High Definition isn't always associated with theCD format, but HDCD might have once been able to claim it for this older digital technology. Have a question you want to ask Paul? Go to www.psaudio.co...
I own a Rotel HDCD player. The sound quality is far superior than a normal CD. As you mentioned the range in what you hear is exceptional. I also think the stereo split is more dynamic also. If anyone does ask for a HIFI demo, I always select one of my HDCDs. Great channel mate, 🇬🇧🎸
Even if you can't play the actual 20 bit HDCD content, most HDCD disks are going to sound good because the Pacific Microsonics HDCD analog to digital converters they use in the mastering sound really good. At the time they were promoting HDCD, these converters were a true R2R and cost around $18,000 to make. Even compared to some of the best ones today they are really full and musical sounding.
I'm very pleased with my HDCD-compatible Harman/Kardon HD760. Got some Neil Young and Isao Suzuki on HDCD. They Sound amazing! Thank's for your great videos, Paul. Best regards.
I got lucky and found an HD 990 six years ago in perfect shape. Way ahead of its time; CD players and DAC's just catching up now. Mates up to my H/K 3490, but was complimentary to the legendary H/K 990. I just restored an H/K Citation 5.1 amp, operating in 2-Channel 300 watt mode . . . all new capacitors. H/K's last venture into hi-end amplifiers (ZED Labs, California), pushing a pair of Dahlquist DQ-10's I just recapped, repaired, and with new woofers from Simply Speakers (originals stolen) . . .
WMP can play HDCDs with the exception of the HDCD filtering. Only CD players with the actual HDCD chip in it can handle the filtering. Not all HDCDs even use filtering but some of the best do (Neil Young HDCDs come to mind right away).
I use dBpoweramp to rip all my CDs for use with Roon. One of the options they give is to do the HDCD conversion and create a 24 bit file instead of a 16 bit file (even though it only contains the 20 bit HDCD data). Almost all modern DACs can play that - even the ones that don't decode HDCD.
Bruce Springsteen, Crosby, Stills and Nash, I have several dozen HDCDs. If you want to hear HDCD in it's glory, grab a used Mark Levinson 360s or a Krell KPS 25sc. They were well built. They sounded good then, and they still sound good today.
I have one player, a Rotel RCD 02, that plays HDCDs. The difference in sound quality is noticeable. It is too bad this technology was never more widely used and never achieved its promise. It was a very economical way of improving CD quality. I think there is more going on than increased dynamic range. I believe they also have better depth, clarity, and resolution. I still occasionally buy CDs that have HDCD encoding. Apparently, the chips for decoding HDCDs are no longer made.
I've noticed back in 1995 that HDCD encoded CDs are way better than their plain vanilla counterparts like louder loud parts and softer soft parts and highs that seem to go on forever- even when played on mid 1990s era Rotel CD players that don't have HDCD decoding capabilities.
Hey, Armand, its George A from what used to be ODAR. I totally agree with you re HDCDs, they sound much better. I used to have a receiver that decoded them. Oh well. I'm recently retired, and enjoying it. Hope you are doing well. Stay healthy and safe!
HDCD encoding had various settings and it was, I think, possible to create an HDCD disc which had almost none of the HDCD features present. I suspect that artists who took a keen interest in the quality of their recordings insisted on getting the best from the system. So King Crimsonand Neil Young HDCDs sound much better. Both artists are fairly pernickity about sound quality. It's a shame the format died out.
What I found 25 years ago was that DACs with the HDCD chip when playing regular red book CDs sounded compressed and flat compared to the same DACs without the chip. Just recently a manufacturer has determined the same thing allowing the owner to bypass the HDCD filter. Of course undecoded HDCD discs will sound compressed compared to decoded but only because the HDCD disc was designed to sound more dynamic .
Put your hdcd in a computer and fiddle around with windows media player. It will show hdcd in bottom corner when its being decoded. Get an hdmi cable and send audio to your receiver
Jumbo Slice there’s also to a limited extent support via foobar plugins and also if you rip your CDs with dBPowerAmp. But I think there’s one of the filters employed by hardware supporting HDCD that the software solutions cannot work with.
' Most recording engineers don't take advantage of 96 dB of dynamics' NUFF SAID. Lifeless crap out there. Compressing the crap out synthesizers that have steady-state signals already......smh. Too lame to do some normal volume riding, or such crappy hearing they don't even hear it anymore.
