HDCD
- Thread starter Freddy58
- Start date
busb
Well-known member
davo
Well-known member
I bought an HDCD-capable player (Rotel 991) in 2001, when HDCD seemed to have a great future. Unfortunately at that very time Microsoft was buying the "intellectual property" of HCDC and (inexplicably) letting it wither away. I have several classical HDCDs and they all sound great. But finding either a disc or a player now is next to impossible - I have heard that Oppo players are HDCD-enabled. Luckily my Rotel 991 is still going strong.
Freddy58 said:
Technically a fairly clever way of encoding a standard CD to 'sound better'. Various techniques are applied during mastering and decoded during playback by a suitable machine.
When done correctly they could sound pretty good, but it was too complicated and niche for the mainstream. We would also revisit the argument as to whether any improvement (over the standard CD) was due to the HDCD coding or simply 'better' mastering.
In reality, just another attempt to get the more critical enthusist to pay more money for 'better' sound quality, quality that he should have been getting on the CD in the first place....... :doh:
I had a Rotel CD player that could decode HDCD. I nevref sought out any HDCDs, but I ended up with a few in my collection without really realizing until the LED lit up on my player to let me know I was playing one.
I thought they did sound better, but as I never conducted any blind ABX testing, I'm prepared to concede that the little HDCD LED lighting up may have distorted the whole experience due to expectation bias.
I thought they did sound better, but as I never conducted any blind ABX testing, I'm prepared to concede that the little HDCD LED lighting up may have distorted the whole experience due to expectation bias.
HDCD cropped up in a few players and still does now in the aforementioned Oppos, also Cambridge Audio's BD line players past and present. The strangest machine to have one though was in a local electrical store up at Bruntsfield in Edinburgh; it was a (very) basic DVD player that was going for about £29.99.
Most commonly though, it appeared on universal players such as those offered in the mid-to-late 2000s by Arcam, NAD and Denon's excellent DVD-3930. Those clocked in around the £800+ mark at the time (though you'll snag one for about £100-200 in mint nick now - worth it if the going prices for the Oppos and Cambridge players are too rich for your pockets).
Most people find HDCDs by accident rather than design; the ones I have are mainly those on the Grateful Dead's releases - D1ck's Picks official bootlegs and their Rhino label remasters. The Joni Mitchell remasters by Joe Gastwirt are also HDCD encoded, although her original releases are every bit as good.
Most commonly though, it appeared on universal players such as those offered in the mid-to-late 2000s by Arcam, NAD and Denon's excellent DVD-3930. Those clocked in around the £800+ mark at the time (though you'll snag one for about £100-200 in mint nick now - worth it if the going prices for the Oppos and Cambridge players are too rich for your pockets).
Most people find HDCDs by accident rather than design; the ones I have are mainly those on the Grateful Dead's releases - D1ck's Picks official bootlegs and their Rhino label remasters. The Joni Mitchell remasters by Joe Gastwirt are also HDCD encoded, although her original releases are every bit as good.
I used to have a Rotel RCD-1072 which had HDCD playback capabilities. I never deliberately bought a HDCD but I do remember a Green Day album illuminated the HDCD light on the front of the Rotel. Can't remember which one, mind...
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram