Is support for HDCD dying out? (OPPO no longer supporting)

I've decided not to run my masterings through an HDCD converter..

 

In the scope of things HDCD would seem to have ever had virtually zero impact on the marketplace. These microscopic niche technologies come and go on a fairly regular basis.

 

It's a little time consuming but not really that big a deal to stick your HDCD into a computer and rip it using dBPoweramp's HDCD plug-in. You get a 24/44.1 file that you can then use in a number of ways. Play it off your computer if you want. Make a DVD-A and play that in your new Oppo or other universal player. Dither it back to 16/44.1 and burn a CD-R for your CD player.

The Doors, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young albums are available now in true hi-res, making the HDCD pretty superfluous. The Doors albums have multiple different versions. Neil and Joni have the same mastering in hi-res they have in decoded HDCD.

The Grateful Dead releases haven't used HDCD features for several years, and only inconsistently before that. I very much doubt they will in the future, either. The other thing about Grateful Dead releases is the significant percentage that are off-pitch and need to be decoded in the computer prior to using speed/pitch changing programs to correct that, making the original HDCD discs relatively useless anyway.

 

Lots of the old Apex DVD players decode HDCD if you come across them used plus many can be made all region.

 

Would using an inexpensive DVD player in a quality system to be able to take advantage of HDCD encoded CDs be worth it?

 

I only have a small number of HDCDs (a couple not even labelled as such) but have decoded them all to 44.1K/24 bit files using dBPoweramp. I'm sure these could be played on a newer Oppo player off a USB stick or via a media server.

 

I would guess not as any potential decoding gains in SQ would probably be negated by the low quality internal DAC etc........that made that DVD player inexpensive in the first place!!!

Maybe the opposite ..........a non decoded HDCD played through a quality DAC may have better SQ than a properly decoded one through a cheapie.

I suppose some auditioning would soon settle that!!

 

If the files are pre-decoded you don't need any special hardware to play them back. Just a DAC of some sort that goes up to 24/44...pretty easy to find these days.

MusicBee also rips HDCD to 24/44 if people don't feel like paying for dBPoweramp. I'm not saying dB isn't a good program (it is), just putting a free option out there for anyone that may want it.

 

Foobar 2000 does as well (free), or plays them as HDCD

 

Yes it does, provided they were ripped correctly and you are decoding on the fly using Foobar on Windows. However, If I rip with EAC and then move those files to a mobile device such as a portable DAP or Smartphone they will not play with the full HDCD decoding.

You have to rip them as pre-decoded 24/44 files if you want to play them on the go AFAIK. There is a Foobar mobile app (in general a pale shadow of the full Windows program) but it doesn't utilize HDCD.exe therefore has no way to decode the files, again, AFAIK. This is why I prefer to rip as 24/44 using either MusicBee or dBPoweramp if I want to play them back on my Android smartphone.

 

Jeez, that's a lot of work for a negligible difference.

 

An APEX was never worth it.

 

Many years ago when CD players first came out I had numerous run of the mill players always searching for a less digital / glaring sound and then HDCD players came out with the "promise". I upgraded to a moderately priced one that decoded HDCD, I believe it was an entry Rotel unit and I also purchased one of the first Oppo players. I definitely thought that they improved the sound. Maybe I just stepped up in players or the chip sets got better or jitter was beginning to be reduced, who knows, but these players really brought a smile to my ears. Now that I upgraded to a much better unit without HDCD I find I don't look back as if I miss HDCD, however on some HDCD discs played on this player, without the decoding, the bass seems bloated. Not sure why. I also have a fair number of HDCDs; GD, Neil Young, CSN, CSN&Y, Joni Mitchell, Buffalo Springfield, I thinks some Roxy music or was it Brian Ferry, and a bunch more CDs that were later remixed into HDCD. As mentioned some sound great through a non-HDCD player while others sound worse, so now I wish I never had bought any HDCDs because I am never sure if I have a looser or a winner. I am glad there is always a search for better sound, but it does lead to frustration and the question is always at the back of my mind, are these supposed improvements to benefit the consumer or the companies promoting them? I then wonder about MQA Audio, is it the next best step up or will it find its way to the HDCD fate in ten years?

 

SH says that while HDCD sounded good, it wasn't necessarily better, and in some cases, other methods have superior results. So, I don't miss it for the future. However, I do think that my existing HDCDs sound better decoded, and I'm disappointed that OPPO has chosen to eliminate support for HDCD. It was a significant selling point, at least for me, given how few players support it anymore. I was sorry to see that.

 

Just take your ordinary 16 bit CD rips, decode/convert them with CUETools (or some other program) and you're done. At least when you're ripping all your CDs to HD routinely, the additional work is as negligible as the difference in SQ.

 

I have an LM-215 and an Oppo 105D myself. Even though there's no HDCD decoding on the 215, I still like it way more than the Oppo for all things Dead or otherwise.

 

New Emotiva BasX CD-100 CD player with HDCD. $299.00



Jana at AXPONA 2017: the First Morning

 

It's not extra work. dBpoweramp can rip and decode an HDCD disc in one step just like a regular CD. I believe MusicBee can also do it when ripping a disc (I've never actually ripped a disc using MusicBee so I don't know). The way I do it with CUETools makes decoding HDCD a two step process, but still easy. Foobar is also a multi-step process, but not difficult for people who use Foobar.