I agree, some times especially on particular gear the normal CD version sounds very flat compared to HDcd. I remember trying this on my old Rotel cd player, HDcd was so much more tuned in and with a better black level. Well observed!
@@WitzyZed If you compare regular CD with HD CD then you must use the same player and the same DAC! if you use example 2 players or 2 DAC then it will not be correct. You can compare the same album in CD and HD CD on your computer! Very offte then new release of an old album is remastered and does NOT sound like the original from the 80's 90's and this is where the problem lies when we compare!
I do mostly agree with you, but then there is also the extra cables differences to take into consideration that negotiate a different sound depending on the different unit you test it with. HDcd also sounds very different from different qualities of HDcd players. Plus there is also a much more big difference between the normal to high end CD players that do not play HDcd. That is also what makes HIFI so much fun to test :-) Not all HDcd's are really good quality. But some do really on some few players make a huge difference. But yeah if money was not a problem and I wanted the absolute best CD player then I would play normal cd's on an Audio Note 5 cd player, and that would be the best. But then again, I love my house a bit more :-)
skrotkalle skrotkalle You are mistaken I said NOTHING about any DAC. I specifically mentioned the Pacific Microsonics.. Look up the Pacific Microsonics Model Two. It’s literally what’s required to make HDCDs.
A few months ago you were touting the HDCD format because of the extra 4 bit's of sampling rate and the expanded dynamic range. Now you are belittling it. Make up your mind, Paul. My ears have already decided for me and HDCD definitely sounds better than standard 16 bit CD's by a long way. 💯
Plenty of media players can decode it with a plugin or setting change. Jriver now allows you to scan your library for hdcd content. I had a lot more than I thought. I'd definitely check my library and cds when ripping for hdcd encoding.
My Music Hall cd 25 could decode these. Too bad it recently expired. I only had 3 discs but they did sound very nice. Now, what about XRCD? Those can sound fantastic too, but limited and expensive.
I just don't get it???? Why didn't DVD at 24 bit / 192kh replace CD's? It costs about the same to stamp out and create a glass master of a DVD as it does a CD. Downloading this high resolution at today's internet speed is not a problem either. Recording studios record at this resolution anyway and have to drop down to CD or much worse MP3 for manufacturer and distribution. Soooooo....instead of getting DVD we got MP3, WHY??????????????????????????
@S Wong There may be compression in a movie (MP4), but not in the audio WAV file that would be on the disk. It would not be authored as a DVD for play in DVD movie players that need the menu. It would be a full resolution WAV file, the same file I master in my recording studio before degrading it to CD or MP3.
@Fat Rat I think that was because of Sony Patents and Sony unwillingness to share. But yes, on an industry wide scale, under capitalist competition, and fear of anything different in manufacturing...we end up with less than the best.
if you compare regular CD with HD CD then you must use the same player and the same DAC! if you use example 2 players or 2 DAC then it will not be correct. You can compare the same album in CD and HD CD on your computer! Very offte then new release of an old album is remastered and does NOT sound like the original from the 80's 90's and this is where the problem lies when we compare!
You can still get a SACD and HDCD player if you buy a good Blu Ray player. Most of the better ones still support those formats. I'm looking at them right now.
That's the trouble .. no recording engineers are allowed to utilise the full dynamic range any more .. why ? It's because people use a multitude of various playback systems and the cheap lower end of the market equipment just can't handle a wide dynamic range .. everyone is normalised now on MP3 ... that solves everything but completely misses the object of good sound reproduction
Normalization doesn't affect the dynamic range, it just assures that the loudest peaks are at or near 0dB for the highest resolution with the given bit rate. The difference between the loudest and softest passages stay the same.
@@janinapalmer8368 Normalization is not "fixed" at the recording stage. It can be applied at an time to a digital recording. When I create electronic music, which may have a large dynamic range, I cannot assure that when a mix is rendered to stereo from multiple tracks that the loudest peaks will be near 0 dB. The very last step is to normalize (I use -0.5 dB) the file. That has no effect on the dynamic range. It just moves the dynamic range of the entire file up to maximize digital resolution. The difference between the loudest and softest parts of the track stay the same. You appear to be confusing normalization with compression. the latter of which certainly reduces dynamic range.
