Is HDCD much Better?

[emorphien]

Some CD's aren't labled as such, and I've found myself thinking, "Wow, this sounds really good" only to then notice the HDCD indicator light on my CD player. Part of it, I'm sure is because anyone who is going to the effort to produce HDCD probably cares enough to master the CD better anyway.

I've had the same thing happen many times. I'll have something playing and I'll look at my CDP and the HDCD light will be on for a disc that has no label.

[superpanavision70mm]

would you mind telling me some of the titles that you have come across with the HDCD not labelled, but the player recognizes it as such. I only have one that has come up like that, which I can recall. OOhh I know the RONIN sdtk also had HDCD as well as the ALIEN RESURRECTION and both were suppose to be phenominal...wonder if they are still in print.

[emorphien]

would you mind telling me some of the titles that you have come across with the HDCD not labelled, but the player recognizes it as such. I only have one that has come up like that, which I can recall. OOhh I know the RONIN sdtk also had HDCD as well as the ALIEN RESURRECTION and both were suppose to be phenominal...wonder if they are still in print.

I have a couple, one which is (a funky modern classical quartet) and another that isn't labelled. It's Days of the New, the red album. They had three albums all with the same name, differentiated mostly by color of the booklet or the crystal case. The red album sounds very good (all 3 albums are very well mastered) but the Red does sound a slight bit more dynamic I'd say which perhaps is because of the HDCD encode.

It isn't labelled though.

As far as I know of all my CDs those are the only two that have lit up the red HDCD light on my C542.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

There is no way you will be able to tell whether HDCD sounds superior to Redbook unless you have the original master, and you compare the unprocessed output with the processed output under DBT conditions.

My experience has shown that a well mixed and mastered CD can should every bit as good as a HDCD.encoded one.

If you begin with good recording practices, and sufficent bit and sample rate (I always work with 24/96khz as a start) there is no need for HDCD processing at all. IMO with the ability of higher bit and sampling rates that can be used, HDCD is a waste of time.

But, rationally, as far as I undestand HDCD doesn't doesn't increase the sampling rate, but does increase the dynamic range from 16bit (65536 shades of loud) to 20 bit (1048576). I think TT said this should drop the noise floor. I don't know if a person could really distinguish all the finer shades of loud though.

Actually it depends on the music. The difference between 16bit and 20bit is much more audible on highly dynamic music. You would be very surprised how sensitive the ear is to slight volume changes. Especially in the midrange.

[emorphien]

My experience has shown that a well mixed and mastered CD can should every bit as good as a HDCD.encoded one.

I think that's the most important point that needs to be made. Repeatedly.

[Woochifer]

There is no way you will be able to tell whether HDCD sounds superior to Redbook unless you have the original master, and you compare the unprocessed output with the processed output under DBT conditions.

I think you nailed it! It's impossible to know what effect the HDCD processing has without a master source to compare it with. Problem with using HDCD-encoded discs to judge the value of the format is that there's no way to compare a HDCD-encoded version with a non-encoded version, unless that CD was previously released without the signal having gone through HDCD processing. And even with a re-release, other changes during the mastering process could have occurred and likely did because remastered CDs typically address problems that occurred with poorly done early transfers.

Also, I read that the HDCD encoding can create distortion when the HDCD discs are played back through a non-HDCD CD player or processor. This further diminishes the comparability of using HDCD-encoded discs to identify any improvements that the format itself is responsible for.

[shokhead]

I think you nailed it! It's impossible to know what effect the HDCD processing has without a master source to compare it with. Problem with using HDCD-encoded discs to judge the value of the format is that there's no way to compare a HDCD-encoded version with a non-encoded version, unless that CD was previously released without the signal having gone through HDCD processing. And even with a re-release, other changes during the mastering process could have occurred and likely did because remastered CDs typically address problems that occurred with poorly done early transfers.

Also, I read that the HDCD encoding can create distortion when the HDCD discs are played back through a non-HDCD CD player or processor. This further diminishes the comparability of using HDCD-encoded discs to identify any improvements that the format itself is responsible for.

I'm not comparing it to a master,i'm comparing it to sounding good just like DTS which i like better then DD. Why? Because it sounds better to me.