Why HDCD did not become a dominant format?

Two comments:

First, not every high-end CD player included HDCD decoding. Playing an HDCD disc on my former moderately priced CD player was a great improvement, but I wonder the degree of improvement with a very expensive CD player.

Second, I really enjoy the Redbook CD remastering on Hybrid SACD's. Yeah, the SACD layer probably sound better [I don't own a SACD player], but the Rebook mix is outstanding!

Thanks all. Mcpody, I appreciate your info and the EAD 2000 may sound great but I am unwilling to take a chance on the inevitable breakdown for which parts may no longer be available. To my certain knowledge this is already affecting maintenance/repair of some extremely well known and highly regarded units from very established, reputable companies - that are still in the CD reproduction business in a 'very' strong way.

Neither my Sony 9000ES nor my 9100ES process HDCD, but Reference HDCD discs sound great on my system. Could it be Reference recordings and not HDCD per se' that are so good?

db

Fatparrot, Dbphd, just as you both have touched on with the Hybrid layer, and the HDCD re-master, I do believe many cases is the recording is just that much better when done in redbook with these formats on the disc, and the end result is they can sound just as good without the decoder in many cases, meaning sometimes it has less to do with the technology, but the better mix.

I think you're both right. The mix and recording skills are vital. Yes the RR recordings will sound great on any decent machine, however, IMO you haven't really heard them til you've heard them via HDCD on a comparably decent machine. I was very surprised at how much more refined the sound was via the old Toshiba SD9200 HDCD compared to the new Sony NS9100ES.