HDCD: What do you like?

Reference Recordings has a sampler or two with identical tracks in redbook and HDCD. This (these?) will let you compare. Don

Although we don't know your musical preferences, Stevie Nicks' Enchanted HDCD boxed set is one that I particularly enjoy time & again. It's not even identified as HDCD anywhere (on the box or discs) so this was a pleasant surprise indeed.
And I have *never* heard of a Pacific Microsonics DAC implementation that offered degraded 16bit redbook performance, in fact quite the contrary. Furthermore, everything that I've heard available in 20 bit is significantly superior.

Brian Culbertson, "Nice and Slow". Good bass, smooth jazz, HDCD.

I own a Cary 303/200 CD player and believe that with this CD player there is no comparison between HDCD encoded disks and non-HDCD encoded disks. The HDCD CD's do not sound like recorded events, they sound as if the musicians are in my living room. I am not sure if this is the difference between analog and digital because it has been many years since I had a turntable in my system. I have seen commentary from other A'goners that described the difference that way. It should be noted that the current Cary CD players use the new Pacific Microsonics PMD 200 HDCD filter which is supposed to be a significant advance in HDCD playback.

As previously mentioned the Reference Recordings HDCD collection of classical releases are all wonderful. The best HDCD recordings that I have heard are those contained in the Grateful Dead reissue box set called The Golden Road. These recordings should make anyone a believer. My previous favorite was Willie Nelson's Teatro.

Many good hdcd releases of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones with Warner Bros., they have recently switched to Columbia though and new releases aren't in hdcd format.