. It works with full resolution audio recordings to deliver the highest quality of streaming audio on web, desktop, and mobile music players. The Audio adapts automatically to network bandwidth fluctuations for uninterrupted playback on cellular Wi-Fi, or wired networks. When bandwidth allows, music plays at full bit-perfect resolution. When bandwidth degrades, music plays at less than full resolution audio quality. The process of network-based, audio quality adaptability is dynamic and transparent to the music listener.

Both Frankie and Kelvin have a wealth of education and experience, and knowledge about streaming audio and the technologies surrounding it. Listeners on the geekier side will enjoy their technical descriptions of how OraStream works, but those a bit less tech savvy will equally appreciate how they explain the clear benefits to consumers.

For example, it’s fascinating to hear Frankie describe how Amazon Music HD works by slipping lower resolution audio into the middle of a high resolution track, and this being the reason Amazon can’t offer exclusive mode in its applications.