California Audio Labs – Icon Mk II CD Player - HDCD

I had the Cal Icon Mk 2 HDCD with powerboss for years and loved it. I replaced it with an Ayre Cx7eMP which is in another league. The Ayre will be my last CD player purchase. Great player and company and their upgrades are worth it when they make them available. I originally bought mine as a CX 7 and have had it upgraded twice since that purchase...

I already own this unit and it has HDCD.  It sounds very very close to an Oppo BDP-103 in sound quality, despite its age.  

I heard that if it has the HDCD, then it has the Powerboss upgrade for sure.

Does anybody know if that's true?

As I recall the Power Boss upgrade included HDCD.

However, a basic (less expensive) HDCD upgrade was available as well.

DeKay

Right on all accounts guys. Enjoy the Music!

Great question. Because the mods became so popular at the time, CAL ultimately offered an HDCD/PowerBoss model for sale with all the benefits up front. To your question about how do you tell? That can be deduced from wether or not the unit you have/want originated as a full featured ICON mkII HDCD/PowerBoss from CAL or if the unit had a mod/upgrade done to an original/older standard ICON after the fact.