Unknown HDCD's

[WAD62]

I wonder what the effect is of ripping an HDCD to FLAC, presumably ripping it must reinterpret it back to standard 16 bit, and as I've just checked that the HD light is not activated when I played back the FLAC version, I assume that this must be the case.

Can anyone confirm this from a technical point of view?

I'll have a bit of a check later, as I can not differentiate between the FLAC and the CD normally, this might be a good comparison for HDCD V CD

[WAD62]

I use dBpoweramp, and apparently if I reprocess everything via it's 24bit DSP the HD's will be expanded to 24 bit, and the non HD's will be left as 16...

With 2.5k cd's I think I'll do the HD ones individually, where's that HD list again?

[WAD62]

This may be me having a thread with myself...but at least I can use it for notes

Just sent my original ripped FLAC version of Spiritualized 'Let it come down' through the HDCD DSP plugin for dBpoweramp (apparently it only converts to 24 if it detects HDCD encoding, otherwise it leaves it as 16bit), and it's now been converted to 24bit successfully.

I've also applied ReplayGain to the new 24bit versions, as apparently they loose volume (something to do with the 24bit simulation in 16bits)

I've put the dBpoweramp file properties in an attched file (sorry too big to upload), the left hand side is the new 24bit version, right hand side the original.

Check out the difference in ReplayGain +6 for the 24bit, and -9.5 for the 16bit, nearly 16dB!

In comparison via winamp(24bit allowed)/m-audio 2496, the 24bit sounds noticeably better, particularly the smoothness of the mid range and top end, the vocals strings and horns sound smoother.

Bugger! I've got a lot of money invested in 16bit CDs...now I'm off to check that list again...