HDCD's

[John in Phoenix]

Hi all

I just thought I would post my comments on the HDCD that I just purchased off Ebay of "Twenty-two hits of the Carpenters". All I can say is "WOW!"

I find an amazing difference in the 'Presence" of Karen's voice in this 24 bit HDCD. She always sounds like she is singing in your ear on any regular album, but the HDCD encoding really lets her voice stand alone against the music. Just gorgeous to listen to on a set of good headphones or even on a surround sound system. I'm really glad that I bought this copy, even though I knew that I was purchasing the same old songs. The CD was manufactured in China of all places. I have another one on the way any day now that has 'Lovelines' on it. That is the one CD that for some reason I don't own (Although I DID at one time..dunno where I lost it) I'll let you know if the sound quality is the same or not. This may be something that Richard needs to start doing on a regular basis to really let Karen's voice shine on new CD releases. I'm hard to impress, but this really has that something special to make it worth the purchase.

Gotta fly now. Enjoy your day !

John in Phoenix

[smoothie2]

:)hi John..do you have to have a special player for the HDCD's?
just wondering..


I just enjoy Karen and Richard's vocals on just about all their songs. They never had to really prove anything to anyone in their singing..they didn't need "smoke and mirrors" added to their act, because the music stands up to the test of time due to such a great variety of songs they could perform and did...serious love songs, some full of fun..(Piano Picker) ("Mr. Postman") and then the oldies medleys they enjoyed.


smoothie

[cam83]

Hey All,
One of the things I love is listening to the CLOSE TO YOU album on my cd walkman...I don't know if it's my walkman or what, but I can hear one side of the harmonies more than the other which is neat. I get a chance to hear the harmonies which is amazing!
Also, I love listening to Karen's solo album. It's good. It's great! Gotta love it! It was a labour of love for her to do this! She spent a year doing this, and $400,000 of her own money, plus A&M chipped in $100,000 which was a lot of money in that day...She really sounds as if she is having fun. It is a shame they didn't film her in the studio...etc...with photo shoots, recording sessions, playback etc...

Cam

[Rick Henry]

smoothie2 said:

:)hi John..do you have to have a special player for the HDCD's?
just wondering..


I just enjoy Karen and Richard's vocals on just about all their songs. They never had to really prove anything to anyone in their singing..they didn't need "smoke and mirrors" added to their act, because the music stands up to the test of time due to such a great variety of songs they could perform and did...serious love songs, some full of fun..(Piano Picker) ("Mr. Postman") and then the oldies medleys they enjoyed.


smoothie

Hi smoothie. I looked up HDCD on Yahoo and found out they are compatible with your normal CD player. Here is a link to the site with the info on HDCD's if you wish to read further.

www.hdcd.com/about/index.html


Hi John, thanks for the heads up, looks like I'll be checking out The Carpenters on HDCD.


wondering would all us dedicated Carpenters fans buy the enitre catalog again if it were reissued on HDCD...

[smoothie2]

Thanks Rick for your reply. I think that even on my regular computer cd player ...it's a thrill to be able to hear our favorites and easy to think that you're at a concert and that they are singing just for you. So anything that can enhance that sound is certainly worth it.
And kind of tying in with what Cam mentioned about hearing the vocals better sometimes on one side with her player than the other, the same thing happens when I listen using just the comp. player too. In my case though, it could be a small defect in one of my speakers, because ever since I've had my comp. , one speaker definitely plays better than the other.


smoothie

[ThomB]

Guest-John said:

Hi all

I just thought I would post my comments on the HDCD that I just purchased off Ebay of "Twenty-two hits of the Carpenters". All I can say is "WOW!"

I find an amazing difference in the 'Presence" of Karen's voice in this 24 bit HDCD. She always sounds like she is singing in your ear on any regular album, but the HDCD encoding really lets her voice stand alone against the music. Just gorgeous to listen to on a set of good headphones or even on a surround sound system. I'm really glad that I bought this copy, even though I knew that I was purchasing the same old songs. The CD was manufactured in China of all places. I have another one on the way any day now that has 'Lovelines' on it. That is the one CD that for some reason I don't own (Although I DID at one time..dunno where I lost it) I'll let you know if the sound quality is the same or not. This may be something that Richard needs to start doing on a regular basis to really let Karen's voice shine on new CD releases. I'm hard to impress, but this really has that something special to make it worth the purchase.

Gotta fly now. Enjoy your day !

John in Phoenix

;D Hi John!
Thanks for the info about HDCD's. I was unaware of this format. Can these be found on amazon.com? Do you know if they are U.S. releases?

[John in Phoenix]

Hi THomB

I have never looked for an HDCD format on any music website only because I didn't realize that it existed. I came across it on EBAy of all places. The web is a great tool for finding out-of-the ordinary Carpenter's releases.

I also just bought the "Gold" Cd/DVD from Best Buy yesterday and was equally impressed with Richard's revamping of "Love is surrender'. Man - He really brought the drums back to bare on this new version. It sounds wonderful. I used to crank my headphones up on the 'Close to you' album and always got distortion out of it, but this re-work of a song that I KNOW we all love because of the drums really set me on my ear. It was pricey - $29.00 bucks U.S., but worth the money spent. Heck - Christmas is just down the road so why not splurge on ourselves from time to time?

Enjoy. The Carpenter's music is THE BEST.

John In Phoenix