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HDCD To MacMini To Ayre QB9 Twenty DAC

Here I am, waiting as patiently as possible to receive my newly upgraded Ayre QB9 Twenty DAC. With the upgrade comes the ability to playback HDCD cd’s. The only HDCD’s that I’m aware of owning are the Rhino releases of Grateful Dead shows. What I don’t know about is whether I just rip the HDCD onto my hard drive and then my DAC will read it that way? Also, I’m thinking that Audirvana won’t transport the HDCD signal even though it will with DSD files. Any insights would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
goofyfoot
jafant's avatar
jafant
20,167 posts
 
goofyfoot

Good to read that you are back in the game. Neil Young is a proponent of HDCD as well. Most of his CD catalog has this codec.

Happy Listening!
goofyfoot's avatar
goofyfoot OP
1,388 posts
 
All-right, well that just proves how out of touch I am. The early Joni Mitchell HDCD's interest me. Recently, I purchased a Japanese paper sleeve of Nick Drake's 'Pink Moon' and was taken by how open and analogue it sounds for a cd. I spoke with my friend who works at the local record store about Japanese paper sleeve releases and was told that it's always a risk to pay up for them unless you know for sure that they are exceptional. However many are no better than your average red book release. Anyone got any ideas on this topic?
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Neil Young is a proponent of HDCD as well

From what I was told, he’s also a huge "anti compression" advocate as well and helped finance the Dynamic Range Data Base website https://dr.loudness-war.info/ along with other noted musicians.

The early HDCD’s interest me.
Always get the 1st releases as they are usually the least compressed, most of the stuff streamed and download are later re-issues that have been squashed (compressed).
EG: https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year?artist=Traveling+Wilburys

Cheers George

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