HDCD ripping

[RDaneel2]

I searched on HDCD, and didn't get any results, so... I am about to purchase an HDCD, and would like to make sure that I can use my favorite ripper to get what I read are 20-bit versions of the tracks on the media?

I believe that if I just play this in a normal CD player, it would only give me the usual 16-bit / 44.1 kHz music, and I further assume that this is what dBpoweramp would rip for me [in the default case]?

So, how would I go about ripping the "extended" HDCD version of the contained music?

Thanks!

[garym]

Ibelieve that if I just play this in a normal CD player, it would only give me the usual 16-bit / 44.1 kHz music, and I further assume that this is what dBpoweramp would rip for me [in the default case]!

correct.

see this thread

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

and be careful, most HDCDs these days dont use peak extension, so no need to do anything special. If you do convert the HDCDs, i recommend ripping as regular rip, which is bit perfect, then create a seperate copy using the HDCD DSP in dbpa music converter.

[RDaneel2]

Thanks for the link to the extensive info, as well as the advice - I will have my HDCD in about a week, and plan on doing a straight ["dbpa"] rip plus either a "convert" on the flac or a re-rip using the HDCD decoder... I do want to see how they compare, both WRT each other and the "24/96" download I have from HDtracks.

This latter - which has zero info and how it was derived - apparently has stripped any HDCD metadata that might have been present (if it even used the HDCD version of the CD), and I frankly think it sounds a bit "weird" - on my playback system, it is quite a bit louder than most other music from the same source, plus to my ears, the transients just don't seem "right".

I plan on updating this thread - after I have done the rip(s) - with commentary that for sure wouldn't fly over at ASR.

[GBrown]

Thanks for the link to the extensive info, as well as the advice - I will have my HDCD in about a week, and plan on doing a straight ["dbpa"] rip plus either a "convert" on the flac or a re-rip using the HDCD decoder... I do want to see how they compare, both WRT each other and the "24/96" download I have from HDtracks.

This latter - which has zero info and how it was derived - apparently has stripped any HDCD metadata that might have been present (if it even used the HDCD version of the CD), and I frankly think it sounds a bit "weird" - on my playback system, it is quite a bit louder than most other music from the same source, plus to my ears, the transients just don't seem "right".

I plan on updating this thread - after I have done the rip(s) - with commentary that for sure wouldn't fly over at ASR.

it will be interesting to see what you come up with in your comparison. The 24/96 download should not have been derived from anything to do with the CD 16/44.1 version. And definitely not from the quasi extended 20-bit HDCD info either. You can't simply upsample either of these versions to 96kHz and get the same results as true analog to digital encoding from the original source material. If this was the case there would be no benefit to buying these higher resolution downloads.

HDCD content would not have been be "stripped", it just wouldn't be part of the process when the higher bitrate and sampling rate files are created. This was exclusively used by some manufacturers to try to enhance what CD effectively could do. While the concept was fundamentally well intended, in my opinion it was just not implemented well. Not many's discs were mastered, and fewer players had the necessary hardware to decode it.

[Dr_Sandra_Lee]

HDCD can definitely be a confusing format, and it's a common question whether the data is preserved during a rip. It's smart to ask about it, as a lot of people don't even realize there's a difference.

The most important thing is to make sure your ripping software has the proper HDCD decoding enabled to get that full, extended version. It can be a bit tricky, but getting the right settings is key to preserving all the detail.

[RDaneel2]

So, my experiment is complete... for now.

For the record, the disc in question is the 2004 re-master of the 1987 Arista release of the Grateful Dead's "In the Dark" CD - this re-master was released by Rhino as an "HDCD" in 2006, with 6 additional tracks.

I did all 3 suggested rips - "pure", dbpa HDCD plugin (NO adjustments), and dbpa HDCD plugin (WITH level adjust).

First, the "HDCD Scan" in foobar2000 reported what I assume are the "HDCD not actually engaged" results: 0 min gain, 0 max gain, peak ext "Disabled" - but the only non-obvious result was that the transient filter was reported as "Intermittent" (all of these results were shown as being the same for all tracks).

Full disclosure, yes, there were [non] level-match issues when comparing the 2 HDCD-processed versions, both with each other and with the HDtracks 96/24 download... this latter of course comes with zero actual "where this collection of tracks came from" info, but is presumably [also] based on the 2004 re-master.

Here are my unofficial and anecdotal "takes" on the above comparisons (again, only casual level-matching was performed):

* the 2 HDCD rips sound to me to be essentially the same (aside from the loudness)

* regarding these 2 rips, I find it curious that the "+6 dB" collection is ~100KB smaller than the non-level adjusted version - based on my intuitive view of "compression", something that is smaller would typically contain less "information" in some sense... so why aren't these the same size, as the level adjust performed by the dbpa ripper HDCD DSP shouldn't really be changing the amount of information, right? Perhaps something specific to the way FLAC compression is performed?

* yes, the 96/24 version from HDtracks sounds better - specifically, it sounds way less compressed, and it is easier to pick out individual instruments or distinguish other audio artifacts

* on the other hand, had I not had the hi-res version to compare to, the "HDCD" would probably be evaluated as [just] another collection of "CD-ized" tracks: listenable, but with unfortunate compression

Thanks for all the help and interest shown by the community - it helped me to take the plunge.