With a positive experience, I ventured into a mainstream record store. Its been sometime since I've been into a retail outlet and found it educational.

The different platforms offered demonstrated how long I've had my head in the sand regarding the progress made in Audio reproduction.

Fortunately, this particular outlet allows you to scan the barcode of any CD and you can listen to each track before purchasing. Brilliant marketing.

I settled on a CD from Dave Koz "The Dance" in HDCD. Being unfamiliar with that platform, I had to look it up.

My CD Player is not HDCD capable so it replays back the soundtracks in traditional 16bit, however the 20bit resolution does have an incredible enhancement to resolution, especially on the Magneplanars.

The space is open and position of instruments is clearly evident. Decay off the back walls adds depth to the soundstage far better than most programming I currently own in my collection.

I know this would be better suited to the digital audio forum but Planar speaker owners are a well educated bunch. So here is my question:

Q: I am curious to look further into HDCD capable players. Apparently the HDCD platform has been around for a few years and many current releases are already using the 20 bit recording platform. Would there be marked improvement in playback if I used an HDCD capable player? Any recommendations?