The road to Hi-Res

[Dave Jones]

I have a number of HDCD's, and I have convinced myself that they sound better than regular CD's. (It took a lot of tweaking of my system to get to this point.)

I see sources popping up for high res source material. However, much of it is in 24 bit rather than HDCD. I desire a cost-effective road to hi-res. I would be content to buy 24 bit flac files and for now just convert them to HDCD and burn CD-R's, but apparently that is not possible. The format is proprietary, and the encoding process appears to be something of a black art in any case.

What to do? Cost matters. Of course I like to DIY (DIMS?).

What I have to work with...

Rotel RA-02 - DIY'ed to have a "main in"
Rotel RSP 1066 - preamp and surround processor with video stuff
Rotel RMB 1075 five channel power amp
A six year old DVD player. It is in storage. Do not remember the model
An aging but pretty good computer running Windows XP Pro. Not in same room as sound system.
SB Audigy 2 sound card (1140) in the computer
A Memorex disk burner that I think will burn DVD-R's.

[SoNic_real_one]

Cheaper way would be an universal player. A decent one.

Denon DVD-2910, 2930 (better) could be fetched with less than 200$... Analog outputs are decent, the "Stereo Mix" ones are even a little better. Changing the OpAmps to LM4562 or AD8599 will improve the sound even further. This if you care for SACD/DVD-A hi res multichannel... Otherwise, forget about OpAmps and connect digitally to your processor.

Other way would be with a software player like Foobar2000 and using it to decode HDCD and other formats in analog. It can even resample to 24bit 48/96kHz so you will have decent output quality on that Audigy2 card analog outputs.
Or you could just connect it digitally to the RSP-1066 and output from PC via Audigy2 digital SPDIF. The HDCD flag will pass to the decoder.

[a.wayne]

Originally Posted by Dave Jones

I have a number of HDCD's, and I have convinced myself that they sound better than regular CD's. (It took a lot of tweaking of my system to get to this point.)

I see sources popping up for high res source material. However, much of it is in 24 bit rather than HDCD. I desire a cost-effective road to hi-res. I would be content to buy 24 bit flac files and for now just convert them to HDCD and burn CD-R's, but apparently that is not possible. The format is proprietary, and the encoding process appears to be something of a black art in any case.

What to do? Cost matters. Of course I like to DIY (DIMS?).

What I have to work with...

Rotel RA-02 - DIY'ed to have a "main in"
Rotel RSP 1066 - preamp and surround processor with video stuff
Rotel RMB 1075 five channel power amp
A six year old DVD player. It is in storage. Do not remember the model
An aging but pretty good computer running Windows XP Pro. Not in same room as sound system.
SB Audigy 2 sound card (1140) in the computer
A Memorex disk burner that I think will burn DVD-R's.

We are putting together a system right now that will be PC based with sound card plus digital out to D/A for the the Higher format ( 24/192) after which we will get back to comparing ripped CD's and the differing quality between the formats. Preliminary so far the 24/192 is a different world .

Caveat: you will not be able to hear diddly squat if you do not have a system , no PC speakers and ear buds don't qualify as hi-fi ..

[Dave Jones]

Why has no one come out with a true "universal player" - one that will play not only CD's, HDCD, SACD, and DVD, DVD-A, etc, but also has a USB slot for a memory stick that can hold 24 bit wav, flac, etc? Or maybe there is such a product, and I cannot find it. I guess the main hangup there would be graphics for navigating the sound files.

It looks like the way to go is a computer, ideally an inexpensive one that does not need a fan. Or put the computer with a fan in a different room or closet, and run long lines for the monitor, keyboard, mouse (?), and digital output.

[SoNic_real_one]

Sure there are players like that... One example. Another. Another one (doesn't do FLAC from USB, but it does others).

[Dave Jones]

Originally Posted by SoNic_real_one

Sure it is. One example.

Thanks. Five hundred bucks on Amazon. That is almost as expensive as a cheap computer. How is the sound quality? I presume it has digital-out which would be virtually perfect.

Any others?

Edit: I see you added another. Keep'em coming. :-)

[SoNic_real_one]

Sounds better than 100 PC's. And plays SACD that no PC can play.

[Dave Jones]

Here's one for $175. Amazon.com: LG BD570 Network Blu-ray Disc Player: Electronics

If I use the digital-out, why would I want one of the more expensive ones?

[SoNic_real_one]

That cheap player won't decode HDCD (it wll play it at reduced quality - theoretically less than CD standard) or DVD-A or SACD. So it doesn't fit your original requirements.

If you want to go "el cheapo", get one of the media players for less than 100$.
I have WDTV Live and it's output is bitperfect for 44.1 and 48kHz files. It will output HDCD flag to a receiver that can decode that standard (I have one).