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HDCD cd's


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@Mayfair Boy what took so long for someone to mention all the DEAD albums done in HDCD? I think Jerry had a hand in someway in developing it at Pacific whatever Co. who invented HDCD-then I think Microsoft bought them out and killed it.

I have all of them and a Harmon-Kardon HDCD  5 disc changer to play them on- what does anyone think is the best way to use the HDCD changer— analog out to an amp or toslink out to amp or a DAC(if through the DAC probably defeats purpose of HDCD DAC on the changer-correct?) I do it all 3  ways and can’t really sense a DECERNABLE  difference. That ancient H-K HDCD changer still lights up for HDCD and the drawer still opens easily etc-never needed to refirbish it.

BTY I also have I think one of the very first HDCD discs DALLAS some classical pieces by symphony from Texas and Dick Hyman doing I think Ellington  can’t remember exactly will have to dig them out from my dust bag bins of(CD SACD DVD-A) history.

Several of you mentioned NeilYoung’s HDCD  not playing or playing poorly the only SACD(NOT HDCD) that never played for me was one of his ??HARVEST again will have to go dig that out from one of those bins.

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  • 2 weeks later...
6 hours ago, ArveS said:

I just want to inform you that I have had my HP laptop into service at retailer. They conclude that the optical disk in the HP laptop  HP15BW021N0 are not able to read audio  compact discs coded in HDCD format. 

On 2/2/2021 at 1:51 PM, rando said:

a) Your optical drive is either incapable of reading disc, has a bad driver, or is itself faulty.

b) Sign of a bad PSU

c) ???

 

 

Option A it was.  Had a hunch parts number would reveal that.  Mysteries like this can be maddening.  Glad you found some resolution. 

 

If you like I can point you in the right direction to find all other HP drives suggested as working in that laptop.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Better yet is using an external (USB) optical drive with good vibration dampening. 

 

No internal laptop drive is going to provide the same level of quality and noise reduction as a good external one.  Which is a different topic than investigating odd behaviors.    

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On 11/23/2020 at 9:52 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Here's my take on HDCD physical CDs. Rip them as bit perfect copies of the original and call it a day. Any ripping program can handle this. If you have HDCD hardware, then it will decode the HDCD of the bit perfect rip. If not, enjoy the CD as regular CD.

 

Sorry to be dense, but I understand the first part (ripping), but not the second. What constitutes "HDCD hardware....that can decode the bit-perfect rip"?

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Just now, Temporal_Dissident said:

 

Sorry to be dense, but I understand the first part (ripping), but not the second. What constitutes "HDCD hardware....that can decode the bit-perfect rip"?

HDCD was invented by Pacific Microsonics and required a chip to decode properly. Berkeley Audio Design DACs can decode HDCD but not much else can these days. Not a real big deal because almost noting is encoded as HDCD anymore. 

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OK, but are talking about a DAC decoding the HDCD spinning in a CD transport? Or a DAC decoding the bit-perfect rip, stored on a drive? If the latter, I guess I am surprised that ripping to .wav would not "get around" the need for a special DAC.

Roon > dCS Bartok > Parasound JC 2BP > Parasound JC 5 > Wilson Yvette


Technics SL-1200G & Bluesound Node > Luxman L-590axII > OJAS Bookshelf w/ Tweeter Horn Mod

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Just now, Temporal_Dissident said:

OK, but are talking about a DAC decoding the HDCD spinning in a CD transport? Or a DAC decoding the bit-perfect rip, stored on a drive? If the latter, I guess I am surprised that ripping to .wav would not "get around" the need for a special DAC.

Ripping the disc to any lossless format such as WAV, FLAC, AIFF, etc...

 

The special DAC part is because something needs to decode the encoded part. Ripping bit perfectly, just rips the encoded data. 

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4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ripping the disc to any lossless format such as WAV, FLAC, AIFF, etc...

 

The special DAC part is because something needs to decode the encoded part. Ripping bit perfectly, just rips the encoded data. 

Gotcha. OK, last question. What if we forget ripping for a moment and just play our HDCD like a Neanderthal? Will any CD player be able to decode the full information? What about a CD transport > dCS Bartok? As a previous poster noted, there is a lot of Grateful Dead in HDCD. I have a stack of 'em. 

Roon > dCS Bartok > Parasound JC 2BP > Parasound JC 5 > Wilson Yvette


Technics SL-1200G & Bluesound Node > Luxman L-590axII > OJAS Bookshelf w/ Tweeter Horn Mod

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4 minutes ago, Temporal_Dissident said:

Gotcha. OK, last question. What if we forget ripping for a moment and just play our HDCD like a Neanderthal? Will any CD player be able to decode the full information? What about a CD transport > dCS Bartok? As a previous poster noted, there is a lot of Grateful Dead in HDCD. I have a stack of 'em. 

You can only play the regular CD content of the HDCD without an HDCD DAC. 
 

The big thing about the HDCD releases is that they were created using a Pacific Microsonics Model 1 or Model 2 ADC. Those are magical. You will get most of the goodness just because of that. 

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I have tried to rip my HDCD as lossles Wav file. When playback via streaming the sound is still distorted, as they also are if I play the HDCD cd's directly from my  laptop. In PBPoweramp I also get information after the hdcd cd is read, that it is not in Accuratezip database.

