HDCD VS SACD

Am I sure of what? That there are few HDCD discs and that there are none being issued these days? Yup. There never were many but I do not have a count. In my own collection, they probably number a few dozen. OTOH, I have thousands of SACDs and I am acquiring more each week. In fact, I have disposed of many more SACDs than I have ever had of HDCDs.

As far as I care, HDCD has become irrelevant, unfortunately.

Kal

Blindjim - HDCD is not encoded in 20 bit words. The word length is 16-bit. The claim is that it is "equivalent" to 20 bit performance.

Part of better sound quality of HDCD is the fact that only (or mostly) very well recorded CDs (or remastered) are issued as HDCD.

Fafafion

Huh?

Try rereading my last paragraph.

if your RB source is top notch and your SACD player only converts DSD to PCM output, it's entirely possible the RB could sound better than the SACD.. as the SACD aspect is not the optimum DSD throughput. BTW not all SACD are purely DSD masters front to back, as I understand it and so some of my own SACDs indicate.

I also have some SACD discs which simply do not sound any better than the orig RB CD to me…. Just as some CDs don’t sound very good either. Hence my mention of the ‘process’ being as important as are those higher res numbers to achieve HIGH FIDELITY in the recording, and the note on the system’s needs to fully realize the benefit of such software!

An extreme ex would be playing back an HD, or SACD disc via a boom box vs a home audio system, given both can play those formats.

BTW… regardless the range of the speakers, be they full or limited, the advantages of more resolute discs will reveal themselves within that band width the loud speakers can reproduce. So a full range speaker isn’t a necessity to see the benefits of a well recorded high res disc… it’s merely more advantageous to have such reproducers on hand.

Kijanki

My bad... the article I read was a while back. I must have confused the statements. Could have sworn it was 20 though. Must be more as you say here though as I can’t find any note of the word or sampling rate changes with HD CD, only an encoding decoding process that is added to the hardware/software for enhancement of that format over standard RB Cds.

I did see where several chip makers have added the decoding in some of their chips, eg., Burr Brown 1732. MS Media Player from version 9 up also have this tech included into them for HD CD playback. One note said MP would at times show the HD logo when playing a HD CD.

The term High Definition gets thrown about a lot too and doesn’t always hold purely to the technology PMI developed originally.

Blindjim - I've never heard SACD but according to reviews I read it is way better than anything else being equivalent to 20bit/96kHz. The problem is that the format is dead.
(DSD as I understand is 4 bit wide SACD).

- only 5000 available titles
- expensive SACDc and players.
- impossible to copy (cannot have backup)
- cannot be stored or used in a server
(it can, but loses SACD sound advantage).
- companies are moving away from CDs altogether
(LINN stopped recording/manufacturing CDs)

I mentioned on the other thread that Century Fox was preparing DVD sales (also multilayer format) in China at about 10 juan eaquivalent to $1.25 They admitted only very small profit at this price (now we know what region code is for - to protect their profits).

Can somebody explain to me why SACD costs $30 while production + royalties is in order of a dollar. IMHO format was introduced to battle CD copying (cannot be copied - has pit modulation) and not for the sound reason (we don't represent any buying power). Later after great reviews they got greedy, selling SACDs at $30 and shot themselves in a foot.

New standard is very difficult to establish. DVD-Audio wasn't successful as well as CODE - 24bit/96kHz format (DVD)started by some artists such as John Mellencamp. It is easier to start new standard when cost of media is low - at least initially and not 2x higher.

Stereophile also said that SACD is dead in editorial column few months ago. They said that most of new Blu-Ray players don't even support SACD. I know that some support it but not sure what percentage.

HDCD was introduced for the same reason (copying protection) and is also dead.

Kijanski wrote: "Stereophile also said that SACD is dead in editorial column few months ago. They said that most of new Blu-Ray players don't even support SACD. I know that some support it but not sure what percentage. "

And you believe them? :-) All the BR players I've fooled with lately have SACD and Sony, remarkably, just announced a few new ones.

Kal