HDCD vs the Newer SHM-CD, BluSpec, UHQCD, etc

@sfcfran 

It sounds like you have very definite opinions, none of which have been shaken by the responses you have gotten here.  Some of these formats that you are enthusiastic about were attempts to overcome early limitations on Red Book playback.  The biggest incremental increase in sound quality imo was the jump to DSD , either in SACD or downloads.  Otherwise improvements in Redbook replay have been profound and narrowed the gap.  You won’t realize the Redbook improvements with an Oppo 205 although it’s an excellent transport for DSD from SACD over HDMI.  I would get a better DAC and maximize Redbook, but you seem to have definite opinions and are on a mission 

I have an Oppo 93 and it plays hdcd just fine. When did Oppo stop supporting the hdcd format?

@curiousjim  From what I read, the latest series, 203/205, is where they stopped incorporating HDCD software.

I have a 105 and a 203.  The 203 sits in a second system and hardly gets used.  I bought it when Oppo announced they were discontinuing their players as a hedge against anything ever happening to the 105, which I use as my transport in my main 2 channel system.  I’ve never attempted to play a HDCD in the 203-I only own a few of them- but I will try and dig one up and see what happens on the 203.

  To return to the Blu Spec discussion, the first that I heard was Mahler Second Symphony with Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic, recorded around 1960.  This recording was my introduction to the work in the late seventies and I am extremely familiar with it.  When it first came out on CD I was blown away by the wealth of information I was hearing. One could really hear the coloration in the double basses that open the work.  Grunts from the conductor, the sounds of sheet music falling off stands and hitting the floor with a whap!, and even the HVAC system turning on and off we’re clearly audible.

  So I bought the Blu Spec a few years later and did some comparisons with the Redbook.  It sounded a bit smoother and detailed on the top end.  A slight improvement over Redbook but not as revelatory as the vinyl vs CD.  Then Sony reissued all the Walter recordings (a mother of a boxed set costing more than $200, but filled with really great recordings).  The Redbook CD from that box sounds identical to the BluSpec.  The book that accompanies the box is very detailed and states the mastering comes from Japan, lists equipment used, and given the limitations of the sparser documentation of the Blue Spec disc , I believe they are the same mastering.  So I conclude that it’s the remastering, not the disc materials, that accounts for the differences between Blue Spec and Redbook.  I had bought some other Blue Spec recordings that clearly outdo their Redbook alternatives, but here I don’t have multiple remasters to compare.

  I burned the Blue Specs to my NAS, a Melco N 100, and I can’t perceive much difference between playing them on my streamer and play the Blue Specs from the Oppo, into the same DAC