[Peti]

Not sure if it was mentioned already...

 

[CHansen]

Hi Charles Hansen - Thanks for the comment! I think it's fair to say fully implemented HDCD is going to be rare these days, well into the second decade of the 21st century. Indeed, as I found and noted in a prior post, even Reference Recordings has stopped using PE and LLE since 2008, the last one being RR-115, The Tempest; the following album in the catalog, RR-116, Thinking About Bix, has no PE or LLE. I think the folks at RR saw the way the industry's going, so they dialed back on HDCD without looking like they're abandoning the format altogether, and started ramping up releasing their titles via hi-res downloads and SACD (and now -back to the future! - LP) in the physical format realm.

So, with the Beach Boys title I was just hoping I'd luck out; I had my suspicions about the 2012 reissue, but I figured what the heck - music first and the HDCD logo indicates at least a PM A/D converter was used in the remastering.

Funny you should mention MQA; from reading some press and comments about it, I can't help to notice similarities to HDCD's marketing and 'mumness' about the technical aspects of the format...but I guess discussion about that subject is another thread.

Hi VeloRoad,

Yes, there is absolutely zero point in using the two encoding features of HDCD unless there is a way to decode them. For over a decade, the only way to do this was with mass-market DVD and/or Blu-ray players that included HDCD decoding, but this is clearly not an ideal situation for hearing CDs at their best. Now that the patents have expired, Ayre includes HDCD decoding in the QX-5-Twenty DAC - plus it will tell you if it was just recorded with the PM A/D converter or actually is decoding anything. But that's not a cheap product. The latest Oppo UHD Blu-ray player dropped HDCD decoding from its feature list, so I'd say as a format it is now officially dead. Still a great sounding A/D converter, and still used by mastering engineers who care about sound quality. But there are perhaps another half-dozen converters that now sound equal or better. The Model Two was released in 2003 or 2004 and as just one example, the engineers at Abbey Road chose a Prism A/D to transfer The Beatles catalog back in 2009 to 192/24. That was after some sort of "shoot-out", but I do not know if it included the long out-of-production Pacific Microsonics.

Hope this helps,
Charles Hansen

 

[veloroad]

Hi VeloRoad,

Yes, there is absolutely zero point in using the two encoding features of HDCD unless there is a way to decode them. For over a decade, the only way to do this was with mass-market DVD and/or Blu-ray players that included HDCD decoding, but this is clearly not an ideal situation for hearing CDs at their best. Now that the patents have expired, Ayre includes HDCD decoding in the QX-5-Twenty DAC - plus it will tell you if it was just recorded with the PM A/D converter or actually is decoding anything. But that's not a cheap product. The latest Oppo UHD Blu-ray player dropped HDCD decoding from its feature list, so I'd say as a format it is now officially dead. Still a great sounding A/D converter, and still used by mastering engineers who care about sound quality. But there are perhaps another half-dozen converters that now sound equal or better. The Model Two was released in 2003 or 2004 and as just one example, the engineers at Abbey Road chose a Prism A/D to transfer The Beatles catalog back in 2009 to 192/24. That was after some sort of "shoot-out", but I do not know if it included the long out-of-production Pacific Microsonics.

Hope this helps,
Charles Hansen

Charles Hansen - I am saddened to read of your passing; rest in peace.

VeloRoad

 

[veloroad]

To all that have an interest in HDCD and read Charles Hansen's posts on the matter, please see https://www.audiostream.com/content/charles-hansen-1956-2017 RIP

 

[veloroad]

Christmastime is past...Picked up a delightful 3-disc set, A String Quartet Christmas, produced by Steinway & Sons (yes, the piano company), their catalog number 50001. The HDCD light came on for discs 2 and 3; alas I found out via Foobar later on these discs do not have PE, nor did I notice any indication of LLE or TF. Still, good music.

 

[otaku313]

Two more HDCD's, in case anyone is still updating the list: Kinks: One for the Road.
And Megadeth: Cryptic Writings.

 

[sheik124]

Does this list still get updated? I found two CDs with no HDCD markings on them that both use Peak Extend.
Other than my own catalog entry on Discogs, I couldn't find anyone mentioning that this was an HDCD: Hakim – Yaho / حكيم - يا هوه

Spoiler

I downloaded a lossless copy directly from a particular streaming service and was extremely surprised to see the little indicators in foobar's status bar pop up. I don't think I ever actually saw them other than the test file I used when I edited the status bar string itself.
To confirm, I ordered two different copies of the US version, sight unseen, and seemingly ended up with two different masterings. The HDCD has a few extra remixes and is the exact version linked above. Nothing anywhere on the disc or packaging suggests it, and it only utilizes Peak Extend. DR of 11 after decoding, sounds nice too. The other seemed to be identical to the overseas version, had a typo in the Arabic title and was not an HDCD.

