Ultimate HQCD (UHQCD) - new CD format, King Crimson on UHQCD and more

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by toilet_doctor, Aug 10, 2016.

  1. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    I think there's a difference between 'trying' and knowing for sure this new medium measurable is an improvement. I could 'try' the new MFSL vinyl of Tears for Fears's Seeds of Love and compare it to my original copy....but it's possible in 'trying' my ears will deceive me.... I need more facts than someone else's ears and fancy diagrams, drawn up by the manufacturer. There's so much 'snake oil' going on in Audiophileworld; I'll stick to what I have for now and wait for something really convincing. I might miss out on the Audiophile Breakthrough of the Century, but I have money to spend on other things....
     
    Regginold31 likes this.
  2. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Don't worry about it - I can include you in snake-oil group for my toilet doctor sessions.
     
    Say It Right likes this.
  3. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Everything starts and finish with money.
     
    Boris75 likes this.
  4. Lyle_JP

    Lyle_JP Forum Curmudgeon

    Location:
    Danville, CA, US
    The whole pitch sounded almost reasonable. Until the picture of the pits touted the atomic force microscope used.

    Then I just started laughing.
     
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  5. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    Can these be ripped and burnt onto a cdr with the same quality as the original ?
     
    RHCD and Yovra like this.
  6. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I have to leave, but we will talk...
     
  7. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    It maybe laughable, but end result is stunning.
     
  8. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Nope.
     
  9. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    Well.....

    thanks.
     
    toilet_doctor likes this.
  10. Espen R

    Espen R Senior Member

    Location:
    Norway
    Hi,
    I know that better disc manufacturing improves sound quality. That's why I love the smooth analog sound of Shm-sacd's.

    But come on: This is madness in 2016.

    Why? It is easy to explain.
    CD sound in 2016 is like investing money in old CRT tv panels in 2016 to get it looks like Lcd or Oled tv panels. Everyone knows that battle is lost. Because of old technology loose vs new technology with much more pixels, better contrast, better colour seperation and more...

    CD is that old CRT screens in 2016.

    Laser reading optics will always create jitter. And jitter is digital errors.

    Instead of 650 MB as a limited number of "pixels" for one hour music, you can in 2016 easily have 25GB describing one hour of music. And that's a lot more pixels!
    In that context, producing HQ CD's in 2016 is not only silly, it is ****ing stupid!

    HiFi people, people that ask for better sound quality has to stop buying CD's and ask for more!
     
    toilet_doctor likes this.
  11. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    I give up, it's hard arguing with someone like yourself who has to have the last word without real arguments. The best of luck with the World's Best Sound Ever.
     
    bleachershane likes this.
  12. Merrick

    Merrick The return of the Thin White Duke

    Location:
    Portland
    If the argument is that the physical limitations of CD prevent the best possible sound quality, then it follows that the digital files stored and played back without ever being on a CD will present you with the highest quality, higher than UHQCD, or SACD, or any other laser based digital storage/playback medium.
     
    quicksrt likes this.
  13. Endymion

    Endymion Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    You're all talking physics to somebody who believes in astrology.
     
  14. Claus

    Claus Senior Member

    Location:
    Germany
    Files stored on SSD are better than the best CD drives! No advantage for PT or anything else.... my conclusion after I did a very long comparison on dCS Vivaldi vs SSD. I always prefered the playback on SSD over any drive.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2016
    PhantomStranger and Merrick like this.
  15. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    Please....

    Will all of you who buy into this....if you replace old cds, early masterings....PLEASE...

    Let me know ! Your trash could turn into my treasure !!!!!!!!!! :D
     
    klockwerk likes this.
  16. Dennis Metz

    Dennis Metz Born In A Motor City south of Detroit

    Location:
    Fonthill, Ontario
    Why do we have to go through this every time the Japanese figure out another way to rip us off?:cheers:
     
  17. Claus

    Claus Senior Member

    Location:
    Germany
    I only have a few Platinum SHM-CDs with a unique mastering. Otherwise the same rip off like Blu-Spec I, Blu-Spec II and on and on......
     
  18. PH416156

    PH416156 Alea Iacta Est

    Location:
    Europe
    It's unbelievable that there's yet another format that allows Kind of blue to be re-released again and again :D
     
  19. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

    The $2000 CD Made From Glass »
     
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  20. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Is this a Jedi mind trick :D
     
    toilet_doctor and noname74 like this.
  21. Because reading the file from a SSD removes the inherent jitter baked into the CD medium. That is what most of these new CD technologies are attempting to lower, the inherent jitter of CDs.

    These discs are strictly for CD players that don't internally reclock the redbook data or use an external DAC.
     
    toilet_doctor likes this.
  22. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    "When Robert Harley speaks, I'm listening, as a solder is listening to his general. Because I don't have 27 years of experience comparing the best in a world audio gear; I don't publish my own books; I don't record my own reference CDs and I don't have such a reference system:
    Speakers: Magico Q7 MkII ($229,000) with EnigmAcoustics Sopranino Supertweeter ($3,690). Amp: Constellation Audio Hercules II Monoblocks 1100W ($140,000)
    He signed his first volume of Illustrated History of High-End Audio: Speakers at Chicago High-End Audio show last year and will sign second volume Electronics tomorrow for me." -- from my post #5030, page 202, HD Tracks thread)




    Not so fast, Mr. AlanDistro...
    This so-called "fact", based on the theory, which could be true in ideal world, but failed in practice.
    Each good theory supposed to based on the experiments, especially, when it comes to new materials.

