HDCD help please

HDCD is an encoding process used when mastering the CD. You can find a more complete description here: http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid183_gci843768,00.html.

Audiophile Keith Johnson was partly behind the technology. Since the HDCD has special encoding, then it also needs special decoding to "read" the HDCD content; thus the HDCD-capable player.

I have several hundred HDCD's. There are a lot of them available at www.cduniverse.com. You can find a pretty wide variety of music generes in HDCD.

I don't know if there are more or less HDCD's available than SACD's, and I don't want to comment on what sounds best. That's a matter of opinion. You will find that HDCD's sound different that Red Bood CD's.

Happy listening.

Jim Pendleton
Osage Audio Products, LLC

CDuniverse is one place. Reference Recordings is another. Google them. Have fun.

My limited understanding is that HDCD discs are encoded using 20bit instead of 16bit, giving a more accurate and detailed analog waveform result. It should be an improvement on standard Redbook CD's, and I would assume that discs labelled "digitally remastered using HDCD technology" means they have the 20bit samples; standard CD players must ignore the extra 4 bits, but will still play them.

Unfortunately, HDCD didn't seem to catch on, probably due to SACD and DVD-A. I had a basic DVD player that was HDCD capable, but could find very few discs here in Australia, so ended up buying a good standard CD player instead.

Search the archives here as this has come up numerous times. There is a long running thread with a fairly comprehensive list of HDCD encoded discs on headfi.org. They are definitely worth a listen IMO. I'm listening to a wonderful example right now, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B00005BGGV/sr=1-1/qid=1215134390/ref=dp_image_0

www.hdcd.com

Another place for information is HDCD - Katalogen.