Ikimono-gakari's debut single, "Sakura" ESCL-2803 / B000EGCZEO

Spoiler

There's only one Disc ID I can find, which matches the FreeDB tag on the files I originally downloaded - 2B04E204, as well as the cheap, new copy I picked up last year. Should probably get around to making that Discogs entry as well. Doesn't look like it was ever re-issued either.

 

[NBKai]

One I found:
God Lives Underwater: Life in the So-Called Space Age

 

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

Hello,

I just registered here to contribute to this list, hope that's okay. I got the "The Boondock Saints - Release the Hounds" promotional album, which is both a HDCD and a HyperCD including a video application as well. It's by the band of the movie director Troy Duffy, his brother Taylor Duffy and some other artists, namely Jeddrey Baxter, Gordon Clark, Jimi Jackson, Fran Flannery and Adam Holdaway. Troy is probably best known for directing the two Boondock Saints movies, to which the band also contributed some songs.

I zero-padded and converted the HDCD tracks to 24-bit little-endian PCM files with ffmpeg using commands such as the following:

$ ffmpeg -v verbose -i Unknown\ Artist\ -\ Unknown\ Title\ -\ 01\ -\ Track01.wav -af hdcd -c:a pcm_s24le out.wav

Here's the verbose output of ffmpeg about one of the tracks on that HDCD:

[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Disabling automatic format conversion.
[graph_0_in_0_0 @ 0x2220500] tb:1/44100 samplefmt:s16 samplerate:44100 chlayout:stereo
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Auto-convert: disabled
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Looking for 16-bit HDCD in sample format s16
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] CDT period: 2000ms (88200 samples @44100Hz)
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Process mode: process stereo channels together
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Force PE: off
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Analyze mode: [0] disabled
Output #0, wav, to 'out.wav':
  Metadata:
    ISFT            : Lavf60.3.100
  Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s24le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, stereo, s32, 2116 kb/s
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc60.3.100 pcm_s24le
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] hdcd error: Control B check failed: 0x04be (0x04 vs 0x41) near 6375424
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] hdcd error: Control B check failed: 0x00af (0x00 vs 0x50) near 6375424
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] hdcd error: Control B check failed: 0x0065 (0x00 vs 0x9a) near 15155200
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] hdcd error: Control B check failed: 0x00fa (0x00 vs 0x05) near 15155200
EOF in input file 0
Terminating demuxer thread 0
No more output streams to write to, finishing.
[out#0/wav @ 0x2219900] All streams finished
[out#0/wav @ 0x2219900] Terminating muxer thread
[AVIOContext @ 0x221be40] Statistics: 58564910 bytes written, 4 seeks, 226 writeouts
size=   57192kB time=00:03:41.33 bitrate=2116.8kbits/s speed=2.16e+03x   
video:0kB audio:57192kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 0.000174%
Input file #0 (Unknown Artist - Unknown Title - 01 - Track01.wav):
  Input stream #0:0 (audio): 9533 packets read (39043200 bytes); 9533 frames decoded (9760800 samples);
  Total: 9533 packets (39043200 bytes) demuxed
Output file #0 (out.wav):
  Output stream #0:0 (audio): 9533 frames encoded (9760800 samples); 9533 packets muxed (58564800 bytes);
  Total: 9533 packets (58564800 bytes) muxed
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Channel 0: counter A: 0, B: 2201, C: 2203
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Channel 0: pe: 0, tf: 0, almost_A: 0, checkfail_B: 2, unmatched_C: 0, cdt_expired: 0
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Channel 0: tg 0.0: 2201
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Channel 1: counter A: 0, B: 2199, C: 2201
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Channel 1: pe: 0, tf: 0, almost_A: 0, checkfail_B: 2, unmatched_C: 0, cdt_expired: 0
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Channel 1: tg 0.0: 2199
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] Packets: type: B, total: 4400
[Parsed_hdcd_0 @ 0x22200c0] HDCD detected: yes, peak_extend: never enabled, max_gain_adj: 0.0 dB, transient_filter: not detected, detectable errors: 4 (try -v verbose)
[AVIOContext @ 0x21d9d40] Statistics: 39108780 bytes read, 1 seeks

Love the music by the way, especially the "Holy Fool" track from the movies. I used to rewind the first movie a gazillion times when that song played, because the scene itself was also awesome, perfect fit. Now I finally have the CD to listen to, 24 years after the release of the movie!

 

[sygnus21]

Patricia Barber Cafe Blue.... 24-bit gold HDCD encoded disc

 

[otaku313]

Just found another HDCD that does not appear to be on this list:
Adam Schoenberg - American Symphony. It is an SACD with HDCD in the CD layer (at least it says so, I have only played the SACD layer)

 

[sygnus21]

You are going to discover a ton of HDCDs that's not on a list, so....