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HDCD

Here's a (probably) dumb question. Does anyone make a player that plays SACD AND decodes HDCD? 
I guess HDCD failed in the marletplace. Too bad. The few I have actually sound better...even when played on an old Sony boy ray player...than many of my SACDs played on my good player. I do have an older NAD cd player that decodes HDCD in a second system but I don't can't move it into the main system every time i want to hear n HDCD. Having 1 player to do both would be ideal.

secretguy
ddzstereo
84 posts
 
I always liked the sound of HDCD, my Assemblage DAC 3.1 could decode them
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
I cannot be definitive. OTOH, if JRiver can decode HDCD in software, I see no reason to reject the idea that others cannot also do it in firmware. Can you suggest a performance test to determine whether there is decoding?

Maybe burn two discs, one with the software hdcd switched off and see if there’s a difference when played back at the same level on a known real chip based hdcd player.
But you have to be careful, I believe hdcd can sound slightly louder in dynamics.
" If you play it back without HDCD encoding, the quiet part is simply louder so it’s like dynamic range compression. As the quiet part arrives, HDCD encodes a flag that tells the DAC to reduce the amplitude. The DAC is working in 24 bit so it can shift it down without loss of resolution. Then as the music gets louder again, the HDCD encodes another flag telling the DAC to "go back to normal". ."


Cheers George
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,585 posts
 

@secretguy

Thanks for the tip. HDCD flew under my radar since I was working overly when they were created. The library has a few and they do indeed sound better on my rig AND ....

I like the blue printed analogy. 

cptrips
25 posts
 

My Yamaha BD-S681 blu-ray player plays both SACD and HDCD. 

drmuso's avatar
drmuso
106 posts
 

My Cambridge Audio CXU plays SACD, Blu Ray, and HDCD.  But try to find one. I bought it after Oppo stopped making players, but chose it instead of the pricier Oppos based on its streaming Youtube and comments by some who had compared its sound to the Oppo players.

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