Ripping HDCD audio

Hi guys, I've had a good read through this thread, but I'm still having problems ripping HDCD audio in foobar. It's probably something stupid I am doing wrong, but I thought I'd detail my ripping method/settings here in case someone can easily spot the errors of my ways

- foobar 2000 v1.3.10
- HDCD decoder 1.15 installed
- Example track: Neil Young - 'Tell Me Why' (scanning the CD for HDCD tracks tells me that this track has minimum gain of -4.o dB, peak extension enabled and intermittent transient filter)

My method of ripping the above track
- Convert > Output format: WAV, 16 bit, dither: never, Processing: Enable decode postprocessing - for decoding DTS, HDCD, etc.

After ripping, I scan the ripped track for HDCD, but there is nothing there. Similarly, whilst playing the ripped track, the status bar displays "HDCD = ?" (as opposed to when I play the track on the CD, in which case the status bar displays "HDCD = yes | PE: yes LLE: 0.0 dB TF: yes/no)

What am I doing wrong? Note that I have tried several other HDCDs, all with the same result. I have also experimented by ripping to 16 bit FLAC, 24 bit FLAC and with different sample rates, all without success.

 

The post processing would decode the HDCD resulting in a ripped track that is no longer HDCD encoded, but should have been expanded to 20 bits.

If you want a 16bit track that still has the HDCD encoding you should not enable post processing.

 

Many thanks, Steve. That did the trick.

So I suppose ripping to 24 bit 44.1 with post processing enabled should sound about the same as ripping to 16 bit with post processing disabled because both would be benefiting from expansion to 20 bits.

 

Correct. The reason to do the post processing is if you are going to play it back through a system that doesn't detect and decode HDCD.