Love SA-CD, but agree that HDCD is nice and all discs I have heard with it just sound better, even if you cannot decode it. Highlight titles include the soundtracks for MEET JOE BLACK and THE LIMEY, plus SPEAK OF THE DEVIL and BAHA SESSIONS by Chis Isaak. Recently, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra issued an SA-CD with the CD/PCM layer being HDCD, so the format is not dead yet.
I guess I lucked out. My Sony cd recorder, DVD player and Samsung laptop all player HDCD disc that I have (all Carly Simon, Spy, No Secrets, Boys In The Trees). The sound is much better than the regular cd version. Sounds just like vinyl.
For a variety of reasons, I only listen to CDs. On my top tier SACD/CD player (Esoteric X-01XS), HDCD, UHQCD, MQACD as well as SACD, usually sound much better than Redbook CD. There is no noticeable distortion, but they are incredible. The only CD player I own on which SACDs sound slightly better on is a T+A 3000 player, but other CD formats do not sound as good on this digital source.
The problem of HDCD is the same as the problem with MQACD. Even if the fully decoded format does sound better than a standard CD, it will by definition sound worse on a standard CD player. The only reasons Dolby wasn't an issue on Audio Cassette was because it became almost ubiquitous and because the tape had so much noise without it, such that the compressed sound without decoding might still sound better than all the noise you would have without it.
My CD player on certain CDs pops up an HD on the display. They sound really good. I have one SACD that when played on my non SACD player plays in HD. Its only like 4 or 5 of my CDs that do this. One is a country CD from the 2000s. A Trick Pony CD.
Hello! Sorry, not True! My old Rotel rcd 951 has hdcd decoder by Pacific Microsonics...huge improvement on sound! More air, better details also. Too bad I only have two hdcd cds. However, XR cds are superior!
Back in the early 1990s - before CD players and DACs that can decode HDCD became afforfable - HDCD encoded CDs sound much smoother and went loud to soft and vice versa faster than plain vanilla CD even on ordinary CD players and they seem to have a much extended highs than ordinary CDs. Then heavy metal bands and indie punk bands like Megadeth and Lunachicks started releasing their CDs with HDCD encoding - thus I started upgrading my digital front end around 1996. Although if it says HDCD or your player's indicator lights up doesn't always mean that hdcd is better than plain cd. I've dated the head of our local Avril Lavigne fan club back in 2004 and thus been able to borrow a plain vanilla CD but an American pressing and a Ukrainian HDCD pressing of Avril Lavine's Under My Skin album and the ordimary American CD pressing sounded more dynamic and has better high frequency extension than the Ukrainian HDCD version. Some pressings are indeed better than others. 🤔
Paul, I've got three copies of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. They're mastered three different ways. One is AAD, another is ADD and I forget what the third one is, but basically they are mastered in digital or analog, recorded in Analog or Digital or remastered in digital, recoded in digital and well, again, I forget what the third one is done. I would assume it's DDD. Unfortunately everything is in storage at the moment. How do these fall within the variations of CD recordings?
The first letter for the recording The second is for mixing The third is for mastering The last one is always a D since CD is a digital format so obviously mastering is always digital. The first can never be changed once the recording has been made (DSOTM was recorded on tape so A) But the second letter can be changed by remixing an album from the original master tapes using digital equipment. Analog mixing adds noise so when remixing old recordings that were previously mixed with analog mixing equipment you can improve the sound quality.
For those that had old school dacs that can decode the hdcd i assume when streaming tidal lossless all the hdcd info is retained and will light up the hdcd decode light on the dac? Silly question and I know tidal doesn't advertise this in music library. Guessing perhaps using tidal in roon it would say so? Thanks paul!
I had a cd player that played HDCD, and i bought couple of reference recordings, to be honest I didn't like the sound that much, the sound stage was good, but the sound was a bit dull to my ears, the sound didn't have that bite, it was a little soft, but some people might like that.
There are various settings on HDCD encoders. Some engineers didn't turn them on. So you get HDCDs with no HDCD features. Details here: wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=List_of_HDCD-encoded_Compact_Discs
Paul....When I was twenty years old? If I forgot some things I used to know when I was in first grade? Would that mean I was getting old? Or, it was just too many years back to retain what I was trying to recall? Of course, when we get older we will not remember certain things. It does not mean we are getting old. But that we lived long enough to not need to recall what we once knew, and there was no practical reason to retain such info in our RAM memory any longer! ;)
Heck I can remember a time in my late teens when I went away to friends of family for the summer and while I remember the trip there by buss I have absolutely zero recollection of how I got home and there were no drugs or alcohol involved.