    In the reality experiments proved just the opposite:
    Digital file placed on the different carrier sounds different in High-End system.

    Here is what Barry Diament a former Atlantic Records engineer and producer said about this matter in general and about his SHM and HQCD experience:

    "A friend sent me a bunch of 2-disc sets that contained one SHM CD and a plain "vanilla" version, one Blue-spec and a plain version, one HQCD and a plain version. My expectations were not high as I figured these were marketing inventions. Then I listened.

    Listening to Mile's Davis "Round Midnight" on one set, I started to think it went beyond marketing. I thought that like all too many other "comparisons" I've heard, there were actually two different masterings. The sonic differences were so obvious, I was pretty sure they were done by different engineers, with different EQ.

    So, I set about to "prove" this to myself by extracting samples from both discs to the computer and running a "null" test. In a null test, the two files are synchronized - to the sample - and the polarity of one file is inverted. By mixing the two together, everything the files have in common, i.e., what is identical in both files, gets cancelled (or nulled). Only what is different between them remains.

    Much to my surprise, what remained was dead silence - all the way down. To me, this proved the two files were identical. When listening from the computer, as I've found in all cases where I've heard differences from different pressings played in a CD transport or CD player, the sonic differences were gone.

    This is what I've found when comparing CDs to the masters from which they were made. In all the years I've been creating CD masters (since January, 1983), I've never heard two from different plants that sound like each other and neither sounds indistinguishable from the master used to make it. To be clear, this has been my experience when the discs are played via a transport or player (*any* transport or player).

    Extracting the data to hard drive removes the differences and all the results sound (to me) indistinguishable from the master used to make them.

    So, my view is it depends on how you're going to listen. If you're going to extract the discs and listen via the computer, if the mastering is the same, a good extraction will sound identical to the master and there is no need for a "super" pressing.
    On the other hand, if you use a CD transport or CD player, the differences between different manufactured discs can range from subtle to (as in the case of the Miles Davis example I cited above) not at all subtle - actually quite obvious.


    That's my experience anyway. As with anything in audio, I think it depends on a combination of the resolving capability of the system and the individual listener's sensitivities. Different folks have different sensitivities to different aspects of sound.

    Best regards,

    Barry"



    "...the same digital master played back from two different delivery methods on the same system will play back identically." -- AlanDistro

    Not in a Hi-End system able to detect differences.

    My mid-priced system (over 40k) detected subtle differences in SHM/HQ CD vs. Reg. CD and Gold vs. non-Gold CD. But when I took Gold/non-Gold pair to Chicago High-End show in 2014 and put them in the systems, where each component costs much more then my entire system, result was obvious:

    Gold CD vs. non-Gold (page 17, post # 410)
    Platinum SHM-CDs launched! (Disc 3) »

    New development Platinum vs. Gold by JVC and UltimateHQ vs. HQ by Memory-Tech is big leap forward, guys.

    Mastering engineer Plan9 said at the Pt forum, regarding this matter: "maybe is something we don't know..."

    Robert Harley made first attempt to explain: "How can two discs containing the identical ones and zeros sound different?"
    Thanks to Lonson, everyone can read his article from TAS magazine, I'm subscribing from 1999 (see link Post #69).

    He concluded:

    "This additional experience of hearing differences between CDs with identical datastreams makes it clear to me that the quality of the signal at the photodetector affects the disc’s sound. I don’t know how variations in the eye pattern find their way into the analog output signal—the photodetector’s output undergoes a huge amount of decoding, error correction, de-interleaving, and other processes to extract the raw PCM audio data that are converted to analog by the DAC. Nonetheless, there’s no question in my mind that a disc’s optical properties, which directly influence the eye pattern, introduce an analog-like variability in sound. The mystery remains."

    I am a specialist in different field, working now with a group of people with dangerous and quickly passing from the one person to another "Snake-Oil Syndrome". But my half brain (maybe the right one) telling me that perhaps very old "Sony developed the error correction" system does not work, as it should and needs to be updated (?)
    And we could not be in need of $2000 individually made Glass CDs to avoid jitters and errors.
    And it could be the end to all mysteries.

    [Plan9, could you please comment on this?]
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2016
    jay.dee and Musicisthebest like this.
  23. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me" Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Hi Aspen, thank you for stopping by.

    There are two aspects in this matter: sound and necessity.
    Speaking of second, I agree with everything you said.
    If I would be a boss, all CDs could be SACDs. But they don't want to listen neither to me, nor to you. They have Research departments, Sales numbers and on... to make their decisions. And decision is: to stick to CDs. It's a shame, but it is, what it is and we have to deal with it.

    On this way I'm not going to wait for Hi-Res release of this KC Live album or other new recordings, which never will be released in Hi-Res formats in this lifetime. (Old releases could be, but not a new - it's a way how an industry operate).

    From these two available versions: Reg. CD and Mini LP UHQCD, I always will take the better sounding one. Did I mention beautiful Japanese packaging?

    And, when my colleague Dr. Mudd said: "Some of you will buy these."
    I replied: You will "buy" this too, but it could be too late...
    I mean, there will be more releases of our favorites, and when they're gone, they... are gone.
     
    PH416156 likes this.
  24. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Scarcity and urgency tactics don't lend particular weight to your argument.
     
  25. Use_Your_Koala

    Use_Your_Koala Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paris
    It all depends on the mastering.
     
    Robert van Diggele likes this.

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