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THE TRUTH ABOUT HDCD (For the 39th time)

The biggest advantage to an HDCD recording is that the A/D converter was designed by Keith Johnson. It was not equaled until about eight years ago, and has rarely been exceeded to this day.

The second biggest advantage to an HDCD recording is that the A/D converter was designed by Keith Johnson. It was not equaled until about eight years ago, and has rarely been exceeded to this day.

The third biggest advantage to an HDCD recording is that the A/D converter was designed by Keith Johnson. It was not equaled until about eight years ago, and has rarely been exceeded to this day.

All of the rest of the bullshit is just that -- bullshit.

1) There were two options that required decoding for optimal playback -- Peak Extend and Low-Level Extension. These could be turned on and off at the mastering engineer's discretion. NONE OF THE OTHER FEATURES REQUIRED DECODING, NOR COULD EVEN BE DECODED. These included the on-the-fly switchable anti-aliasing filters and the dithering.

BUT EVEN IF ALL OF THE OPTIONS ARE TURNED OFF AND NO DECODING IS REQUIRED, THE "HDCD" LIGHT WILL LIGHT UP AND MAKE YOU THINK YOU NEED A DECODER. This is just one peek at the slimy practices that the marketing arm of Pacific Microsonics engaged in.

2) That leaves two options that could legitimately require decoding. Let's look at Peak Extend first. In the owner's manual for the Pacific Microsonics (PM) Models One and Two (identical except that Model Two allowed for higher sample rates), it say DO NOT USE PEAK EXTEND WITH ROCK MUSIC. Peak Extend does not extend the peaks. Instead it compresses them. Most rock music already has too much compression well before it hits the mastering stage. Adding more compression will make for a truly horrendous sounding disc unless decoded. So PM wisely recommended not using Peak Extend for rock music.

3) All that's left is Low Level Extension (LLE). LLE boosts the gain of the system as the average signal level drops. The more it drops the more it boosts the gain. Again, this is simply a compression system. The nice thing about it is that it can be matched *exactly* upon playback, so there will be no "pumping" or "breathing".

The problem is that it only engages when the average signal level drops below -39 dBFS. Well, not only does this never happen with popular music, it rarely happens with classical music. I know of several people that have reverse engineered the HDCD code and they report that the only time that LLE is engaged is in between tracks. If their reports are accurate, LLE is essentially useless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bottom line is that the ONLY thing that HDCD needs any decoding for is if you are listening to classical music and Peak Extend was engaged during the mastering process. For all else, the ONLY thing you are hearing that creates the good sound quality is Keith Johnson's brilliant design work.

I know this will come up again, so I will reiterate it. THERE ARE NO MULTIPLE PLAYBACK FILTERS. THERE NEVER HAS BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE.

I apologize for being so cranky, but there are so many myths and so much misinformation that keeps being perpetuated. This entirely the fault of PM's marketing department, who played fast and loose with the facts. To the degree that I would bet that Keith Johnson cringes when he sees some of the things that his name has been associated with.

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