On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 17:56:25 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , James Perrett
wrote:

One thing to remember is that HDCD isn't particularly new and, at the
time it came out, noise shaping was in its infancy as far a s CD
mastering was concerned. To use HDCD you had to use Pacific
Microsonic's own analogue to digital convertor and, as I understand
it, this convertor sounded much better than just about any other
convertor available at the time. That's one of the reasons why it
caught on. Even on a non HDCD player, the discs sounded better than a
disc recorded through an alternative convertor.

I find the above slightly odd as it implies that the level-compression
involved made the discs "sound better". If so, why not simply level
compress them?

I think the HDCD encoding was optional so you could use the encoder as a
straight ADC if you wanted to. The Cranesong HEDD is another device that
was intended for one use but has found itself being used by some mastering
engineers simply for the quality of its ADC's.

Cheers

James.