[emmodad]

HDCD playback -- grateful dead - Road Trips full show FLAC downloads - HDCD-mastered sources?


it seems the dead.net strategy with the "Road Trips" CD releases is moving forward: looks like those CDs are being issued as a "teaser" for full-show downloads (or more precisely, the CDs were issued, and now associated full-show downloads are appearing in the Store on dead.net).

For those not aware, the "Road Trips" titles are not complete concerts, but rather collections of songs from various live performances under a certain theme (ie "Fall 79").

All of these CDs, as with other recent Grateful Dead releases, are HDCD encoded, generally using most of the HDCD encoding process capabilities (ie, these are not just discs where the HDCD flag gets set because a Pacific Microsonics converter is present in the mastering chain data stream).

the Store now has two complete show download-only offerings which are "Road Trips Full Show" titles (in 256k mp3 and FLAC); these are shows which were represented by a few tracks on Road Trips Vol 1 No 1.

Obviously, if the source files for the FLAC offering are 16/44.1 HDCD-encoded, lossless encoding will preserve the HDCD functionality, and the buyer can maintain HDCD compatibility either by burning CDs or by sourcing the (decompressed) files from a server through an HDCD decoder to a DAC (as per other HDCD threads in this forum). I am (still) waiting for a response on this from dead.net.........

Question: has anyone yet purchased these downloads and created a CD (or played files thru appropriate hardware) which confirms HDCD encoding on playback?

advthanxance

 

[regal]

Yes I have every Download Series Grateful Dead release and they are all HDCD encoded. Some of them sound excellent.

If you are a dead-head you owe it to yourself to get a good HDCD DAC like an Audio Alchemy or Adacom GDA-700.

The funny thing is it is very difficult to get a bit-perfect digital output from a computer. You will find that the HDCD light doesn't always come on when it should, I ended up buying an ASIO native soundcard.

There is also HDCD.exe that you can use to decode the HDCD encoded flac files to a 20 bit flac. This is a lot of trouble, so I ended up building a PMD100-PCM63K dac.

Of course you can also burn the Download Series onto CDR and playback with an HDCD capable CDP.

 

[emmodad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yes I have every Download Series Grateful Dead release and they are all HDCD encoded. Some of them sound excellent.

appreciate the HDCD confirmation!


Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you are a dead-head you owe it to yourself to get a good HDCD DAC like an Audio Alchemy or Adacom GDA-700.

or (as per other thread on HDCD hardware decoding options) a BADA alpha DAC, or Cary 306 SACD Pro (both = swoon)...thanks again regal.

 

[JimP]

I have the Spectrum full show sets (FLAC) - I'm amazed at the quality of these recordings from decades ago and of course the content. I don't have HDCD player, but they sound fantastic 16/44 redbook.

Regal, any other download series in particular that are impressive that you would recommend?

 

[regal]

My favorites are the '68 and '76 download series.

 

[wharfrat1]

The 77 show from the Palladium is no slouch as well. I'd recommend the NAD C542 CD player, it is not uber expensive, sounds great, and has HDCD playback. The main reason I bought it is to listen to the the HDCD Dead discs. I have every official live release, so I definitely had to have a player that had HDCD playback. I started with the Oppo 980-h, which has HDCD playback as well, but after giving the C542 a trial listen at a local store, I really liked it's sound a lot better than the Oppo.