It would be nice if somewhere exist a community of Pacific users with some kind of knowledge base about different ways to used this processor, but I think this time has gone as the HDCD time has gone… In the world of 16.44 only the HDCD was good. Nowadays it is an anathema…

I do not have knowledge about the nuts and bolt of with process and I use just common sense and admit only what make send to me. If you wish a definitive answer then get in touch with Berkeley Audio guys, watch the agendas through…

Anyhow, Paul Stubblebine and Mark Donahue both right and both wrong. They just  used different definition of HDCD. Yes, Paul is right - there is no HDCD at 88K but what is the HDCD? The HDCD is application of pseudo 4-bit peak extension, custom dithering, low level custom compression and use of specific post-conversion filters. Mark was incorrect saying that the “peak extension” and “Low Level Extension“are user selectable. They are NOT. They are to a degree user-optimizeable but the can’t be defeat if the HDCD is implied in 16 bit. However, Mark does not talk about the HDCD but about the LSB code that Pacific write even at 88K. Think about LSB code as 19 kHz pilot signal for FM – it is an identifier that FM signal has also stereo code on side-band apt to 53kHz. What DAC with HDCD chip reads LSB code it engage all HDCD options as it thinks that the source was HDCD pre-processed (peak extension, dithering, low level compression, custom filters…) but it happens with only at 16/44. What happened what DAC runs at 2X or 4X is unknown to me. Mark Donahue feels that nothing happens but the custom filters get engaged. I do not know if it is true and if it is then I would like to have not the 44kHz HDCD filers but the 88kHz as the Nyquist frequency is too high and there is a lot advantages at 88kHz do not use any stiff break-wall filtration.

Do not forget that Pacific was not made to use as you do – it meant to be mastering processor – run DD operation, to do A/D operation and the most important to prepare data for 16/44  HDCD. That is why Pacific has automated LSB code reinsertion in DD operation even if you run 88 to 88 bit conversion and the 16/44 HDCD is presumed to be final product anywhere.

If Mark Donahue in his initial replay do not behave as Napoleon Bonaparte and instead of suggesting that “it will improve audio if your DA converter properly decodes the HDCD (Even at 88.2 kHz /24 bit!)” he would say “because my damn Pacific injected the LSB code  during my DD mastering and you DAC thinks that it is HDCD encoded” then all this conversation would not happen.

manisandher wrote:

So, all the files you've recorded @ 24/88.2 have the HDCD flag? And you've never noticed? How can this be? I'm sure I've read your previous posts Romy where you state that you don't agree with HDCD for >16/44.1 and that you don't use it...

 I have commented before that with all my admiration of the fact the BSO made the 88/24 available I was not completely thrilled with the job SoundMirror did. Those zillion microphones that John Newton’s team stack in each empty space of Symphony Hall was in a way beneficial as it helped to keep the audiences noise down but it also created problem with “interesting” imaging of BSO. There was one ugly nuance that derived from the poly-microphone techniques. The BSO files are properly recorded at -2 db most of the time with very gimmicks but of you look at the last movement of the Mahler 6 then you will see that in few instances the signal enters very hard digital clipping. The most interesting is not the clipping itself but how the orchestral dB power rises. It is almost DC type of rise with characters of sound moving from full orchestral crescendo to simple high dB flooding of sound with a single note.  It never happens in normal music.

What I think happened in there was the SoundMirror’s poly-microphone bitten the BSO by its tail. Most likely  SoundMirror has microphones right among the trumpets or trombones sections and the microphones were calibrated for the section’s normal outputs. However, those horns are highly directional and it looks like some of the player in Mahler ecstasy was pointing the horns toward to the microphones, completely flooding BSO balance. It does not happen in all movements and I do not think that SoundMirror channels the mix between the movements. They might use the movements from other days but in the one that they have chosen they missed that very unpleasant change of orchestral sound at high dynamic level. It would never happen if they records with two microphones and dummy head. I also have absolutely no problem with standard 3 hanging BSO microphones from which FM is broadsided.

Mozart: Symphonies: 14, 18, 20, 39, and 41

http://www.bso.org/bso/shop/audioDetail.jsp?pid=prod3690050&area=&id=bcat13360032

Celebrating Carter's Century: Highlights from the 2008 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood

http://www.bso.org/bso/shop/audioDetail.jsp?pid=prod3720206&area=&id=bcat13360032

Mozart Chamber Music for Winds and Strings

http://www.bso.org/bso/shop/audioDetail.jsp?pid=prod2910346&area=&id=bcat13360032

The Levine’s Mozart is very fine (I was there), if they use the right concert, which I think they do. The tow other I did not heard. My only concern is that those CD were able foe long time and only now thy become available in 24 bit. So, there is a remote chance that they are not the doubles of the raw 24 recordings but juts upsampled CD. I still am going to but then to see how it goes…

I recently interact a lot at BMI site and there were some “interesting” articles in there about BSO recordings.

http://classical-scene.com/2011/10/02/bso-recording/

http://classical-scene.com/2011/10/11/9243/