I kind of looked into HDCD early on, but every review I read of it said it sounded worse than standard CD. Kind of put me off.
Why HDCD did not become a dominant format?
I've been listening to Reference Recordings 30th Anniversary Sampler while evaluating a Sony NS 9100ES and it was so obvious the HDCD decoding through my modest older Toshiba SD 9200 was "vastly" superior to the new Sony playback. I just don't understand why HDCD did not become the new standard as the musical quality is much enhanced. What happened?