HDCD Recommendations (1 Viewer)

Please recommend some HDCDs.

Where can they be purchase?

How to look for it? Is it labelled on the backcovers like SACDs?

Are there many HDCDs available?

Thanks!

I own 1 that I found by a fluke at a used cd place...

Atlantic Records - 50 Years. 2 cd set. The sound quality is stunning compared to regular 44/16 cd.

It's too bad this format didn't take off. There's no copywrite BS to deal with. It plays on anything.

There is a small HDCD logo in the bottom right on the back of the sleeve.

A favorite HDCD of mine is Dave Brubecks "Time Out". It is a re-mastered version by Sony. There is no HDCD logo/info on
the package.

For a recording that was done in the late 50's, it truly
is amazing.........Kliph

311- "Transistor"

While not everyone may like some of the rap-rock songs this band is known for, this release has 21 songs which includes a lot more music oriented, rap-less tracks and instrumentals that really highlight exceptional production and reference quality HDCD acoustics. The drums alone emanate through your speakers like they were right in the room. I remember when I went to demo some paradigm speakers and took this cd to listen to, as soon as the music started the sales guy grabbed the jewel case and said, "WOW, that's what I thought, this is an HDCD release, I'm getting this one for the store to use as a demo!" That was the first I had ever heard of HDCD but now I always look for the logo. This particular cd would also be AMAZING in multi-channel format. Even if there are a few filler type songs (IMHO), with 21 to choose from , I still enjoy more tracks on this disc than most typical 9-12 song cds.

Daniel, if you're at all interested in Mike Oldfield, his entire back catalog was remastered & released as HDCDs a couple of years ago. They sound wonderful. I particularly enjoy Incantations. It is hard to identify them online; I got an old copy of Ommadawn from Tower because they seem to have the same catalog numbers as the new versions.
If you see them in a store, you can easily identify them because the HDCD logo is on the front of the case & on the back insert.
Enjoy,
Doug

A few terrific sounding HDCDs I have:

Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now
The Thin Red Line Soundtrack
The Best of Dire Straits
Mark Knopfler - Golden Heart
Mark Knopfler - Sailing to Philadelphia

It seems as if HDCD encoding is so randomly assigned to CDs. I have some punk albums from the Fat Wreck Chords label circa 1997-98 that are HDCD, but then the label dropped it completely. 311's Transistor is one of my favorite albums, so I'm glad that's an HDCD, but I believe when they left Capricorn, their albums stopped becoming encoded as such. There are so many CDs that would benefit from HDCD, yet it never seemed to take off, and it's so arbitrarily assigned to other CDs. Most of the new country albums I have seem to have it though.

Does anyone actually make HDCD players anymore? I thought this was a dead/dying format...

Rob

I was suprised to see that my copy of the 25th anniversay edition of Frampton Comes Alive is an HDCD. Alot of good it does me though, anyone want to trade for the SACD version?

Rotel is another manufacturer that still makes HDCD players, although I can't imagine why. I've listened to HDCD discs in my home theater (Rotel pre/pro that has HDCD decoding) and I can't tell any difference with Redbook CDs.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, except for Dire Straits and Thin Redline Soundtrack, can't say I recognize any others, although 311's Transition sounds very interesting. I listen to mostly 80's Rock and Pop, current too of course. So any recommendations here would be appreciated.

So I should check with local Towers?

On the player, just got the Denon 5900 universal player, that's why I'm curios about HDCD. Thanks again!

I am guessing my Pioneer 563a SACD/DVD-A universal won't play HDCD? If not, that really sucks, I love 311!

Does 311 have any SACD or DVD-A albums out?

My favorite HDCD is Tool - Lateralus

Does anyone know if the Pioneer DV-45a does HDCD decoding? What about the onkyo ds-989?

Neither of the Pioneers above will do HDCD.

I believe John Mellencamp's first Columbia album John Mellencamp released 3 or 4 years ago is an HDCD.

Neil Young's "On the Beach" has just been released in HDCD. Sounds great. As does a lot of the Warner Brother's era Grateful Dead, "Live Dead" in particular.

As far as playing HDCD's i know that if you update to the current version of the Windows Media Player, it can playback in HDCD. Sounds very nice to me.

The HDCD site has a listing of all albums encoded in that format.

I see that Mellencamp has 4 HDCD albums.

As far as Media Player goes, what version is that? I suppose it doesn't matter, with my crappy speakers at work I probably wouldn't be able to tell a difference anyway.