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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
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
erik_squires OP
16,128 posts
 
Hi @seventies ,
First, how do you rate 24/96 PCM versus DSD 64 an DSD 128 or 256 ?

15 years ago I'd have preferred DSD. Today it's a really tough call. Maybe no difference. DAC's' have improved so much that the difference between Redbook and hi-resolution formats has pretty much disappeared to my ears.

Second, do you know of a source of 24/96 classical music 

You can stream MQA encoded music from Tidal. There's of course also several download sites:

Here are a couple of sources, not sure if all have hi rez or not:

https://www.bluecoastrecords.com/

https://www.sony.com/electronics/best-music-download-sites-hi-res-audio

http://www.chesky.com/

http://2L.no
erik_squires OP
16,128 posts
 
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


I argue their accuracy, but there are a number of speakers which accentuate details in the treble region which enhance the experience. Dali, Golden Ear, Dynaudio, Focal. You should absolutely buy the brand that brings you the greatest joy. If B&W is your happy pill, take 2! 
Amps also make a difference. Going to a Luxman made me recover a lot of this information you are talking about. Room acoustics as well.

For B&W make sure you listen on the mid axis instead of the treble.

Again, there are a number of great DACs out which make the difference between high resolution and Redbook disappear.

The last DAC  I owned that begged for high resolution files was the ARC DAC 8. The Mytek line, along with top end modern Schiit DACs and others are going to shock you with their Redbook playback.
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