dgb Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 I reccommend the NAD 542 HDCD. Supposedly an improvement on the C541, which is a pretty sweet performer. Despite others opinions, I can tell you HDCD is not dead, it's actually getting more common, but since it's not a new format, just an improvement on the CD, it's much less ballyhooed than SACD or DVDA. I recently took about 25 CDs out of the library and 7 of them were HDCD. Blue Man Group, Tom Petty Anthology, 3 Beck CDs and 2 Neil Young CDs. Unfortunately HDCDs are vaguley marked or totally unmarked, not until you pop them in your HDCD player can you tell you have one. Evidently HDCD has hit big in Asia, so if nothing else, you can order scads of these things from China for like $8 shipped on ebay. HDCD DACs are superior to regular DACs and upsample 16 bit CDs to 20 bit (not unlike the Philips upsampling SACD), so there is a notable improvement on redbook CDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 You'd think Sony/Philips woud want to maximise SACD sales by producing more hybrid titles. Every single one I've been interested in buying is single layer. Why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 You can get a kenwood DP7090 second hand on the cheap. i'm using one and I love the sound, after playing with other players including NAD. It was kenwood's top flight player and features four BurrBrown chips on each channel; plus it's a beautiful machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Kenwood is one of those brands where you never know just what you're getting. Some of their stuff is great, but a lot of it is garbarge. You really have to bone up on all their models before buying (a lot like Sony), or you could get burned. I had a Kenwood reciever and tape deck in college, decent stuff, but too much went into bells and whistles (which I thought were cool being 16 years old) Not dissing your kenwood at all mind you, just an observation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbsl Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 I just replaced my NAD C540 with the C542 and it sounds great, $526. I have the Denon DVD 2900 and when I play the best sounding HDCD on my C542 and compare them to the best sounding DVD A the HDCDs sound much better. Now some DVD A at the top of the jewel case say "DTS International Music Experience" and 90% of the time sound as good or almost as good as the HDCDs, Les Brown and his band of renown, session #55 is an excellent one and if you like electronic music with a african,latin influence try Studio Voodoo. I don't think the Denon 2900 plays SACDs very well cause I have bought SACDs that were recommended and they sound terrible to me and DVD A doesn't sound much better unless its a DTS music experience. Xman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 Of course, Kenwood also makes pretty ****ty products. All japanese major brands do. but they have the power to make a highly evolved, high-end sounding product at a not-so-high-end price. that Kenwood player won quite a few prices if my memory's correct. At least that's why i got interested in the model. And it really, really sounds great. there's a "vintage" hi-fi shop ,near my flat; the guy is sold on vinyl and doesn't like CD-players at all. well this guy told me once that the Kenwood DP7090 was one of the few CD player he could listen to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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