Interesting thoughts all accross the board. Right now I am comparing playback between my Classe DAC1 and MSB Platinum Plus DAC. I been comparing HDCD discs on both DACs. Some sound better playing back through the HDCD Classe. Patricia Barbers Cafe Blue in HDCD sounds far superior to standard playback through the MSB (with the upsampling on) . Holly Coles Helplessly Romantic is another example. Most of the "unmarked" discs that trigger the HDCD decoder sound better with the MSB as do regular "Redbook". I am concluding that discs that are done correctly with HDCD, sound best that way.
Anyone still excited about HDCD ?
With all the talk about SACD an DVD-A no one seems to bring up HDCD. Note: I not looking for a HDCD vs SACD battle here.. I will be picking up a universal player for my HT system but for 2 channel I decided SACD did not buy me much especially given the lack of software. I just picked up a redbook player that includes HDCD so I thought why not give it a try.. and I like it. It seems to me that there are more choices for high end player that include HDCD than SACD (altough this seems to be changing) I have my cd player behind me in the room which makes it really easy to do a blind A/B test. It HDCD sounds better to me than normal decoding. I mostly notice a deeper, bigger soundstage. Naturally it does not do multi-channel but then again multi-channel has a whole set of requirements and issues that 2 channel does not. While it may not be "perfect" (since nothing ever will) or not as accurate as SACD/DVD-A maybe HDCD is good enough for 2 channel...