Whats a better older HDCD DAC?

[regal]

What would be a good HDCD decoding DAC ?

 

[infinitesymphony]

In terms of DACs, not many exist. Here are a few off the top of my head:

Musical Fidelity X-DAC v3
Audio Alchemy DDE v1.2 and 3.0
MSB Link DAC III with optional HDCD board
PS Audio SL-Three
Adcom GDA-700

 

[Uncle Erik]

If you have a HDCD DAC, and feed it the signal from a non-HDCD CD player, do you get the benefits of HDCD?

I really wish my deck had HDCD support, but am not willing to buy another deck just for HDCD. But if I could just buy a DAC, I might go for that.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you have a HDCD DAC, and feed it the signal from a non-HDCD CD player, do you get the benefits of HDCD?

Yes, a HDCD DAC is all that's required. The HDCD stream is encoded in the LSB of a 16-bit stream (i.e. the 16th bit); the CD player sees it as a regular 16-bit CD and thus outputs everything to the DAC, including the encoded HDCD information.

This is one reason that a normal computer drive can feed the audio into Windows Media Player, which does a form of HDCD decoding with software.

 

[tot]

There is also a standalone decoder that decodes HDCDs -- no special DAC needed.

Note that all extra HDCD features are optional, many HDCD's do not actually use them.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tot /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is also a standalone decoder that decodes HDCDs -- no special DAC needed. Note that all extra HDCD features are optional, many HDCD's do not actually use them.

I've seen a link to that before... Could you tell us how to use the program or where to find documentation?

Edit: Nevermind, I found the author's thread on the Doom9 forums. It's not a perfect implementation at the moment, since the transient filter portion is unsupported. I did manage to find out that some of my supposed HDCDs didn't actually use any HDCD techniques at all.

 

[infinitesymphony]

After trying decoding and reading a bit about how HDCD actually works, I think I'd recommend against a dedicated hardware HDCD decoder, unless you already have a lot of HDCDs that need proper decoding.

 

[tot]

I understand the ADC used for HDCD is very good and it is often used even without any HDCD features (peak extension or filters.)

I find the whole HDCD a bit useless. Why not put proper version into the CD in the first place? Yes, you get couple of bits more, but 16 bits is not that limiting.

 

[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tot /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is also a standalone decoder that decodes HDCDs -- no special DAC needed. Note that all extra HDCD features are optional, many HDCD's do not actually use them.

Head-fi is the best. I have a huge collection of HDCD's all with peak extend. As you probably know playing these disc without decoding gives compromised compressed sound. With this wonderful software decoder I can get a modern DAC and not have to worry about the HDCD capability.

Thank you.

 

[HiWire]

I am starting to get unreasonably annoyed with HDCD. I'm not sure which discs of mine are HDCD, if any, and it ticks me off that listening to an HDCD on non-HDCD equipment degrades the sound. Apparently, many "HDCDs" which cause the indicator to light up on players are not real HDCD, but were recorded using Pacific Microsonics gear (e.g. Universal players that decode HDCD? [Archive] - SH Forums).

Also, my current favorite player doesn't decode HDCD.

That is all

 

[regal]

Well you really only have a significant degradation in SQ if "peak extend" was used. Without HDCD encoding a "peak extend" audio stream will be dynamically compressed. My favorite band has all their releases with HDCD peak extend. So it is critical tha I decode the HDCD.


The cmd line program that tot referenced is nice. I have volumes to convert though. It seems with this program I would have to type each file name in the cmd line, unless there is a GUI program for command programs like this?

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have volumes to convert though. It seems with this program I would have to type each file name in the cmd line, unless there is a GUI program for command programs like this?

Ripped from another site's thread about hdcd.exe. Substitute /apps/ for the appropriate directories:
Quote:

In foobar2000 -> File -> Preferences -> Tools -> Converter, set up a custom encoder: Encoder = C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe Extension = flac Parameters = /c "c:\apps\hdcd.exe | c:\apps\hdcd\flac.exe --tag=HDCD=Yes -s -8 -f -o %d -" Format = lossless Highest BPS mode supported = 24 Encoder Name = HDCD-flac Bitrate (kbps) = 1488 Settings = level 8

I've tweaked the settings a bit, but they should still work. Here's the original thread.

 

[regal]

Damn you guys are good.

Saved me 20 hrs of typing.

Thankyou