Current Universal Players

I owned the OPPO 105D which had the HDCD chip and Darby. I put my name on the list for the last batch of 205's, and luckily, I was notified and purchased one. I sold my 105 to a friend. I miss Gracenote, which gave you a beautiful display of the cd that was playing, and the HDCD chip for decoding HDCD's. The 205 doesn't have either of these, but has slightly better sound and is 4K. I am very satisfied with the 205, But the 105 was very good too.

Use Windows computer to rip the HDCDs to a hard drive. Iirc Microsoft bought the HDCD process. Music Bee decodes HDCD and rips to 24 bit. A HDCD capable DAC should play them.

Thanks,

aldnorab

I have an Oppo BDP-105 with EVS mods and an Ayre C-5xeMP. The Oppo decodes HDCD and has USB input, which I find invaluable.

I have nor compared them side by side except for red book CD and SACD. The Ayre MAY sound slightly mor pleasing on red book but I only have one CD in two copies. I prefer the Oppo in every other way. I should sell the Ayre.

@audiophileman 

I love my Cambridge Audio CXU universal player, that's a few years old but no longer available.  It decodes HDCD.  They're probably hard to find, but I chose it over the pricier Oppo players.  The CXU also streams YouTube, which is very nice.