Trouble with 20-bit HDCD

erik_squires! You said earlier:

For convenience, I have ripped all my CD’s and then wrote some scripts to scan for HDCD and decode them. Now all my HDCD’s are stored as 24 bit FLAC.

I would absolutely love to hear more in-depth detail about this process. In particular, how are you decoding the HDCD material into a higher bit depth? Is this done in software?!? or are you feeding a DAC a 16-bit HDCD stream, it’s decoding it to an analog out, and then you’re feeding that into a 24-bit ADC back into your computer?

I have many losslessly encoded digital files from HDCD encoded CDs and would love to convert them as you have.

Perhaps you already have the Paul O’Dette Kapsberger disc.  If not, highly recommended!

Some HDCD sound fine on regular players, some don't. Like anything, the devil is in the details.

@erik_squires - Did you actually DECODE the HDCD or just take the 16 bits to 24?

Interesting article on HDCD and Pacific Microsonics
https://www.stereophile.com/content/hdcd-keith-johnson-pflash-pflaumer-michael-ritter

Did you actually DECODE the HDCD or just take the 16 bits to 24?

I wrote a Perl script to scan all my FLAC files for evidence of HDCD encoding, and those that appeared to be encoded I decoded using open source tools. All this was on a Linux/Ubuntu box. I believe I used ffmpeg to actually locate and convert.

It is important to note that due to the widespread use of the Pacific Microsonics ADC, and the engineers not caring about settings, a lot of CD’s may be digitally watermarked as HDCD, without any of the HDCD features, such as 20 bit dynamic range expansion, being used.


Best,
E

@engineears - If you operate in the Windows world, the DBpoweramp ripping software has an option that allows HDCD discs to be ripped at 24 bits.  It's been a while but, if I remember, it's a plugin that has to be added or activated.  Dick