Amazing XRCD I just purchased....

I'm pretty certain that Bomarc is correct that K2s use the same masters as XRCDs. The difference is in the manufacturing process (and of course the packaging).

As an aside, I have the XRCD version of Everybody Digs Bill Evans and it has the distortions that Hdm mentions on his K2 version. Presumably the problem is on the master tape which I suppose is why you never see Everybody Digs featured in Stereophile advertisements that way Moonbeams and Waltz for Debbie are. It may not be an audiophile classic (which begs the question of why JVC bothered to produce an XRCD version), but the music is damn fine.

Jond--

I'm sure there Goners here who can intelligently discuss the XRCD manufacturing process, but I'm not one of them. My comments were based on my recollection of the notes in the XRCDs I have (which I do not have in front of me at the moment) and another thread I read on this topic somewhere, may be here--check the archives.