HDCD - the hidden music

[Fretless]

A lot of CD's issued between 1995 - 2005 are HDCD encoded. I always thought that it meant that they should sound better and was somewhat disappointed that they didn't. My remastered editions of King Crimson, Roxy Music & Mike Oldfield sounded a bit dull and lifeless. Of course I didn't realise at the time that one needed a CD Player with a special chip to hear them properly.

Finally I discovered that the secret to HDCD's is that there are an extra 4 bits of information 'buried' in the 16-bit data stream. Effectively giving the music 20-bit resolution. The extra 4 bits contain extra dynamics in the treble and bass (or so I believe - sure the techies out there know more). But then how to get to hear this?

Easy answer - play the HDCD discs via Windows Media Player. Microsoft acquired the rights to the technology and an HDCD decoder is standard in WMP (look at the bottom left of the WMP player screen and you'll see the HDCD logo when an encoded disc is played.

Is there another way? I realised that I have 100+ HDCD's in the collection and found a way to decode them using available freeware:
Use Exact Audio Copy to rip an uncompressed WAV.
Convert with DbPoweramp to 24-bit WAV (this unfolds the extra 4-bits into the signal)
Convert to FLAC and add tag info (including track numbers - important)

Then you have a lovely 24-bit file which reveals all the wonderful dynamics of the 20-bit mastering. But you can't play it via your Sonos (a nice device but it has its limitations) or Ipod. so you have to make a 16-bit file:

Convert the FLAC file to 16-bit WAV. (keeps the HDCD extras in the signal shape)
Convert this WAV to FLAC / ALAC
Play on your Sonos or Ipod and enjoy!

Oh yes - and Foobar can also decode HDCD files.

[_D_S_J_R_]

The extra bits might just lower the noise floor from -96db to -120 or summat, but in reality, it's inaudible IMO. By the way, most amps distort at much higher levels than this, even well known 'objectively designed' ones, so you really don't need to worry, honestly - in my opinion

The HDCD discs I had just seemed to have extra reverb added, which is actually only 20db or so below the average signal. By the way, the reason why SA-CD sounded 'better/different' to the red-book originals was often/mostly? due to extra 'tweaking' going on in the SA-CD mastering - the raw files were NOT the same and martin Colloms once confirmed this when he compared some discs early on!

[Fretless]

All I know is that I was missing something from playing the CD's and doing this put the 'sparkle' back into the music.

[_D_S_J_R_]

I can't argue with you as I'm not an expert on HDCD. As long as you end up with the sound you want after all the faff, then kudos to you sir !

I fear that so many of these 'technologies' were means of ripping the poor punter off to shell out again and again. I'm being targeted as a Doctor Who fan - I bought all the VHS videos (and a couple of Betamax too) as they came out, am now gradually replacing these with DVD's and a few stories have come along in 'Special Editions' with supposedly better picture restoration as computer technology has improved and a notable one with a previously 'missing episode' of another story not available anywhere else Blue Ray discs do offer visual improvements as well as massive storage space, but there are now DVD players which upsample a standard picture really well