State of HDCD and SACD


I am contemplating a new digital front-end and wondering if I should give preference to HDCD or SACD. It seems that you do not see these two technologies combined too often in a CDP, at least not well!

So, what I want to decide is "What has more of a future as a format?" I think both can sound excellent - that's not the question. I have a MiniMax CDP in my 2nd system that does great things with HDCD, and I previously owned a Shanling T200 that was great with SACD (and Redbook).

If I decide to put my eggs in the HDCD basket I'll probably get a Raysonic CD128. If SACD, a Marantz SA-11.

So, I would appreciate hearing takes on the respective futures of these formats. SACD has many titles available but still a drop, of course, compared to Redbook, and it seems views differed greatly on its future the last time I looked into it, about a year ago.

Would also consider other recommendations for players. Is there something there under $3K (preferably new - I don't trust used digital transports) that does HDCD and SACD and does them both well?
paulfolbrecht

Showing 1 response by jyprez

Several posters to this thread seem to have already answered your question regarding the future of SACD and HDCD - namely its all but completely dead and buried. But you seem not to want to hear them so instead I will tell you what you have been waiting to hear - namely that the furture is very bright indeed for these formats. The music buying public is just about to wake up and realize that this is exactly what they have been yearning for. They will abandon their MP3 players and Ipods in droves and rush out to buy all the best megabuck audiophile SACD and HDCD players they can get their hands on. Record executives will suddenly realize the enormous potential of these formats and decide to reissue the entire Classic Blue Note and Prestige, Riverside, Verve (etc. etc.) jazz catalogs with tens of thousands of titles which have never been reissued on Redbook let alone SACD with its paltry list of a few hundred Jazz titles (including some of the same tired top 50 titles which they have be recycling for the past 30 years.) Rudy van Gelder will of course, personally oversee the monumental remastering effort and we will finally achieve perfect sound forever.
P.S. You are free to wake up now and return to your previously scheduled programming.