I've found artists (e.g. The Beatles) where you can download HDCD in FLAC.....

Posted by: Consciousmess on 23 August 2009

Hi all,

I must apologise for my naivety in file formats and distributed audio, but I would be grateful if someone could advise. I've seen places where you can download FLACs and the FLAC is a HDCD version of - what I presumably guess - is an analogue recording.

So am I correct hypothesising the following:

1) If I download the FLAC, I have the original encoding as it was.

2) Then I convert the FLAC to WMA, and the file becomes readable by CD players.

3) I then burn this to disk and I have an HDCD to play on my CDS3.

Does all that make sense?

Many thanks,

Jon

Posted on: 23 August 2009 by garyi

Yes this can be done. It sounds like you are talking about torrents?

I am not aware of beatles flac downloads which are legal anyway.

But the flac is no assurance that its the proper original rip. It could just as easily be an MP3 in there thats been converted.

So look at it like this. The FLAC part is a 'wrapper' to the chocolate inside. It might be quality chocolate it might be kinerton chocolate, you know that really shit chocolate that always appears at easter.

So when checking the torrent see if its telling you how it was made.

Posted on: 23 August 2009 by John R.

FLAC files can be converted to other file formats. If you plan to burn an audio CD that can be read by your CDS 3 you need to convert the FLAC file to WAV and not WMA. However it is possible that the conversion is not bit perfect and if this is the case you might loose the extra information of HDCD. Of course this can still sound pretty good.

Posted on: 24 August 2009 by Consciousmess

OK thanks for the comments, guys!

Jon

Posted on: 24 August 2009 by pcstockton

Jon,

By "HDCD" do you mean 24/96? If so, yes they must be tape or vinyl sourced. I dont think anyone ever released any hi-res versions of Beatles albums.

But screw it. The new remasters are coming on the 9th. Cant wait.

You could very easily use a program such as Adobe Audition to see if the files in question are "transcoded", meaning the FLACS were sourced from lossy material. It is very easy to read a spectral analysis of a rip to see if legit or not.

And yes Garyi is correct. Use something like Foobar to convert the FLACs to WAVs, then you can burn with any program you like. FYI, Gaps between songs will not be correct. If it is an album you are very familiar with, it might be a little strange.

Posted on: 25 August 2009 by Eric Barry

There are hdcd versions about allegedly from an aborted remaster project ca 1999. They went around in trader circles. There are also the Dr Ebbets versions from mfsl vinyl.

Posted on: 25 August 2009 by pcstockton

Weird.... never heard of that, or don't remember.... anyway. Dr. Ebbetts are/were 16 bit transfers. FYI, he is retiring. He stated that the whole point of his project was to release high quality Beatles albums digitally as the currently available were shite. He heard the new remasters and declared them better than anything he could source from pristine vinyl. I cant wait!