HDCD fans out there?

Yes, I’m another Deadhead that has all of the Grateful Dead Dave’s and Dick’s picks live releases (as well as all the newly released remastered catalog).  They are probably the only new CD’s still encoded with HDCD.  I’ve got a couple vintage CD players and DACs that can read the HDCD encoding.  It makes me smile when I see the HDCD light illuminate...  ;^)  

I hope they continue using it.  I’ve got one PMD100 CD player and another DAC with the PMD200 filter that came out right before Pacific Microsonics sold out to Microsoft.  There aren’t many PMD200 chipsets out there, but if you look hard enough you’ll find them.

I could listen to HDCD's, exclusively...........I think. They have been that good in my system. The closest to good vinyl that I've ever heard. I don't stream anything so I have no idea what I'm missing there and I'm OK with that, for now anyway, possibly ever. I don't know. It is sad to see that a fair amount of new music is only coming out in digital download formats. 

@marlin38 I know what you mean about seeing the HDCD light come on. You know that you are likely in for a special treat and it really is quite a difference from the average RBCD. Especially noticeable on the ones that I have that switch from RBCD to HDCD on the same disk. Quite a difference. I do have some redbooks that are close, including some that are from 20 and 24 bit mastering, still recorded in 16 bit RBCD format. It is capable of being better than I used to think. Anyway, glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks HDCD is worth our time and money. 

billpete

What gear and cabling is in your System?

Happy Listening!

Denon and Cambridge DVD players, using the internal DACS. All are 24 bit, some are 96k, some are 192k. My cabling is Belden solid core OFC with Neutrik RCA's. Speaker wire is Blue Jean Canare 4G, I think that is what is was called. 

Preamp is Cary SLP 98P, F1 edition upgraded with Lundahl SUT for LOMC. I use mostly vintage tubes VT231, switching off from RCA smoke glass, KenRad  black glass and Sylvania VT231, I think same as what gets called bad boys. Currently running that pair in gain stage with more modern EH gold pins in buffer stage. I know a lot of people have different names for these positions but this is how I know them. 

I horizontally biamp original Teledyne AR9 speakers with two Parasound HCA 2200 II amps. The speakers have not seen any repair in 25 years and are still "mostly" very damn good. I do wonder at times if it is getting time to do something such as recap the crossovers, just don't know. I often think that it all sounds perfect.......so who knows. 

My current turntable in use is Linn LP12, with Ekos arm and still breaking in AT33 LOMC cartridge. I have quite a few other TT's and cartridges but I think you are more asking about my digital set up.  

I love to listen to Joni Mitchell, Niel Young , etc and have a few HDCDs. Only recently did i realize that they were not properly ripped in my library. Do took the efforts and took the right approach to decode and save as FLAC files. It is amazing how dynamic they sound. Wish we had more HDCDs. But a moron at Microsoft probably killed the format because they had cloth ears.