Is HDCD dead?

I'm not to sure on other disc with HDCD.But what ever they did on those Grateful Dead Remasters are nothing short of a miracle.Listen to the disc "Reconing",the track China doll is so holographic its scared me.Garcia voice is suspended about 6 feet above my speakers and on the redbook cd his voice is about eye level.Is this in the remastering or is it from hdcd??

Spaz...It's the mix. An extra 4 bits of resolution would (perhaps) have other benefits. HDCD is/was a very clever idea to live with the 16 bit CD. The extra 8 bits of DVDA or SACD are even better, and come with higher sampling rate, and that's why HDCD is dead. (Except that the technology may live on for video, which is why Microsoft bought it).

As stated above there are some new releases and remasters still being released in HDCD. I have Arcam players and they decode HDCD. I like the HDCD playback more, but don't detect a quantum leap in playback, just cleaner, or maybe more focused.

Like the others, I am able to compare the Dead remasters in HDCD to the original CD release, and the original vinyl. All different in many musical respects.

I am glad I have it, but, I don't know that I would go out of my way to have an HDCD decoding player vs. having a quality player. If I go to upgrade away from the Arcam, I would be looking for the best regular (Redbook) playback I could afford. 98% of my CD's are not HDCD.

Spaz, Garcia hovering 6 feet above? You sure that's not the mushrooms you just ate? :>)

Jim S.

I think it important to remember, that one can cut back the volume on HDCDs to comparable CD levels, that having HDCD capability doesn't have to compromise regular CD playback, that HDCDs are still being manufactured and (this is of course speculative) that for quite some time into the future the number of HDCDs choices will probably out number SACD and DVD audio choices combined.