XRCD from JVC

My father is official technical service of JVC, Panasonic, Hitachi, Blaupunkt and a few more makers. I´ll ask him to speak with JVC about that, I haven´t heard anything yet.

No news about XRCD here in spain yet.

But I´ve seen this webpage:

XRCD

But they´re expensive!!

Maybe I´ll buy one, Tony Bennet´s one I think.

if they are good they are worth their price. so i'll check that out.

I recommend you check em out first...but they are good my friends....real good !!!!

Webon....please do talk to your dad ....maybe he could source a couple of them for you.

I´ll try it.

you wont regret it

will be going to the XRCD dealer over the weekend....
will see if he has anything exciting....

the Tchaikovsky violin concerto played by Heifitz with the CSO and fritz reiner conducting it.....its really nice.

XRCDs are great but overpriced.

Apart from the classical and pop recordings, there are many 50's and 60's jazz classics available on XRCD. They sound much improved compared to the late 80's reissues on regular CDs, but this does not come from the XRCD manufacturing technology but mainly from the tape preparation and remastering.

In fact some titles available on XRCD ($25) are now also available on "K2 20bit" CDs at a much more reasonable price ($13-15), and those sound 95% as good as XRCDs.

20Bit K2 CDs

(these must not be confused with the awfully sounding german ZYX 20Bit CDs with the same sessions)

I personally prefer these sessions on the older DCC Gold CDs from the early 90's, which are now out of print. The remastering is warmer and more natural than the rather bright XRCDs.

Hey!
I guess I'd need a new player for XACD?

no kimber...XRCD will play on your normal CD player....the difference is in how they are mastered....

By the way...XRCD's dont sound bright at all...not on my system...but the K2's are worth a look....thanks for the info Miles.

just purchased two more XRCD's

1) Andre Previn and his pals- West Side Story recorded in the earli 60's
2) HEIFITZ - Beethoven Violin Concerto, Boston Symphony, orginal recording 1958

XRCD sure breathes life into these old recordings....worth every penny, I have the LP's and ordinary Cd's of both and XRCD's sounds so much closer to the LP's....

I know its expensive but for select recordings and artists one loves...i think its a good buy.

By the way...XRCD's dont sound bright at all...not on my system...

I don't mean that they sound shrill, but the XRCD engineers have a tendency to raise frequencies around 10KHz a bit to add some artificial "air". This makes them sound a little more analytical as other good remasterings of the same material.

I would not invest too much into XRCDs now, because the same recordings will probably be reissued on SACD soon. It's always the same stuff that comes back on audiophile labels: Living Stereo for classical and Prestige/Riverside for jazz.

I had the XRCDs of Sonny Rollins "Saxophone collossus" and Bill Evans "Waltz for Debbie" which are now also available on SACDs from Anaalogue Productions. The SACDs are again a little bit better, which may be due to the remastering (more natural) as well as to the hi-rez technology.

yep Miles.....the good stuff...keeps coming back....its a vicious circle...glad the old stuff comes back...there is hope for us purists....dont like the modern stuff at all.

I guess its all in the mastering...be it any format but the resolution of the format does count for a bit.

i prefer sacd. i tested some xrcd but i still think either cd or sacd.
miles, what does your signature mean? i guess its german?

yeah...I've heard a few SACD's too and they are good...very good.

miles, what does your signature mean? i guess its german?

Sorry, I only have one common signature for the german and english part of this forum. It says that I listen to jazz and classical music in stereo, mono and live

exactly my choice of music.

does anyone like swing music of the 30'- 40's ??? just love the big band sound....

Miles....I was just doing some research on the web and found that the K2 20-bit Analogue/Digital conversion process is invented by JVC and is used by JVC to process their XRCD's. I thought the process was proprietory to JVC and was not sold openly in the market for others to use....

A bit confused....

Well, Fantasy records licensed their recordings to JVC to make those XRCDs. Why shouldn't then JVC license the K2 technology to Fantasy?

Anyway, according to the liner notes of the K2 CDs, they were remastered at JVC Japan. So Fantasy simply used the JVC services for those CDs.

What is surprising though is the fact that they chose many recordings for K2 release which were already available on K2 XRCDs. The K2 CDs sound very good and put a tough competition on the XRCDs which are almost twice as expensive.

As far as the Fantasy jazz titles are concerned, I've bought the K2 reissues except where only a XRCD was available. I try to find XRCDs on Ebay or during sales, as $27 is a bit steep .. for such an old technology as CD

thanks miles...pretty interesting..