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JVC XRCD - Any experience?

kasperhauser

pfm Member
I’ve tried a couple of the audiophile formats but this one escaped my attention, so I’ve just purchased my first one. I’m guessing it’s like SACD, DVD-A, etc.; there are good ones and bad ones and it just all depends.

I don’t fully understand the techie ins and outs of their process, but it looks like their K2 technology is involved. I like the fact that whatever sonic advantages there might be, they’re “rippable” as these are just redbook format.

The title I bought is Steve Miller’s The Joker, which is an album I really like but haven’t had a copy since my cassette version crapped out decades ago. Looking forward to hearing it again.
 
They are just red-book CDs as far as I can tell, the rest is marketing. The couple I’ve heard are very nice, well mastered and well packaged. Definitely a premium product, but also just a CD. It’s not a different thing the way say SACD is, nor do they need decoding to hear them properly the way the dreaded HDCD do.
 
Got a couple or three, prob more, they are I think mostly gold colour, ones a drum show off disc, one other deep purple live,and I think there are a couple of classical test discs which seems to be big in Japan. they sort of remind me of diff between a good and average lp pressing. I liked sacd but not enough to collect more than a handful, now can only use on oppo.
 
Only one I’ve owned was a Chinese market Barbra Streisand compilation. Sounded nice enough, but didn’t have any of the tracks I was after on it.

I found it in a charity shop, and ended up selling it for a tidy profit on eBay. Sent it back to China, so that was a rather roundabout journey it had taken.
 
I have a number of Blue Note classic jazz ones on the Audio Wave label. Much better than the dreaded RVG edition ones (hardly a surprise there), still some loudness war compression. The few 1980's 'ordinary' CD's I have of RVG's recordings sound even better.

As Tony L said, they are still 16/44 red book CD's, you can't play magic there.
 
...Blue Note classic jazz ones on the Audio Wave label. ...still some loudness war compression.

Are you sure about that?! Perhaps a tiny bit less dynamic than the older Blue Note CDs, but that is the unavoidable result of digital mastering with very minor eq tweaks.

XRCD is simply a different mastering technology as has been stated above, so whether or not the disc itself sounds decent is down to the quality of engineer. I have many late '90s XRCDs (all Fantasy/Prestige jazz titles) mastered by Alan Yoshida which sound very good.
 
Are you sure about that?! Perhaps a tiny bit less dynamic than the older Blue Note CDs, but that is the unavoidable result of digital mastering with very minor eq tweaks.

XRCD is simply a different mastering technology as has been stated above, so whether or not the disc itself sounds decent is down to the quality of engineer. I have many late '90s XRCDs (all Fantasy/Prestige jazz titles) mastered by Alan Yoshida which sound very good.

When I checked one track in Audacity the snare hit exactly 0 dB in a loud passage. Every time. They where very good musicians, but not THAT good ;) The ones I have was done in around 2009, so the LW bug might have hit a bit harder then.
 
I received the Steve Miller disc and it sounds... fine. I guess. I mean, it's a 1973 album that probably didn't get a huge amount of focus on sound quality; I imagine they just did what engineers did on early 70s rock records.

The bass sounds a bit nicer than I remember, but nothing really stands out about it. All in all, probably not a great choice for evaluating what XRCD might bring to the table.
 
I received the Steve Miller disc and it sounds... fine. I guess. I mean, it's a 1973 album that probably didn't get a huge amount of focus on sound quality; I imagine they just did what engineers did on early 70s rock records.

The bass sounds a bit nicer than I remember, but nothing really stands out about it. All in all, probably not a great choice for evaluating what XRCD might bring to the table.

Having followed Steve Millers output until the album after The Joker, his albums were well recorded for their time. Most of his records were pretty clean and uncluttered sounding (with a few exceptions) so I expect that disc is a reasonable test of what that JVC tweak to the CD format can do.
 


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