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HDCD rescue - it's possible, but man...

I spent the better part of today sick, but working on finding a way to decode music I might have that is HDCD encoded.

As a refresher, HDCD was an enhanced CD format. In some ways the predecessor to MQA. HDCD was an engineer's toolbox, allowing the mastering engineer to select a number of features. This would then be decoded by a matching chip on a CD player or DAC. The most famous feature of HDCD was bit-compression. Getting a 24 bit signal encoded in a 16 bit music file.

As an aside, the Pacifics Microsonics AD converters were highly prized by engineers for their sound quality. Anyway, the format got bought by Microsoft and died.

Of the 670 CD's I have ripped only about 11 were HDCD encoded. But man, what a pain. I ripped everything to FLAC, but the HDCD decoder only does WAV. I had to download source, compile it, then write a script to go through every CD and decide if it's HDCD or not. Once found, I have to convert from FLAC (44/16) to WAV, decode the WAV file (now 24 bits) and convert back to FLAC to compress again.

The discovery process was pretty fast.  About 10 minutes to go through them all by cheating. :) More time was spent figuring out how to pass apostrophe's in file names than finding the files.  Nathalie Merchant was one author who consistently used HDCD by the way.
erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,128 posts
 
There is a software solution, ffmpeg, that should be able to tell you whether a track is redbook, HDCD tagged but not used, and real HDCD. It's not that useful unless you want to conserve disk space though. :) I mean, it's kind of academic.

Best,


E
ptss
1,964 posts
 
Erik,your link doesn't work. For me a smaller space relates only to choice of smaller loudspeakers. You?
erik_squires OP
16,128 posts
 
Sorry about the broken link, there's an extra https:// at the end. The correct one is here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2016/01/introduction-to-georgia-tech-leach.html
erik_squires OP
16,128 posts
 
Smaller speakers but not smaller sound is my goal. :)  The LM-1 kit I posted is a reference quality monitor but specifically designed for a bookshelf or desktop.  By making a "true bookshelf" it has a lot of advantages for sounding great, sounding loud and being out of the way.

Best,

Erik
seventies
67 posts
 
Erik,
I see amongst your many contributions this one regarding HDCD, and ask if you might address three questions.
First, how do you rate 24/96 PCM versus DSD 64 an DSD 128 or 256 ?
Second, do you know of a source of 24/96 classical music other than what appears to be a small number of disks (an such no longer manufactured) ?
If a 'streaming' source, can the data be 'tethered' without incurring a monthly fee ?
Third, have you the 'experience' that more accurate loudspeakers
(I have just replaced B&W 802d2's with d3's) render such speakers a virtual necessity where discernment of instruments and voices in orchestral and ensemble music is sought, AND THAT THIS IS RELEVANT ONLY WITH THE HIGHER DATA RESOLUTION FORMS ?
Thanks for any thoughts regarding all of this.
Seventies
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