Opinions on XRCD

[MiTT]

SO, the next question... Are there ANY high-res formats that are just called CD? Aren't ALL the high res CD's XRCD, SACD, and DVD-A? Am I missing something here? Still seems like they should just be called CD's...

Well I don't think so. SACD and DVD-A offer more than 10 times the resolution of RBCD. For that matter, even RBCD hasn't lived up to the full potential of the format for almost 25 years now. There is an article in the most recent issue of the Abso!ute Sound I believe that discusses the fact that RedBook has been dynamically limited, compressed, bandwidth limited, sample rate limited and generally dumbed down since it was launced on the market in the 80's. Some of the audiophile labels are utilizing the full capacity of RedBook, but virtually none of the mass market labels are to this day. I'll try to find the article tonight so that I can do a better job of referencing it. Bottom line though is that there is a big difference between true high resolution audio and plain jane Redbook. It's gotten better to be sure. at the onset Redbook CD was a vast wasteland of audio information - now it's only Half Vast

 

[sleepysurf]

Here's an interesting thread re XRCD's on A'gon...
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1174937876&read&3&4&

 

[Beat_Dominator]

Well I don't think so. SACD and DVD-A offer more than 10 times the resolution of RBCD. For that matter, even RBCD hasn't lived up to the full potential of the format for almost 25 years now. There is an article in the most recent issue of the Abso!ute Sound I believe that discusses the fact that RedBook has been dynamically limited, compressed, bandwidth limited, sample rate limited and generally dumbed down since it was launced on the market in the 80's.....

Bob Stuart of Meridian says that if Red Book had been set at 20bit/55khz you could achieve perfect reproduction in the human audible range.

 

[Audioseduction]

I personally think you can’t beat a XRCD for red book format.

 

[JonFo]

Bob Stuart of Meridian says that if Red Book had been set at 20bit/55khz you could achieve perfect reproduction in the human audible range.

When it comes to digital audio, What Bob says is gospel.

Meridian has gotten more out of 16/44.1 than almost any other vendor. And a really good RBCD on Meridian kit generally sounds better than SACD on mid-fi systems any day.

BTW- Upsampling 16/44.1 to 16/88.2 is a really cool trick. Most Meridian's do this and it's subtle, but noticeable, improvement. More so than HDCD in my book.