ABB,
I've had more time to spend with these disks and it gets a little deeper than I first thought. At closer inspection under a desk lamp I must admit that two of the Cd's I've bought (5 total) are not exactly perfect. There are very light scratches and smudges on them. The others looked brand new. I only have the one (Nora Jones) to compare HD to regular 16bit sound quality and as I said I think the HD is better. The rest are relatively new releases. All disks play fine but here's the kicker one's not even registering as a HDCD on my player. I emailed the seller and he offered to refund my money. I don't know whether to recommend China as a source for new HDCD's or not.
If your are still interested I would just go to eBay and search the music category for "HDCD". If you plan on buying more than one make sure you buy from the same seller to save shipping on charges. They're a few people selling the same CD's for one penny and you will notice that the same CD's are auctioned off over and over. Just wait close to the auction end and bid your $0.01. I did that three times with the same seller to save on shipping. The seller ID was "dtgbys" I still might take a chance on a few more.
