Don't be so heartbroaken about HDCD. HDCD, SACD, XRCD are the limited production sources and certainly in minority of most audiofiles. Let's say in average on every 100 CDs of the average collection only 10 HDCDs. There is a large gap in possibilities of sound reproduction but there is a small gap between actual quality of performance between HDCD and red-book CD.
I know that Dire Straits are being re-mastered and re-issued with much better resolution and they're all HDCDs.
Mark Knophler also produces new albums on HDCD which have a fantastic performance(still far from vinyl). Most of cheap HDCD compatible players reproduce red-book CDs with worse quality than a regular player so you should realy do a thorogh research to get yourself in audio-equilibrium when you can enjoy both HDCDs and regular CDs. I believe that Cary 303 players can satisfy you in that case because they have switchable upsampler in case you won't need it.
I know that Dire Straits are being re-mastered and re-issued with much better resolution and they're all HDCDs.
Mark Knophler also produces new albums on HDCD which have a fantastic performance(still far from vinyl). Most of cheap HDCD compatible players reproduce red-book CDs with worse quality than a regular player so you should realy do a thorogh research to get yourself in audio-equilibrium when you can enjoy both HDCDs and regular CDs. I believe that Cary 303 players can satisfy you in that case because they have switchable upsampler in case you won't need it.