whats a good older hdcd cd player?

Cary CD 306/200

I agree about HDCD, it really is an improvement on CD, probably why it did'nt take off, with the perverse market we have. Another vote for Copland, I used a 266 for years. good price, lovely organic sound, no digital glare. Great on HDCD

I've had an Anthem CD-1 for ten years; I think it sounds good. I too think HDCD is an improvement. Perhaps that one reason didn't catch on was that it started life as a proprietary process, not an open system. I know that the Sonic Solutions mastering suite wouldn't encode it (I don't know if this is still the case,) and Sonic Solutions was the market leader in cd mastering.

I may be wrong in the details, but this was the reason I wasn't able to use HDCD on some the cd projects I produced, at least according to my mastering engineer. The reason I stuck with him was because he is the best in town, and my one experience with using out-of-town mastering taught me I want to be present at the session. (In the end I caught what I wanted on that project (including HDCD) but it was an expensive learning experience.)

Flyin2jz,

You might want to look at the NAD C542 CDP, which is an upgraded version of the NAD C541. Matter of fact, I'll probably be listing my NAD C542 on the Audiogon sales pages in the next few days as I recently purchased a Jolida JD-100. I will tell you, the NAD C542 is a very nice unit, and there are many positive reviews about this unit. Check it out for yourself.

Shanling.