Off-topic:-
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Amol: I hope you know HDCD and Hybrid SACDs are different - though the similarity in concept of providing a higher quality audio format, while still maintaining backward compatibility is there. If you were just offering him HDCD instead of SACD, ignore my ramblings
hyeah:
AFAIK HDCD is a 20-bit audio signal encoded over the traditional 16-bit Audio CDs. The 16th bit contains some hidden instructions that can be decoded only by HDCD capable players that activate necessary digital filters based on the instructions to extend the audio signal's dynamic range upto 20-bits, among other minor enhancements. These filters on a HDCD player do tend to show some improvement with regular CDs as well. A HDCD when played on a conventional CD player, the 16th HDCD bit is ignored as digital noise and played back as a regular audio CD.
A Hybrid SACD on the other hand is a completely different format that enables a compact disc to hold a higher data capacity by using two layers. One layer contains the normal Audio CD format that is readable by any CD player. The second layer consists of a much higher data density SACD format. When put in a regular CD player - the Audio CD layer is read by the laser and played back, when in an SACD player - the SACD format layer is read by the laser and played back.
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observer: Yes, a HDCD can be played back in any CD player. For HDCD playback on a HDCD capable receiver though, it is essential to use the digital i/p's since the digital data has to be transferred "as is". Even a minute change in the data transferred can corrupt the HDCD header information and not enable HDCD playback.
It should be possible to burn HDCDs using any CD-writer, since its basically the same 16-bit audio data that has been smartly encoded with instructions hidden in it. You should have an exact 1:1 copy of the original (I guess EAC should manage that) , and make sure you do not alter the audio anywhere in between by either normalizing the audio or anything as this will ruin the HDCD data once again.
