CD types & sonic quality (UHQCD, SHMCD, BSCD2, Crystal Disc, MQA-CD etc.)

The Compact Disc celebrates 40 years and is still present in our lives and actually is selling quite good for being a physical media. New audiophile types have arrived in the last years introducing new materials and manufacturing processes. Do these special characteristics really increase sonic quality or is it just marketing?

LINKS:

INDEX:
0:00 - Intro
1:24 - SHMCD specs
5:05 - SHMCD test intro
7:53 - SHMCD Track 1
9:10 - SHMCD Track 2
10:29 - SHMCD test results
11:07 - SHMCD Platinum specs
11:54 - SHMCD Platinum test intro
12:30 - SHMCD Platinum Track 1
13:29 - SHMCD Platinum Track 2
14:28 - SHMCD Platinum test results
14:54 - BSCD2 specs
17:11 - BSCD2 test intro
18:30 - BSCD2 Track 1
19:22 - BSCD2 Track 2
20:14 - BSCD2 test results
20:57 - UHQCD specs
23:55 - UHQCD test intro
26:36 - UHQCD Track 1
27:36 - UHQCD Track 2
28:35 - UHQCD test results
29:50 - Crystal Disc specs
31:12 - MQA-CD specs
33:05 - Other types
34:18 - Final considerations

More Ana[dia]log groove:

#compactdisc #cds #uhqcd

[kforkrish]

40 minutes of information on every type of CD audio format? 😊
It feels so premium as if i had to pay for it😅

[SimonLloydGuitar]

Im so glad you made this. CDs are much maligned these days in exactly the same way as vinyl was back on the 80s with the advent of the CD. Good news for people like me because I buy them for next to nothing. One day they will come back with a vengeance and we will look back on this time as 'the golden age' for buying cheap used CDs.

[mmail]

I think your spot on this. The mastering is key not the material used.

[sergioquirosv]

Thanks for this amazing video! I just stopped by one of my favorite record stores here in Manhattan (Academy Records & CDs), looking for some classical music SACDs, and in their "Audiophile" shelf, I noticed a Japanese version of Miles Davis', Sorcerer. I pulled it out, and it turns out that it's a Blu-spec CD 2! If I hadn't watched your video earlier today, I would've never figured out what this is. Thanks!

[ProjectOverseer]

I'm an experienced listener of many years. I picked the genuine CD every time as the BETTER rendition.
The type of sampling rate and analogue output stages make more of a difference (apart from the actual recording itself)
I own a Red Book standard CD mastering burner that uses dual BURR Brown converters. I found commercial CD's sounded much better with hugely less data errors to the original CD when re-recorded in real time.
When you record to SSD or digital tape, you'll also record the original errors.
Making a Red Book copy in real time error correction corrects the commercial CD's data loss - and there's a lot more than you might think. .
Played back on an audiophile quality CD player the difference can be amazingly good.

[biometrix]

1s and 0s ..Your honesty is refreshing ..Thank you

[kid.forever]

Had to stop and listen to the whole Dave Grusin album. 🔥🔥🔥

[audiononsense]

110% agree that the mix and mastering are key. I bought SHMCD and the MoFi gold for longevity mostly.

[nandoventura]

I adore the way you speak! So clear and easy to understand by people abroad! :-) Cheers from Brazil!

[ozeskiman]

Thanks for this great run down on the various products available. You’ve saved us a lot of money and time chasing them.

[be.spiritlove]

Thanks for the great video - After seeing this I purchased SuperTramp Crime of the Century (AM+) Audio Master Plus CD - Then I stumbled over other two CD I have by SuperTramp I have and both AM+ - Now I know from this day why I liked them so much the sound WOW. Thank You

[fernandozegarraaudio]

Guido, I think you made a mistake. It is clear to me at least that at minute 6:38 the differences are clearly seen, remember that what we are looking for are small differences and not big ones.
We start from a CD that has good quality, you said it yourself, so if we look in the case of the SHMCD it is better reading, the ideal is to download both files in WAV to the computer and compare them bit by bit, this because it says that you have a better reading.
Only for people who do not know the use of CD-DA well, these have a memory buffer called cache to avoid major Jitter errors, this cache helps to improve the sending of each word bytes (16 bits in the case of CD) towards the DAC that resolves to convert it to analog.
Greetings

[fernandozegarraaudio]

My apologies Guido, I wrote before watching the ENTIRE video and from what I saw, we have the same conclusion.
The Master in recording as well as its quality is what defines the CD-DA and not the physical formats perse.
Very good video, keep it up and have a Happy New Year 2024!!!

[markphillips]

Thank you, I can see much work went into this. Appreciated!! BTW I think MQA can sound okay, don't hate me, but as a way to stream verified HQ I thought it was good.

[ruderabbit]

great vid. also, your turntable reminds me of my Luxman PD444

[HD-susq]

I compared SACD to regular CD on my system at one point, and concluded that I could hear the difference. But the improvement wasn’t worth the effort to me to upgrade CDs I had. Here the conclusion seems the same. Thank you for taking the time to explain and investigate.

[robertspencer]

I would love that deck .. I had a sharp cassette deck in 1980 .. want to get into cassettes again ..!
Great video .. god knows how you got it back together ! Rob

[GerardoRibero]

wawa kazawa!!!! great video man!!! I like it a lot. I'd never had the opportunity to listen in my system this types of CDs

[andyanderson]

I couldn’t agree with you more. Excellent show.

[TheFilm]

Thank you for this segment. As we get older, we loose some of the high frequencies. In looking into this I found a web site that indicating the following typical frequency response loss as we get older. Here is what they said. Would like to get your thoughts on this. Here is what they say: Whereas a person in their twenties will be able to hear up to 17, 000Hz or more, by their thirties this will have declined to about 16, 000Hz. By the time an individual is in their 50s, their hearing range will usually have declined to around 12, 000Hz. Thought you might find this of interest. Keep up the great reports, I am a regular subscriber.