[HeadLover]

amm I have ripped something, and the HDCD is much "quieter" - means, the volume seem to be much low (better dynamics ?!)
So, why can't the same thing be with the usual red-book CD ?

Also, it is a shame I must have a special CDP for hearing it that way

 

[leeperry]

well, rip a HDCD track, convert it w/ HDCD.exe and compare them. the CDDA track is +6dB louder and sounds plain saturated in comparison. HDCD is a major rip off for regular customers IMHO....this has been discussed numerous times on numerous forums.

I don't use ReplayGain, I'm a bit-perfect kinda guy

 

[HeadLover]

But seem like HDCD does improve the audio, no ??
Can you explain more please?

 

[Jaska]

I'd agree that a "properly" decoded HDCD track is quieter than the corresponding Red Book track ripped from the same CD. However, this does not mean that simply because a particular audio CD is an HDCD that the Red Book portion has been jacked up +6 dB. I own a large number of Grateful Dead CDs pressed in the 80's, and also now own the recent HDCD remasters. I could of course spend a bunch of time ripping the old and the new CDs with EAC and read through the peak level values to see if there is any consistency in the loudness of the old vs. new discs, but what I reckon is that any or most of the differences would be attributable to large extent to the modern remastering of the albums in question.

I also do not use ReplayGain, and do not own an HDCD-capable CD player. I rip all of my CDs with dBpoweramp Reference to FLAC and then convert the FLACs to Apple Lossless using Max on my Mac, and play the files back with iTunes via my Apogee Duet. I still haven't come across an instance where I found the files ripped from one of my old CDs to sound better than the corresponding files ripped from newer HDCDs in high resolution, so I suppose I'm in the camp of people holding the opinion that HDCD is a good thing

 

[leeperry]

well the whole system of HDCD is to take out the 2 bottom bits from the CDDA portion to dither to 20 bits...so when you buy a HDCD and decode it as CDDA, you get 2 bits jacked up, and it's 6dB louder than it should.

hdcd.exe does a great job on the King Crimson serie....but these were remastered from the recently found original master tapes. it's always the same story, they release whatever SACD/HDCD that sound awesome(properly decoded)....but they use new higher quality masters as well

anyway, archiving decoded HDCD files might not be your best option...maybe some day someone will crack the specs completely, archiving ISO files and playing them mounted in WMP might be an option.

also the hdcd.exe code has been made public, so soon or later a foobar plugin will show up

 

[HeadLover]

amm how can I do ISO of the CD ?

 

[HeadLover]

oh and from what you are saying, seem like HDCD is good only with HDCD capable player- else it will be even less good than then the same one if it were to be only red-book, right?
So why do MOFI and MFSL and many others doing HDCD ones?
Why not just use the red-book for everything?
And why didn't HDCD catch in the market? there are only few HDCD capable players now days.

 

[leeperry]

because ppl who care about MFSL will most likely have HDCD decoding amps? HDCD is a great way to fit 20 bit dithered audio on a red book disc.

just like SACD/DVD-A, most ppl listen to 128kbits mp3's on ipods or utterly compressed music on FM radio stations...there's no market for HD audio IMO.

you can use EAC to make single file ISO's of your HDCD discs, the CUE files will open fine in foobar...or you can mount them in Daemon Tools and WMP will see them as physical discs, allowing you to decode the HDCD data on the fly.

use the ASIO(or maybe WASAPI?) plugin in WMP, and you're good to go.

 

[HeadLover]

Why isn't there WASAPI for Media player?
Also, how do I rip HDCD or a complete ISO using EAC ?

 

[leeperry]

google is also your buddy, put him to good use : wmp asio - Google Search

ASIO for sure, WASAPI maybe?

you just need to rip the CD part in a lossless format(APE/FLAC/WavPack/ALAC) and it will retain the HDCD infos

 

[HeadLover]

As much as I understand, ripping it using FLAC and EAC won't give me the HDCD parts.

 

[leeperry]

basically a regular CDDA is 16bit, a HDCD has 14bit CDDA portion + a 2 bit hidden embedded HDCD portion.

rip the full 16 bit the computer sees, and you get it all at once

you can try hdcd.exe to see for yourself.

 

[emmodad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif the CDDA portion on a HDCD is +6dB clipped, it's a massacre. selling such CDDA's is really unacceptable to me...you buy a CDDA(that's been HDCD encoded) to play on a CDDA player, and you end up w/ sub-par 14bit music

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif well the whole system of HDCD is to take out the 2 bottom bits from the CDDA portion to dither to 20 bits...so when you buy a HDCD and decode it as CDDA, you get 2 bits jacked up, and it's 6dB louder than it should.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif basically a regular CDDA is 16bit, a HDCD has 14bit CDDA portion + a 2 bit hidden embedded HDCD portion.

leeperry, it appears that you have some misunderstanding regarding how the HDCD process works.

your various assertions relating to 6dB clipping, and the use of "2 bits" are incorrect.

IE, to transmit control information as a subcode, HDCD only "steals" the single LSB from a 16-bit word, and only typically a very small percentage of the time; and, when doing so, the subcode is essentially part of the signal's dither.

These resources (all available linked through the wikipedia HDCD page) can perhaps help you out in understanding the issues:

HDCD - Partners - ProAudio (a simplified overview of the HDCD process; see the sections "Hidden Code Addition/Output Dither/Quantization" and "HDCD Decoding"

http://web.archive.org/web/200201242.../AES_Paper.pdf (the Johnson / Pflaumer AES paper with extensive detail on the overall process, including the various amplitude- and time-domain functions, as well as control code transmission via in-band signaling using datastream LSB only on an as-needed basis. Also includes a wealth of information wrt psychoacoustic basis for the process functions.).

several other brief description pages from the old hdcd.com website are also linked.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadLover /img/forum/go_quote.gif As much as I understand, ripping it using FLAC and EAC won't give me the HDCD parts.

You can do it with EAC and a CUE rip using extra tools.

Rip the CD to a CUE file using EAC.
Process the CUE file using CUETools to decode the HDCD to a 24-bit file.

CUETools gives you several options. You can split the file into separate tracks or leave it as a single WAV or FLAC.

Get CUETools here (scroll down to the bottom to get the 1.9.5 version)

If you want to split the CUE into tracks then select "Gaps Appended". If you want to leave the CUE as a single file then select "Single File + CUE". HDCD decoding options are under "Advanced Settings...". For compatibility it is better to select "Store as 24 bit lossless" when decoding. 24 bit files are more supported than 20 bit files.

 

[BigTony]

EAC rips all the data to FLAC for me, and I use a HDCD enabled DAC for playback. I was kinda happy to find out that I didn't have to rip HDCD's again once I had the DAC!