[Audio-Me]

Tes - I'd like to thank you again for bringing me into the wonderful world of MPC and lossless compression formats. I've tried Monkeys Audio and LPAC (wholey crap they encode fast!). I now have two favorite audio formats, MPC and LPAC (MA doesn't seem to be lossless, arn't those formats supposed to maintain full bitrate?) although it'd be nice to have tag support, I still love it! =P It's just like my two favorite graphic formats, PNG and TIF. One for fast access/storage and one for full quality.

This is just great! =)

DC - that's what I meant, the DAC needs to be able to handle the 20bit decoded signal.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Audio&Me DC - that's what I meant, the DAC needs to be able to handle the 20bit decoded signal.

Well, no, it's usually built into the DAC chip. It does the decoding and the conversion in the same chip, so it's usually taking a 16-bit stream. (Usually == effectively always. There is only one way to digitally decode HDCD, and the only people doing that are the mastering engineers checking the final product, and even they are usually not doing it. It is feasible/possible for a private individual to decode HDCD in the digital domain, but prohibitively expensive.)

 

[Audio-Me]

Lol, yes DAC gets fed 16bit stream, then decodes it to 20bit, then converts it to analog signal. If the DAC can't convert 20bit into analog, than it can't be used for HD decoding. Lets drop this HDCD issue, it doesn't matter for PC sound as there are no ways to decode it in software.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Audio&Me Lol, yes DAC gets fed 16bit stream, then decodes it to 20bit, then converts it to analog signal.

Well, my point is that you appear to be trying to break out the two steps more than they're worth. The two steps you are talking about don't just occur within the same piece of audio gear, they usually occur on the same chip. Quote:

If the DAC can't convert 20bit into analog, than it can't be used for HD decoding.

It's not really a DAC then, is it? Quote:

Lets drop this HDCD issue, it doesn't matter for PC sound as there are no ways to decode it in software.

Agreed.

 

[MirandaX]

Quote:

Originally posted by Audio&Me I've tried Monkeys Audio and LPAC (wholey crap they encode fast!). I now have two favorite audio formats, MPC and LPAC (MA doesn't seem to be lossless, arn't those formats supposed to maintain full bitrate?) although it'd be nice to have tag support

Actually, Monkey's Audio is lossless too. There's even an option in the compressor to automatically decompress and compare with the original, just in case of user paranoia. Also, MA files support ID3v2 tags; Media Jukebox works pretty well for editing the tags.

 

[Audio-Me]

Monkeys Audio was good as well, I'm not stating otherwise. Thanks for clearing that up btw.

APE did have better compression (MA high had higher ratio than LPAC -4 trigger, but I use custom settings for LPAC anyway) but was more cpu intensive than PAC for playback.

 

[Tes]

Audio&Me - Np. It's always good to see someone step up to higher quality codecs.

Monkey's Audio does have the highest compression but it is also Windoze only at the moment, whereas LPAC and FLAC both have Linux and Solaris versions as well. And FLAC also has a Mac version.

MPC does support ID3v1.1 tags but since the field lengths are too short I don't use them. There is some talk about the MPC developers making their own tagging system in the future (maybe in the SV8 release). For now I just use long filenames and an .nfo text file to keep any more information I might want to include about the album.

 

[Audio-Me]

I like the flexibility of LPAC. MA is too newbie friendly for my use.

You're right on the MPC ID3 support, much too short.

 

[kwkarth]

Great piece of work A&M.

Thanks for the initial posting!!

 

[Audio-Me]

Thanks. I just wish more people who listen to music on the PC would read it.

 

[kwkarth]

I agree, that's why I copied the thread to the Amps & Source Components Forum!

 

[Audio-Me]

Hehe, thanks a bunch.

 

[tracky]

Again.. it is impossible to decode HDCD in software.

 

[Audio-Me]

I think that's already been said a few times. The matter is over.

 

[bbq]

WMP8 supports HDCD
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...p/whatsnew.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_wmp8.asp