my first post... i did a lot of reading in this thread. and: i´m not new to decoding HDCD.
a few weeks ago i discovered the chronotron plugin and was very curious to find out if this plugin works. and my conclusion: it does :) i have a few HDCD´s & i always wanted to have them decoded without buying a stand alone player. so i did my own 1:1 recordings - digitally with my soundblaster, then with VirtualAudioCable. but with this plugin things get easier - and theres of course less risk of decreasing quality (streaming sound through the windows kernel mixer always decreases sound quality - and VAC uses it always) i´ve found out, that decoded HDCD´s are not really 20 bit, WaveLab shows the pure decoded file as 18 bit - every other thing would be impossible. i think the extra bits are achieved with reducing the volume by exactly 6 dB (HDCD always does this) for a greater headroom for extended peaks. in sound forge & wavelab the files does have indeed a different dynamics when compared to the originals. there are two kinds of HDCD´s: one with improved dynamics & resolution, and the other ones (with 'only' heightened resolution). a few examples: improved dynamic: scores from alan silvestri like 'eraser', 'mouse hunt' & 'contact', 'dante´s peak' & 'alien resurrection' from john frizzell, 'independence day' from david arnold. without dynamic: 'star wars: episode III', 'war of the worlds', 'harry potter & the prisoner of azkaban' - all from john williams. then nearly all scores from thomas newman since 1995, 'the world is not enough' from david arnold. some of these HDCD´s are not marked. the ones with improved dynamic does sound different. more direct, at the same time softer, with more sense of space (when compared to the volume corrected, not decoded files). the other ones are sounding not much different to the cd itself - the 'improvement' could also be a placebo. so, the WMP plugin works as it should be and is a proper way of decoding HDCD without losing quality! -- SonicAdventure ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SonicAdventure's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10797 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32967
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