HDCD Hardware and Software

Me too, I was mistaken. The closest thing I could find was this and frankly I want to know if it's worth getting an HDCD player for these new Audio Fidelity releases. http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=834972&postcount=110

 

It is not going to sound as good. On an non HDCD player, it will sound the best that redbook can possibly sound, like the rest of the SH mastered gold CDs. However, when decoded on an HDCD player, it will sound better.

 

Well that is comforting for me as I do have a HDCD player, but I haven't heard any HDCD discs that would send me running to buy a HDCD player just for these or any HDCD discs.
I own the Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1 and it's a good sounding player but I have heard many players that sound just as good, if not better which are not HDCD.

 

I don't think Steve would ever do anything to compromise the sound of his discs. If he chose to make his gold CD's HDCD encoded, he did it for a good reason.

 

You know I think you are right. I don't know him personally but I do trust his judgement in these kind of matters, I was just wondering aloud on his site.

 

From www.hdcd.com:

"HDCD provides more dynamic range, a more focused 3-D soundstage, and extremely natural vocal and musical timbre."

Steve will hopefully chime in, especially if I got this all wrong. In the past, I think Steve had stated that the "extremely natural vocal and musical timbre", which I'm going to read as tonality, was not the same coming out of processing, as it was going in from the analog master. And he's fixed that, so now the tonality doesn't change de-coded or not. You get, decoded, a more focused 3-D soundstage, if possible, and possibly a greater dynamic range, which I doubt if it's a pop recording. And he's done other tubey things to the signal chain, along with his typical magic for the new discs.

 

HDCD will give you more dynamic range. Bit depth affects dymanic range. An HDCD is essentially 20 bits insted of 16. That means that there are 1,048,576 quantization intervals for amplitude insted of 65,536 intervals.

 

I understand what you are saying, but how do you explain, other than the fact that my Sony XA777ES is a better player than the Denon 3800, that any HDCD I play on the Sony sounds so much better than one played back on the Denon 3800 (which is decoding the disc in HDCD)?

All things being equal, an HDCD disc will sound better on an HDCD player, but the point that I am trying to make is that if someone already has a great redbook CD player, and then goes out and gets a mediocore HDCD player, it is quite possible that the mediocore player decoding HDCD won't sound any better (and may sound worse) than the top shelf redbook CD player they already own playing the HDCD encoded disc.

Just as, in theory, it would seem that SACD should sound better than a redbook version of the same disc, it may not always be the case. If someone has a very inexpensive SACD player, yes the SACD version should sound better than the redbook version of the same CD played on the same machine. But as was pointed out in this thread by another, it is quite possible that a redbook CD played on an ultra-expensive CD player can sound better than an inexpensive SACD player playing the same music.

As in all things audio, theory and measurements mean something, but I truly believe the best test is the ears of the person listening. If someone listens to an HDCD on a non HDCD player, and listens to the same disc on an HDCD player (of lesser quality), and they hear better quality from the non-HDCD player - then which sounds better?

 

Price of the player. The XA777ES does redbook extremely well. If you had and HDCD player that was in the same class as the XA777ES, then the HDCD would sound better.

 

If your going to buy a CD player that does HDCD decoding make sure it has a 20 bit DAC. Some players that advertise HDCD only have 18 bit DAC's.

 

Joe, while I appreciate your expertise in most things I find this to speculation at the best and I require a lot more than just speculation to justify a large calibur purchase like we're discussing. I stand unconvinced that HDCD is better where as SACD has already been proven. So far I have yet to hear anything that rivals what Steve can do with 16-bit including a majority of SACDs, but that's mainly attributed to mastering decisions. As for HDCD perhaps my opinion will change regarding HDCD when I hear Steves work through some high-end HDCD players, if such an animal even exists.

 

My Krell 20i sounded better with redbook than my Pioneer 47Ai did with SACD. Why, because the Krell was a better machine. It had nothing to do with format.

The APL3910 is a high-end HDCD player. You should hear SACD on the APL3910.
It changed my mind about SACD. I used to think, who needs SACD when my Krell sounds better than SACD played on the mid-fi/low-fi units. Not anymore.

 

If I may chime in again. I'd like to use the analogy of a car. Try to think of HDCD decoding as the engine of the car. It takes more than just the engine to make a high performing automobile.

Think of your favorite high performance car, be it Maserati, Lamborghini, Porsche, etc. Its engine, combined with the steering, transmission, suspension, etc. work to make a great driving experience. Take the engine out of the car and put it in a Yugo, for example. The Yugo will not yield the same driving experience just because the engine is the same. It won't handle as well, it's transmission isn't as good, etc. Now take that Yugo and compare the driving experience to that, say, of a Corvette. The engine in the Yugo is better than that of the Corvette, because it came from the Maserati, etc. However, the Corvette will drive better because the rest of the car (suspension, transmission, etc.) is better and matched to its engine.

It is the same with CD players. Put an HDCD decoder into a player that doesn't have a good a power supply, output stage, transport, etc. and the player may not sound as good as a player with a lesser (non-HDCD) engine but better other components.

I hope this long winded analogy helps clear things up a bit.

 

Oops, I think you misunderstood my last post. I was not saying that HDCD is better than SACD. SACD absolutely stomps redbook and HDCD. I was saying that the non decoded HDCD would sound better on a high end redbook player, than on an HDCD player, with the disc being decoded. I was just using the Sony XA777ES as an example, because it does redbook very well, but it does not decode HDCD, and it beats a lesser expensive player that can actually decode the disc.

As for a high end HDCD player, the Adcom GCD-750 is a fantastic redbook, and HDCD player. It uses 20 bit converters, and all class A circuitry. I got this player long before SACD came out, and it was the only redbook player in its price range that I could tolerate listening to. I paid $1600 for it new, but you can get it used for around $600 now. However, it still does not even come close to SACD, but Steves gold discs sound real nice on it!

 

Thank you. That was what I was saying all along.

 

For those who need a CD+G player that is capable of decoding HDCD, you can order VocoPro from www.northernlightfx.com

 

What is the APL? Who makes it...

This reminds me of a thread some time back which asked if a $100.00 SACD player will sound better than a $5000.00 Redbook CD player. I responded no and was asked to expound.
The analogy is similar to the one with the exotic sports car.

Another thing, not to thread crap on my own thread, I own what I consider a fairly High End CD player, Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1, and I am staying out of the SACD market due to their being mostly low-priced and high-priced players. I don't think a low-priced SACD player will sound that much better than my SFCD-1, if at all.

Another thing that may influence HDCD playback is that it was mentioned in that article I mentioned in the beginning, at that time only the ULTRA ANALOG DACs were able to take certain instructions available to the disc manufacturer. That was some time back so that may be a non-issue.

 

I heard about the APL3910 from Steve Hoffman, who heard it at the CES and really liked it.
I went out and bought one because it was said to play redbook well, not to mention just about everything else on disc.

http://www.aplhifi.com/

 

Here are some comments I posted here on HDCD back in November, after reading the white papers on how HDCD works:

 

It dosent steal one bit of the information, it steals the least significant bit, which is just noise anyway, there is no usable info there. It is quantization noise, the noise generated when an analog voltage value falls between the quantization interval.

 

That doesn't mean that you can use the LSB for anything you like and have it be inaudible. Why'd they only steal 5% instead of the whole thing?

Regardless, it's not 20-bit audio, that was the main point. And I never claimed that the way they use the LSB affected the sound on HDCD players.

 

Very true.