Cd - Sacd - Hdcd

Does anybody know of a CD Player that includes Redbook, SACD and HDCD playback capability?

Ken

 

HDCD is really neither here nor there (20bit 44.1... since there aren't many players that can truly extract 16 bit info from a disc (requiring less than 130ps or so jitter) extending it to 20 bit (requiring single-figure ps jitter) is pretty futile). So, find something that will play CD and SACD and don't worry about HDCD.

 

That's an interesting reply Isaac; would you have time to expand on it a little? Why those stringent jitter requirements for different no. bits?

 

Ooh. I dunno. The only time my CD player sounds really convincing is when its spinning one of the few HDCDs I own.

 

I've got to say I like HDCD replay too, but I've only got two discs. I think the potential was there for much better things

 

Y'never know the way the death knell seems to be tolling for DVDA and SACD lately, we might see it resurrected.

 

Uncleants - I used to own a 991. I have HDCD and non-HDCD encoded versions of the same recording (something by the mavericks) and found that the differences between them were ever so slight. The 991 does have unusually good jitter performance (around 140ps iirc) so perhaps was starting to get to the point that some sort of difference started to come to light. Alternatively and more likely it was the different treatment that the recording received when being mastered to the final disc that caused the differences.

Martin - See http://www.broadcastpapers.com/audio/Jitter1-rev1.PDF, table 1, p2.

Put it this way... On a CD player with 2Vrms output, the LSB at 20 bits is 1.9microvolts rms. The LSB at 16bits is 30 microvolts rms. That is one tenth to one hundreth of the size of the output of a typical MC phono cartridge. Driven into a line stage. Chances are any signal this size is going to be swamped by noise anyway, so worrying about it isn't worthwhile.

 

You could well be right as I've never listened to these discs on a non HDCD capable machine in my system. But if you are right then why don't the bastards do it anyway - these discs sound great, better than all my other CDs - if they'd even sound better in non HDCD players - which is what you imply - then why didn't the Man make HDCD the thing to go for rather than stupid hi res format wars?

 

Because Consumer Joe Public is stupid.

 

Hmmm. But not stupid enough to buy the White Album for the third time though it seems.

 

Well, perhaps not stupid... too harsh... uninformed would be better. People believe what they read in the magazines and that higher resolution must be better. And even if a CD player DOES get full resolution from 16 bit, there's no saying that the DAT (or whatever) recorder that the disc was originally recorded on had a low enough level of jitter to record full resolution...

Sample rates, however, are a different matter.

 

CD's have resolution far below the least significant bit. You need to factor dither into what you are saying. [You should also consider the nature of the noise that the jitter may be producing too...]

 

To give a contrary view, I have both a standard and HDCD version of the Dire Straits greatest hits album, which I believe are identical bar the HDCD encoding (although I can't say for certain). For me the HDCD one is clearly superior, the redbook one sounding artificial in comparison in a quick A/B. I don't know the jitter performance of my Tag Dac20, which I assume is the critical jitter figure here, rather than my transport?

I do however believe HDCD offers a worthwhile improvement over redbook CD, although given the limited range of software, I wouldn't select a new CD player on it's ability to play this or not.

Cheers Isaac. Reading that link I see the figures, but I must confess I don't understand why. Probably too complicated to try to explain.

On the LSB point, I can see that the first digital level might get lost in the noise, but wouldn't the increased resolution be significant higher up the dynamic range?

Martin

 

Back to the original question:
Theta Compli