HDCD - What is the industry doing?

[Les Adams]

Having recently acquired an HDCD player, I am wondering if we are likely to see any development of the format within the music industry, or is it going to remain the domain of a few "Acoustic" artists and specialist labels?

I ask because it seems to have been around for a while now, but very few major labels or commercial artists CD's are HDCD encoded. I spent almost an hour in HMV looking at the back of CD covers to no avail. When I enquired about which discs are HDCD encoded, the assistants in HMV, Woolworth, Virgin and other high street stores looked at me with a blank expression as though I was asking for rocking horse droppings!

Looking at the lists of "specialist" dealers who market HDCD encoded discs, they are mostly by artists I have never heard of and who make music that I don't want to listen to! I bought one CD that a specialist retailer recommended and it was indeed a beautiful recording - of music that was as dull as dishwater! The joy of the audio experience is somewhat tainted by the blandness of the music IMHO!

There are a few exceptions of course and I now have Eric Clapton's "Reptile", Dire Straits and The Doors (remastered) all of which I am enjoying (somewhat), but there are only so many times you can listen to the same three discs and I would really like to hear some contempoary music and modern recordings rather than re-mastered oldies!

I am surprised because I understand Microsoft has something to do with this format and I would have expected a bit more public awareness.

Does anybody know if there are plans to develop it further or is this as good as it is going to get?

In the meantime, does anybody on here have any recommendations of "mainstream", modern albums that they know are HDCD encoded? My musical taste is broad, but it doesn't quite stretch to Country & Western sounding mid-Atlantic guitarists no matter how crisp the recording!