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20 years ago, prior to the growth of streaming and separate DACs, HDCD cd players were not unusual.  I had a Linn Genki  that had the HDCD decoding (I did not purchase for that reason...I knew nothing about it until it lit up on the player display) and the few cd's I had with HDCD sounded great...wholistically over most of my other cds.  I did not have the same mastering on a non-HDCD cd so no way to compare, but those few cds sounded great.

 

Edit: I just now remembered looking for, and finding, the list of cds that had HDCD encoding.  I seem to recall only a few hundred or so (at the time...~2000).

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4 minutes ago, ArveS said:

I have tried to rip my HDCD as lossles Wav file. When playback via streaming the sound is still distorted, as they also are if I play the HDCD cd's directly from my  laptop. In PBPoweramp I also get information after the hdcd cd is read, that it is not in Accuratezip database.

JRiver can playback HDCD.  I will see if my version has that capability and see if something lights ups when I play one of my rips.  I think my Widespread Panic cd is HDCD encoded.

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What I don't understand is that:

 

1) If the cd player or dvdrw disc/software are not equipped with hdcd detection/encoding then, a hdcd cd should still play back like a normal cd. Is this correct?

 

2) If the hdcd  cd is recognized as such the rip software will display or log this information. (this does not occur)

 

This gives me the impression that a distorted output should not occur under any circumstances. 

 

Why then is it only hdcd cd's that sounds distorted when played back on my laptop ?( but still play smoothless in my cd player in my stereo )  :) 

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Just now, ArveS said:

1) If the cd player or dvdrw disc/software are not equipped with hdcd detection/encoding then, a hdcd cd should still play back like a normal cd. Is this correct?

 

Correct

 

 

 

 

Just now, ArveS said:

2) If the hdcd  cd is recognized as such the rip software will display or log this information. (this does not occur)

 

Depends on the ripping software. 

 

 

 

 

Just now, ArveS said:

This gives me the impression that a distorted output should not occur under any circumstances.

 

 

Correct. I'm a huge fan of HDCD and have never experienced this issue. 

 

 

 

 

Just now, ArveS said:

Why then is it only hdcd cd's that sounds distorted when played back on my laptop ?( but still play smoothless in my cd player in my stereo )  :) 

 

 

Very good question.

 

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2 hours ago, ArveS said:

Why then is it only hdcd cd's that sounds distorted when played back on my laptop ?( but still play smoothless in my cd player in my stereo )  :)

The DVD drive in your laptop must be the issue.  There must be something “flaky” going on with that unit, or that model.  My non-HDCD CD transport plays them fine to either the McIntosh D150 or the dCS.  I guess I’ve never tried my laptop drives.  I do know that my OWC USB blu-Ray drive sees them fine and DBPoweramp can rip direct as 44/16, or rip them and, doing whatever it does with DSP HDCD selected, decode them to 44/24.  Literally hundreds and hundreds of Grateful Dead and others.  There even a couple Joni Mitchell CDs that were at least available in HDCD. I think Blue...

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The last decade or so, people have been struggling with the fact that there are a number of HDCD albums out there: maybe not that many, but still some interesting ones. Chris Isaak, Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Keb Mo, Lucinda Williams, Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, and Eric Clapton are some of the artists that have got some CDs produced and published as HDCDs.

I have come to the conclusion that there is probably no method that will rip the HDCD files to something that will uniformly behave in the way you want and at the same time not distort the other thousands of files that I have. Consequently, I rip my HDCDs to 16/44,1 wav or flac files. These files do contain the information needed to later encode them as intended.

I have found two solutions to the problem of playing those files in my system.

In my main rig I use a profile in MinimServer (on my Synology NAS) that decodes HDCD files on the fly. Then I will be able to enjoy HDCD files playing with optimal SQ: sound stage, bass fullness and high extension without distortion or clipping.

However, if I choose to listen to HDCD files decoded in JRiver MC on my laptop via USB to a DAC/HPA, I will get full HDCD quality in my headphones.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There were CD's that were labeled as HDCD. They had the flag that indicated that they were HDCD but did not actually have any HDCD processing. These should play normally on any CD player.

There are HDCD's that do have HDCD processing on them. Those with high end extension will clip when played on a normal CD player.  That is why some ripping programs will rip HDCD's to 24 bit.

Boycott Warner

Boycott Tidal

Boycott Roon

Boycott Lenbrook

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On 2/27/2021 at 1:56 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Depends on the ripping software. 

My understanding from reading various forums on this topic, is that EAC correctly copies the HDCD flag, thus making it be recognised as HDCD encoded in a suitable player, even after being burned to CD-R

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

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My thoughts are that if you do a bit perfect rip of a HDCD that has actual HDCD processing on it you will have to play it back on a HDCD enabled player to get the full benefit and not get clipping on the high end extension enabled discs.

If the ripping program processes the disc and writes it to 24 bit, then the resulting file should be able to play on any 24 bit processors.

As I understand it, the programs that rip and process HDCD discs write them to 20 bit and pad them with 4 bits as many DACs only process 16 and 24 bit.

Boycott Warner

Boycott Tidal

Boycott Roon

Boycott Lenbrook

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