Best Practice: ID Tags for CDs with Pre-Emphasis and Decoding HDCD

[Z-Lemur]

Hi all, I've looked around the forums but couldn't find answers to a few questions I've come across while ripping my collection:

I have a few CDs with pre-emphasis that I am trying to figure out the best practice for ID tagging them. I see that in the ripper settings dBpoweramp gives the option to add ID tags for tracks marked with pre-emphasis. If de-emphasis is checked and applied while ripping, is the pre-emphasis ID tag necessary? I'm curious if this could lead to an instance where a media player that can read ID tags sees the pre-emphasis tag and applies de-emphasis a second time.

As for HDCDs, I've ripped all of mine to 44.1/16 bit FLAC as I couldn't wrap my head around the proper settings for decoding or if it would be bit perfect after decoding or not (does bit perfect matter at that point?). Is it still possible for me to decode my 16 bit FLAC files, or will I need to re-rip those CDs? Is it even worth re-ripping them?

I appreciate the input and advice.
Z-Lemur

[garym]

re: HDCD, you can use music converter and the HDCD DSP to turn the 44.1/16 files into 44.1/24 files that contain the '20 bit' HDCD files for playback. Whether it is worth it or not, I'd say in most cases no. Lots of HDCD CDs actually don't use Peak Extension, so there is no benefit to treating them like HDCD in playback. foobar2000 has some components that can show you the HDCD features used in tracks (PE etc.).

I like this thread for 'best practices' in HDCD. One takeaway is always rip to bit perfect 16/44.1 first. One can then always do something different related to the HDCD aspect with music converter.

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/forum/dbpoweramp/cd-ripper/26666-ripping-hdcds-best-practices