The audio industry has a graveyard of failed & dead formats over the decades. Consumers probably got sick of being ripped off & ending up with an expensive doorstop. So I'm not surprised that formats like HDCD & SACD failed (yes I know SACD is still around but never reached wide spread adoption). Wait till the optical pickups fail in these players & they'll also be in that graveyard. Parts for those players would no longer be available (like those very expensive Sony SACD players)
The format wars witnessed many field losses because different competitors stuck to their proprietary vehicle, instead of working toward cooperative standardization.
I have about 150 hdcds. And an hdcd player. I find them in general to sound better, more definitive, greater clarity, than the redbook. And they are some of my favorite artists: The Beach Boys, Neil YOung, Chris Isaak, Roxy Music, The Cars, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Mark Knopfler, Joni MItchell, the Doors, Keb Mo, etc. all have some amazing sounding hdcds. There are also hidden hdcds where it is not on the disc or packaging like Dave Brubeck Time Out, but activates if you have an hdcd player. A mostly full hdcd list can be had by searching hdcd in discogs or ebay. It's too bad everything didn't go in this direction b/c basically they were giving you a better sounding cd for the same price as a cd. Not sure you have ever heard Car Wheels on a Gravel Road until you hear it in hdcd, another hidden hdcd.
4 года назад
I don't have any Doors CD's that light up the HDCD indicator.
Just an Extra Tech Logo to make you feel that you are buying a SUPERIOR Product. They should have done this to all CDs.... better still developers of the format could have moved / switched to DVD to deal with the extra info - encoding - CD TEXT etc etc. ... The Music industry would have survived by now, knowing that there is a format that Delivers Master Quality Audio on Disc instead of streaming and MP3 / FLAC playback. Frankly, I have done this test before and hardly 2 out of a handful of 20 people can tell the difference between sampling at 44/16 and 48/24 and or 96/32 or even a 128k Mp3 encode...
@Jingle Nuts Well If you want me to suggest a really good DAWs for your mastering processes, use Cubase / Reaper or Vegas (the latter has a warmer sounding engine). For your plug-in suite use Fab Filter.. to correct EQs, Compression and add transparency and air to the track. WaveLab and Adobe Audition (Formerly Cool Edit Pro) are ok products to use but for your listening pleasure I would recommend sending your signal directly to a Focusrite Scarlette Series 2i2 (2nd Gen). It's not at all expensive, but you get Studio Quality Sound for your 16bit CDs
I still have all King Crimson's series and Jimy Hendrix on HDCD. I loved this codec very much. Also embedded in the old Windows OS software. Then...Mr. Bill Gates buyed the Company and...HDCD disappeared immediately first from Windows Srs audio codecs and from the whole CD market! Gates you are a f...And now HISTORY REPEATING with codecs and hardware from MQA
@Fat Rat Exactly! My Emotiva CD transports/players decode HD. Although my 4k player plays SACDs. Its a whole thing to have a decent 2 channel that will play SACDs. The players cost a ton then the pre amp cost a ton. You can end up investing a lot of money. I just listen to SACDs in my home theater.
@Fat Rat I have some old cheap Yamaha DVD player that can also do SACD, was 8 years old when I bought it and it'd cost me about 40 bucks. Only replaced the laser mechanism (another 25 bucks) to be sure the SACD transport would work like new again. Since it's a cheap POS I only use it as a transport, connected to my external DAC.
i always say its about the quality of the actual original recording,i have both vinyl and cds that are very poor,take BOSTON THIRD STAGE its an awful recording,its about the sound engineer,producer and the recording facilities they had at that time,take THE BEATLES for instance best studio,one of the best sound enigineers and producers there recordings are top quality even for today
Did you notice that actually no one can explain Digital conversion properly? No one can explain the Nyquist frequency and digital oversampling. It's a laugh. Don't worry 'audiophiles' I will invent the Analogue algorithm for you soon.
If you were to buy a good hdcd compatible CD player it would be worth it - if you have some hdcd encoded music you really like - because not only would these sound great but all your other cds would get a modest upgrade - as if they had been deep cleaned - strange but true
