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HDCD a flash in the pan already??

I started looking for a new CD Player a while back but put the search on the backburner for a bit(needed a new sub & picked up a Onix Rocket UFW-10)so now it's back to CD Player hunting and it seems to me there are less HDCD players coming out then when I orginally researched. For example the new Music Player 25.2 isn't HDCD ready where the CD-25 was nor is Onix's best CD Player CD-2(their lower one xcd-99 is). Even though they're out of my price range players newly released players like the Rega Apollo,Cambridge Azur 640 or Naim CD5i do not appear to be HDCD. Is this another format that isn't going to make it or just a option on lower end players. I was recently at a couple local CD stores (Borders, Fye and Barnes and Noble) and there were at the most 3 HDCD Cds there none of which I would be interested in.. Starting to seem like HDCD shouldn't even be an option to look for in my CD Player search.. Any comments?
pmt1209
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
PMT1209,

There is a difference to HDCD in bits/dynamic range. The difference is beyond what is practically necessary in terms of dynamic range for home playback. If you exceed the dynamics that your system/room design can deliver/handle accurately then you may actuallly lose audibility of some of the lower level sounds on an HDCD compared to a more balanced sounding CD, even if the CD has a more "compressed" sound.

FM Rock radio stations know this all to well....they modfiy and compress audio for best experience in the noisy car environment..they know that greater dynamic range would mean that lows would be annoyingly inaudible compared to background noise and that if the volume is set high enough to hear these lows then the speakers will distort when a loud passage comes or, alternatively, the passenger will find the loud passage uncomfortably loud.

More dynamic range is not always desirable in a recording...there are limits to what is practical/comfortable for playback.
robm321
932 posts
 
"your saying it's not important but it's "great".. "
- pmt1209

It improves the sound on all players. HDCD decoding players make it sound better, but it is nowhere near SACD, DVD-A, or even XRCD as far as improvement goes.

Rob
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Robm, I think it depends on which XRCD you are talking about. XRCD24 is very good, but not XRCD or XRCD2. I have not really sought to compare HDCD with these straight-forwardly, but I really like XRCD24s.
vlad1456's avatar
vlad1456
20 posts
 
I own a Sonic Frontiers SFD-1 MKII tube HDCD dac (these can be found for between 500-700$). This baby sings, especially with hdcd disks. The Doors and Roxy Music catalogues have been re-released in HDCD and they sound great. Yes, I do wish there were more HDCD disks, but the 25 or so that I own sound so good, I won't be getting rid of my dac anytime soon.
pmt1209 OP
44 posts
 
This may be a tough question or a non-applicable one but here it goes:
Would a player with HDCD playing a HDCD cd sound better, the same or worse then a "newly released" CD Player using the newer Burr-Brown Dac such as what's in the Music Hall CD-25.2 (Burr-Brown PCM 1738 24 bit/192k DAC) or players using Wolfson WM8740 DAC, 24/192 DAC such as the Arcam Diva C-73, Rega Apollo(which is getting some great reviews, off the point but had to mention it) and the Cambridge Audio 640Cv2 which actually is using 2 Wolfson WM8740 DACs(one for each channel)??
It would be interesting if someone has tried setting up a say a Music Hall CD-25 and a Music Hall CD25.2 both with the same HDCD cd in and toggled back and forth to see the difference.. Or in this whole analogy am I comparing apples to oranges?
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