Re: How to rip CD audio to Hi-Res flac???
Reply #4 –
The OP has of course gotten the essential answer: CD ripping delivers no more than what is encoded on the CD, and that is 44.1/16.
When it comes to the HDCD format:
the equivalent of 20 bits worth of data
Not quite. Notice that the Wikipedia page's alleged source for the "20" claim, Johnson/Pflaumer's 1996 AES convention paper, merely claims "approximately 19 bit precision" (p. 11). The "20" is only justified by thinking that 19.something cannot be fit in 19-bit fixed-point PCM and requires then, a 20th bit.
But the "approximately 19" includes the benefits from noise shaping, which is part of the HDCD production process, but not exclusive to the HDCD format. The format itself gives +6 dB dynamics in the loudest parts and +4 in the quietest. That requires one bit in each end, if you stick to fixed-point uncompressed PCM and an integer number of bits (which is a bit questionable; that metric would assign a higher resolution to MP3).