Hdcd

Bought a CD while i was in Memphis called "Now My Soul" by Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters. Superb Blues album if you like that sort of stuff.

Anyway i just putting it in my CD drive to convert it to WMA for my MP3 player when i noticed Windows Media Player telling me that its a HDCD. Never heard of a HDCD before so i looked it up and apparently its encoded at 20 bit rather than the normal 16 bits.

My question is, how did my CD drive know it was a HDCD surely a 4 year old CD drive cant read it at 20 bits and how do i tell if my HiFi and Car CD player read at 16 or 20 bits?

ALso noticed "Blue To The Bone" by Etta James that i also bought in Memphis is a HDCD. Is this a format that is popular in the USA and no here?

[Scrubbs]

wont it get converted when you rip it?

Originally Posted by Scrubbs

wont it get converted when you rip it?

huh? if its a 16bit cd drive it will read at 16 bit and not 20 bit i assume so therefore not reproducing the fully quality. Im not concerned about it when i rip it, i was more wondering about my HiFi CD player

[Scrubbs]

oops

I was making the assumption that you were going to convert it to play wherever you wanted

So..........does it play on your HiFi?

Originally Posted by Scrubbs

oops

I was making the assumption that you were going to convert it to play wherever you wanted

So..........does it play on your HiFi?

Yes it plays but if its a 16 bit player it obviously wont take advantage of the 20 bit encoding. How do you tell?

[andygrif]

HDCD has been around for nearly 10 years now, so it's not really surprising that your CD-ROM is compatible. The reason it shows up in Windows Media, is that HDCD has been taken over by none other than Microsoft.

The process for decoding the extra four bits is just a patended chip, but there are varying degrees of quality, producing varying degrees of sound output quality.

I'm not clear as to if you can rip in full 20-bit glory, but you would presumably require a program that was capable of processing the additional four bits (such as Media Player I wonder?) but once it comes out your 10 quid sound-card it will still sound crap anyway!

Originally Posted by gary_580

Yes it plays but if its a 16 bit player it obviously wont take advantage of the 20 bit encoding. How do you tell?

The process is totally transparent, and cross-compatible. HDCDs play perfectly using 16-bit chips and 16-bit encoded CDs play perfectly on HDCD players.

You can sometime hear a tiny click on the CD player when it starts to read an HDCD, this is about switching the peak control I seem to recall, but not all HDCDs have this so it's not a sure way of telling!!

[Scrubbs]

I couldn't tell cos' I'm tone deaf I listen to mojo radio on my pc and it sounds great to me

But I think the only way you are going to able to tell the difference is by comparision ie same track, one in 16bit and one in 20bit played one after the other

Originally Posted by andygrif

HDCD has been around for nearly 10 years now, so it's not really surprising that your CD-ROM is compatible. The reason it shows up in Windows Media, is that HDCD has been taken over by none other than Microsoft.

The process for deconding the extra four bits is just a patended chip, but there are varying degrees of quality, producing varying degrees of sound output quality.

I'm not clear as to if you can rip in full 20-bit glory, but you would presumably require a program that was capable of processing the additional four bits (such as Media Player I wonder?) but once it comes out your 10 quid sound-card it will still sound crap anyway!

thanks for that. £10 sound card!!! ive got a 5.1 sound card and sounds pretty good too. But as i said, was wondering more about my HiFi

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Scrubbs

I couldn't tell cos' I'm tone deaf I listen to mojo radio on my pc and it sounds great to me

But I think the only way you are going to able to tell the difference is by comparision ie same track, one in 16bit and one in 20bit played one after the other

Very true, in my experience they do sound better, there is more headroom on the recording, more definition. But it's all subjective, you won't notice the difference on a cheap hi-fi.

Originally Posted by gary_580

thanks for that. £10 sound card!!! ive got a 5.1 sound card and sounds pretty good too.

I'm veering slightly off-topic now, but the problem with all standard PC sound cards is that they are based on the AC97 architecture which is not brilliant.

A lot of the manufacturers have done a lot in the last few years to improve latency and drastically lowering noise, but even something like the Audigy 2 is still a far cry from the sound quality of even the cheapest CD player.

It's all changing though, AC97 is on the way out, so I might actually to get to have a PC hooked to the hi-fi at some point!

Originally Posted by andygrif

Very true, in my experience they do sound better, there is more headroom on the recording, more definition. But it's all subjective, you won't notice the difference on a cheap hi-fi.

I have a Creek CAS 4040 amp, Precision Tuned Components Pioneer PD-S505 CD Player and Accoustic Energy floor standing speakers

[andygrif]

Sounds like a nice set-up. See if you can find a compilation without HD which contains a same track from your HD one, see what difference you notice. By the way, if you're running an external DAC or you use the digital in on your amp (if it has one) then this also needs to be HDCD. If you're running phono outs from the CD player (I'm presuming your CD player has HD) you'll be fine.

[Jefferson T]

I just looked at my cd's and found a HD cd - I'd never heard of that before.... SACD yes - but not HDCD....

It's Jeff Waynes Musical Version of The War of The Worlds....

Originally Posted by andygrif

Sounds like a nice set-up. See if you can find a compilation without HD which contains a same track from your HD one, see what difference you notice. By the way, if you're running an external DAC or you use the digital in on your amp (if it has one) then this also needs to be HDCD. If you're running phono outs from the CD player (I'm presuming your CD player has HD) you'll be fine.

No the amp is about 18 yars old so diesnt have digital in.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by andygrif

I'm not clear as to if you can rip in full 20-bit glory, but you would presumably require a program that was capable of processing the additional four bits (such as Media Player I wonder?) but once it comes out your 10 quid sound-card it will still sound crap anyway!

The process is totally transparent, and cross-compatible. HDCDs play perfectly using 16-bit chips and 16-bit encoded CDs play perfectly on HDCD players.

You can sometime hear a tiny click on the CD player when it starts to read an HDCD, this is about switching the peak control I seem to recall, but not all HDCDs have this so it's not a sure way of telling!!

But if you are encoding this into AAC then you will lose most of the benefits anyway, and if you are listening to it on the move on an MP3 player the background noise is likely to drown out what little benefit is left.

Originally Posted by andygrif

It's all changing though, AC97 is on the way out, so I might actually to get to have a PC hooked to the hi-fi at some point!

Plug the Apple Airport Express into your HiFi and PC, it usess lossless encoding for transmission and sounds fab as it does not touch your PCs soundcard.

Originally Posted by gary_580

I have a Creek CAS 4040 amp, Precision Tuned Components Pioneer PD-S505 CD Player and Accoustic Energy floor standing speakers

Do you still have the instruction manual, the specs in the back should say whether it decodes HDCD.

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Do you still have the instruction manual, the specs in the back should say whether it decodes HDCD.

doesnt seem to mention HDCD but it does say "DAC 24 (Jitter Proof 24-bit D/A Converter)" as HDCD is 20bit does this mean that is able to go above and beyond?