Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - STEP you / is this LOVE? is a HDCD?

Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai (http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/index.php)

- Enquiries (http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=12)

- - STEP you / is this LOVE? is a HDCD? (http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46743)

STEP you / is this LOVE? is a HDCD?

so i was playing some of my cd's in windows media player and when i put my STEP you disk in i noticed something odd

>Click To Open Pic<

So then i did some research, and it seems that some cd's have higher quality audio like SACD.

I have the overseas version so im not sure if its the same with the japan version

Just thought i'd inform yoou all, and i guess this is related to that news a while ago about panasonic using STEP you to test there High Quality audio

That shows up for some of my Ayu CDs that are older, too...I wonder if they all really are HDCD or higher quality or whatever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiruNoKaze

That shows up for some of my Ayu CDs that are older, too...I wonder if they all really are HDCD or higher quality or whatever.

Welll on wikipedia it says that HDCD's have been around since 1995

Um.. all my fairyland cd says that when I play them it too o_O I was curious about that

I think wikipedia says most of what's needed to know...

Quote:

Originally Posted by wikipedia

High Definition Compatible Digital, or HDCD (also known as High Definition Compact Disc) is a patented encode-decode process that endeavors to improve the sound quality of standard audio CDs. A HDCD-encoded CD usually, but not always, has the HDCD logo printed somewhere on the back cover. A relatively high-quality sound-system is required in order to take advantage of the subtle improvement that HDCD is intended to accomplish.

There are a relatively small number of CDs which have been encoded in HDCD, and a correspondingly small number of players have been sold which are capable of decoding them. However version 9 and above of Windows Media Player running on Microsoft Windows XP is capable of decoding HDCD on personal computers with a 24-bit sound card.

The 24bit sound cards range from between 200-500$.

So yeah, obviously those CDs seem to be HDCD, which makes sense because, as you mentioned micster, Panasonic used this song for testing their TrueHD sound.

^I don't think it's just exclusive to STEP you/is this LOVE? because of panosonic's testing, because my I am... album (overseass) is HDCD.

I don't think it is either, as was mentioned by some users it seems a lot of her releases were made on HDCD, but the quality difference is barely noticeable compared to the huge improvement of SACD or DVD-A, so it never became very popular.

Well, having her CDs in HDCD is just an improvement, it's great knowing avex release higher quality stuff than what's expected from them :).

Isnt it strange how avex has only chose ayu's cd's to make HDCD

^You sure about that? Isn't it possible they've released HDCD for other of their artists? Back in the 2001 period I can understand if they only released Ayus media in HDCD, rumours say she made up like 90% of avexs budget...

Quote:

Originally Posted by immel

Well ofcause they could have done it for other artists, im just going on what cd's i have

now i felt so stupid...i had never notice that.*run to take my STEP you single to try*

Is that the oversea one that you are playing???

ive noticed that I Am.. and RAINBOW (overseas versions) are HDCD cuz theres the little logo when playing with windows media player.