Olav Sunde;184908 Wrote: > I've finally managed to do the comparison! I borrowed a NAD C 542 HDCD > player from a local HiFi shop yesterday to do the comparison. > Unfortunately I did not have much time so I could not do any serious > listening. > > This is how I tested: > > - "Festival day of Seville" track from Reference Recordings HDCD > Sampler > RR-S3 (HD)CD > - EAC rip of the 16bit CD track > - 24bit 44.1 kHz WAV output from WMP10 via Cronotron plugin > - 24bit 44.1kHz recording of analog output from NAD C542 CD player via > > M-Audio Transit > > The JPG's are screendumps from Adobe Audition showing the right channel > > of the track. > > In addition I created two images of the last 40 seconds of the track > from the Cronotron WAV and EAC rip files where the dB scale is zoomed > in > to display the detail of the recording levels. > > The output from WMP/Cronotron is identical to the output from the NAD > HDCD player and dynamic expansion is used. Note that the recording from > > the NAD is about 1 dB "hot" compared to the WMP/Cronotron WAV. That was > > the closest I got... Also, the file sizes I got indicate the same: > Cronotron - 136,716KB and NAD output 136,443KB. > > I also briefly tested Paul Simon's "You're The One" album and Mark > Knopfler's "Ragpicker's Dream". Here the the HDCD encoder seem only to > > be used to downconvert from whatever resolution the studiomaster is in, > > to 16bit 44.1kHz for CD production. The peak level ends up at -6 dB > both > in the Cronotron WAV and the analog out from the NAD. So, in addition > to > being mastered "loud" with peak clipping, these albums are not really > HDCD's... > > Here are links to the jpg's. > > http://www.ii.uib.no/~olavs/Cronotron.jpg > > http://www.ii.uib.no/~olavs/NAD.jpg > > http://www.ii.uib.no/~olavs/EAC_rip.jpg > > http://www.ii.uib.no/~olavs/Detail_Cronotron.jpg > > http://www.ii.uib.no/~olavs/Detail_16bit_rip.jpg > > Eric Carroll wrote: > > Olav Sunde;184400 Wrote: > >> That is indeed my idea. I plan to include all the three versions in > one > >> > >> view to make it easier to see the differences. Problem is I am > having a > >> > >> little trouble finding a HDCD player I can use, but I am working on > >> it.. > >> > > > > Olav, > > > > Another option is to use the version II of the HDCD sampler which > has > > both HDCD and regular tracks on it. I am going to order it to see > what > > I can see. > > > > If you make progress on this let us know, please. > > > >
Olav - very interesting. A couple of thoughts: 1) I'd expect the WAV file sizes to be similar as that is a function of the track length and bit-depth rather than musical content. 2) Even though dynamic expanison may not be being used on an album, it may still be using the dynamic filter selection which is an important part of the process. 3) I still have my doubts that MS managed to write a software version of the Microsonics HDCD chip... 4) I can't hear any difference at all between 24-bit versions of tracks captured via WAVOUT with/without HDCD. Have you listened to your two files? I realise the 1dB level difference will make the louder one sound better... Regards Phil -- Phil Leigh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32967 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
