Ben Liebrand - Iconic Groove DCC Edition.
In cooperation with the DCC Museum
In 2020, most people probably still remember the Compact Disc. The number of people who remember Digital Compact Cassette is probably a lot lower. Both CD and DCC originate in the Netherlands where Philips developed them together with Sony (CD) and Matsushita (DCC).
Some of us at the DCC Museum are also from the Netherlands and we’ve been Ben Liebrand fans for over 37 years, so it’s a great honor to work together with him on this album. We know Ben is a perfectionist, so we thought this would be a great opportunity to showcase the potential of DCC’s amazing audio quality. Using a modified version of the “mp2enc” open source MPEG Layer 1 encoder and our “DCCU” software, we recorded Ben’s studio-quality masters directly to tape at the highest possible quality for DCC: 48 kHz sample rate and 24 bits precision(*).
To our knowledge, this is the first time that a prerecorded DCC has ever been released at 48 kHz sample rate with 24 bit precision. We’re sure you’ll like the result as much as we do. We think this version of Iconic Groove sounds even better than the CD! Unlike some other encoders, DCC has no trouble encoding every aspect of the sound, from the sharpest and loudest drum beats, to the softest and most subtle sparkles of background instruments.
Of course, superb audio reproduction quality is not enough: It all starts with the music, and the special remixes that Ben made for this release (including the special vocoder intro) make the DCC format come into its own. All of this should make this production a unique and valuable addition to your collection.
The DCC Museum would like to thank all the Patrons for believing in our mission of keeping the DCC format alive. We would not be able to do it without you!
Ralf Porankiewicz, Curator of the DCC Museum.
Jac Goudsmit, Mastering Engineer for the DCC release.
Jeremy Heiden, Graphical Production.
(*) This recording is compatible with, and will sound excellent on all DCC players. However, not all DCC equipment is capable of decoding the full dynamic of the 24-bit encoding.
This cassette contains recorded song titles that can be displayed on selected DCC players only.