I would hope that the people here on a forum like this would find HDCD to be a noticeable difference. Even the discs with no Peak Extend and no Gain should have a noticeable sonic signature that I attribute to the Pacific Microsonics converter. I would hope that people here have the ears and gear to be able to notice that sonic signature. For discs with Peak Extend the difference when decoding HDCD should be very obvious to everyone here. Gain decoding is more tricky. It only kicks in on low level signals during things like fade-outs. I don't consider Gain to be a big deal if it's not decoded.

 

That is the annoying thing: sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on how the disc was mastered and what was the engineer trying to go for.

I paid about $60 for a Japanese HDCD of King Crimson's The Nightwatchman and that one had not one bit of difference from the regular domestic release. The flag came up but nothing else.

SS's Manassas and Pure Jerry Vol. 9 are two that come to mind right now where I find a significant difference in the decoding. Mind you, when I say "a significant difference" I don't mean night and day, but just enough more airspace or headroom where I don't want to ever listen again to the undecoded playback. Jean Luc Ponty's Live at Chene Park is another one that sparkles when decoded.

I agree it is an obsolete technology now, with the availability of HiRez, but since I already paid for and have the discs might as well enjoy them to their fullest potential. Also, not everything is available in HiRez, not even close.

 

Hey Ham. I appreciate your input; I always enjoy your posts. But...

I keep seeing those recommendations, and they never fail to never mention that those are Windows-only solutions. (Yes, I know I could Boot Camp it, but I need a better reason to stuff Windows into my Mac. Or pay for a second copy of dbPoweramp.)

Me too! And I believe I gave it the best shot possible when I installed an HDCD-capable DAC years ago. And it was a good one: EAD DSP-7000 MkIII (now replaced by a USB DAC).

I won't pretend I'm thoroughly vetting this, or that I'm even much of a 'phile, but the simple ear test over quite a few years didn't yield much of anything. The Doors '99 box was particularly disappointing.

I acknowledge that your experience is dramatically different.

For my part, I simply "needledropped" my few dozen HDCDs to a (budget) ADC at 24/96. Source was an Oppo 103. A couple comparisons later tell me the same thing all over again. I might do more comparisons later; they're all conveniently on the server now. But I'm struggling to find an incentive to pay any more attention to HDCD at this point.

 

I own two HDCD titles (that I know of) and have only bothered to rip & decode one, The Cars S/T. It has peak extension- loud & bloated without decoding, sounds dynamically much closer to the original CD once decoded. Certainly worth the trouble in this particular case...

 

I don't know for sure if it is HDCD but I have several cd's with it and they are awesome. Maybe it's the masstering but they are good. Hendrix Uitimate Experience, the HDCD version, is some of the best Hendrix I have heard in any format. My opinion anyhow. My Wright modded Oppo 105d has it, so so I guess that is one more reason I will have it around for awhile.

 

It does suck that decoding with software HDCD requires that you run Windows. That sucks. I wish that the decoding was open source, or at least available in a way that makes it easy for people running Macs or Linux to also decode HDCD with the same tools. Unfortunately that isn't the way it is. That sucks. In order to run the currently available HDCD software decoding tools you need to be running an operating system (or a virtual operating system) that can run a windows x86 binary. So essentially you need to be running an OS or virtual OS that can run a x86 Windows compiled DLL or EXE. Linux running WINE may be able to do it, but I haven't tried and I haven't done any internet searches specific enough to determine if anyone has successfully gotten HDCD decoding to work under WINE or not.

I've been DOS or Windows for the past 30 years. I've always had at least one computer available that has had a Windows license (I've had computers running Linux, haven't owned a Mac) so the requirement to run Windows to be able to decode HDCD hasn't been an issue for me. I do appreciate that it is an issue for people who run all Macs or Linux and don't have or want Windows. Maybe Linux running WINE will work for them? I don't know. I haven't pursued that because I haven't had the personal need to.

But yes, the fact that the Mac version of dBpoweramp and other similar tools cannot decode HDCD sucks and is very inconvenient. I wish that was not so. Linux users are in a similar situation. That sucks. Maybe there is a publicly available Linux virtual machine environment that can run the HDCD tools under WINE? I don't know. It would be very helpful if there was.

 

The lasts HDCD I got and none of the have the HDCD logo are 2005's Star Wars Revenge Of The Sith soundtrack (European CD but I guess all edition around the world have the same mastering) and 2006's Roxette Hits! I don't think the Roxette HDCD sound different decoded or undecoded (I have an Oppo BDP-93) but I'm curious about the Star War HDCD, I'd like to know what of the HDCD features it uses.

 

There is probably a quicker way of doing this, but if you have Foobar installed with the HDCD decoder you can elicit which HDCD features are in use:

Play your CD using Foobar, OR select a track from your library if it has been ripped losslessly (i'm assuming HDCD encoding either won't survive or is just pointless in the context of lossy ripping).

Right click on a track, select "Utilities", "Scan for HDCD tracks". This will show you which HDCD features are enabled. As an example; if I use it on my ALAC rip of the "Time out" HDCD by Dave Brubeck, I get: Minimum gain -4.0dB, Maximum gain 0.0 dB, Peak extension: Enabled, Transient filter: disabled. I have just tried on the nearest HDCD I could find on the shelf (Anoraknophobia by Marillion) and it works too. If you try it on a non HDCD encoded file or CD you just get a blank report, and if you try it on an HDCD encoded track that has already been decoded to a 44.1/24 bit file you get a "No valid files to scan" error message.