Steve, what are your thoughts on HDCD? (Asked in reference to upcoming gold CDs.)

A lot has been made about Audio Fidelity releasing gold CDs after releasing a number of stellar SACDs. I can understand this point of view in terms of the relative fidelity of the two formats.

Steve, what is your opinion of HDCD? Do you feel that HDCD could squeeze a bit more life out of the gold CDs in order to shorten the gap between these discs and SACDs (when, of course, played on HDCD-capable equipment)? If so, is HDCD a possibility for these gold-CD mastering projects?

I ask this with the greatest sincerity, so I apologize in advance if this question in any way offends you and your approach to mastering. (I put in this disclaimer because I don't know a priori if you view HDCD as unnecesary processing.)

Thanks in advance.


P.S. I suppose this thread really belongs in the hardware section. Sorry if I messed up.

 

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=687423

 

Martin, thanks. I missed that in the Audio Fidelity thread.

For those wondering what Martin is talking about, here is a comment from Steve on HDCD from that thread:

Steve, could you elaborate on the above comment? What is about HDCD that you don't like? Just curious.

 

Steve,

Is that play back with HDCD decoding also? Thanks so much..

 

I can't do the test, but I greatly appreciate it, Steve. Thanks!

An unfortunate thing about HDCD is that there is no way to defeat it with compatible gear. So, you can't compare 16/44.1 and HDCD (20/44.1?).

 

This is what I don't like about it. I don't have any HDCDs that I think sound crappy, but I would like to be able to turn off the decoding to see if I could hear a difference.

One crappy (IMO) disc I have heard is the remastered Shout at the Devil but I doubt that has anything to do with HDCD. More likely it's other aspects of the mastering.

 

Reference Recordings HDCD Sampler Volume 2, RR-905CD, contains 6 comparison tracks on it. These are pairs, the first two pairs being an analog tape to either HDCD or Redbook digital via a Sony 1630. The last pair is a direct digital recording on either HDCD or another digital system (Sony/KOJ 701ES digital master). I have no HDCD decoding capabilities, nor was I savy enough to pick up the differences between tracks without the decoding. However, if you're interested, it's out there.

 

What I do know first hand is that so many modern country CDs are mastered in HDCD and that I don't have a compatible player although at my local pawn shops, I see a 5 disc Apex DVD changer that has HDCD decoding capabilities all the time and they don't sell.

 

I've always loved the HDCD digital filter, from Pacific Microsoft (sic).
Too the best of my knowledge, it's not brickwalled at 22.05.
And can give HDCD players an added sense of openness & air, with 16/44.1 & 24/48.

 

I'll take Steve's straight forward approach to mastering with no "gadgets" in the signal path, thank you. We all claim to want to be "closer" to the original master tape. Well, Steve ensures that we are...

Bob

 

This is why I put the disclaimer in my initial post. I was wondering if Steve might view HDCD as unnecessary processing.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but I've always wondered what HDCD is? What does it entail, exactly?

 

It's essentially supposed to be a 20-bit disc, rather than the standard 16.

 

My worry is that HDCD degrades the sound except for the few who own HDCD-capable players. I'd rather have my disc sound good no matter where I play it.

 

Thanks. If this is the case, how would this degrade the sound, or add processing (for players that can play it)? For players without the capability, how do they play HDCD discs? Can a standard player play 20 bit discs, or is there a dual layer?

 

I may be wrong, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I am, but my understanding is that an HDCD encoded disc played back without HDCD decoding actually has fewer than 16 bits resolution as the "least significant bit" is used to carry the HDCD encoding. In a non-HDCD player, therefore, you have 15 bits of signal and 1 bit of noise. Why degrade the signal for the majority of players while (theoretically) improving it for a relatively small number of players?

 

It seems to me that the HDCD "signature sound" is completely different from the Steve Hoffman "signature sound". I don't think that I would ever confuse the two.

 

I always thought that HDCD discs play at standard 16/44.1 on non-HDCD players. Wouldn't they have to? You would have to have a 16-bit wordlength. I've never heard of HDCD discs giving you 15 bits of information and 1 bit of noise on non-HDCD players. Is this true?

 

Go to www.hdcd.com to get all the details about HDCD.

HDCD does use the LSB for information used by the decoder. On "regular" CDs the LSB usually contains dither, so the HDCD folks don't feel that their process compromises the sound when an HDCD disc is played on a "regular" player.

I'll leave the remainder of the technical details to the web site and other available technical documents.

I wonder how many people here on the Forum are going to stop buying any HDCD encoded discs, or get rid of their HDCD capable players because "Steve doesn't love it."

 

Are you kidding? What is the signature sound of HDCD?

 

Loss of transparecy, air , soundstage, naturalness and a bloated bass IMO.
Played back on HDCD or non HDCD machines, I hear the same basic results.

YMMV.