'HD CDs' To Offer High Quality Audio

[Shrygue]

via Gizmodo


Just when you thought it was safe to dump your CD collection in a river and wave goodbye to the spinning optical audio disc for good, Japan comes along and moves the goalposts.

If you've ever wondered whether the equivalent of 'high definition' for audio would rear its head, you're probably a very forward thinking person. Japanese firm Memory-Tech, who manufacturer a third of the countries recordable discs, has announced the arrival of HQCD technology.

Apparently it allows audio to be stored far more accurately than conventional methods, offering far cleaner sound and another level of quality to help beat away the insurgence of digital media for a little while longer.

It's only actually confirmed for Japan, though Memory-Tech is making two million HQCDs a month in mind of commercial release in September.

There are no details of whether it'll appear elsewhere but we can't see it being a particular success, mainly because CDs themselves (or now, high-quality encoded audio) are perfectly adequate for 99% of listeners anyway. You'd have to either be a real audiophile or in the music business to decide that any increase in quality would be worth new equipment and even greater expense.

[Elven6]

Seems promising, I just hope they release some more details on the make up of the discs themselves.

[quzar]

DVD-A and SACD have both offered HD audio for quite a few years. It's established enough that now a lot of top end cars can play DVD-As. Both support up to 7 channels, and 24-bit/192kHz sound. That's as high quality as pretty much any other components can handle anyways.

[jamotto]

DVD-A and SACD have both offered HD audio for quite a few years. It's established enough that now a lot of top end cars can play DVD-As. Both support up to 7 channels, and 24-bit/192kHz sound. That's as high quality as pretty much any other components can handle anyways.

It is good to have an alternative though as both DVD-A and SACD both have issues. DVD-A for example only supports 5.1 channels and only with sampling rates 96kHz and below and SACD's 1 bit sample size causes distortions problems with certain music.