How are the Classical music XRCDs?

I think they are all very good. They appear to be the old Mercury recordings remastered. At times a few of them may sound a bit in your face, but I overlook that because I really like the majority of the sonics and certainly love the performances.

Call Bob at Elusive Disc, he usually has a pretty good deal on them if you spend $200 or over.

They're superb, easily better than the RCA Living Stereo versions--fuller and richer.

I recently bought two Reiner recordings that I also own as Living Stereo CD's and original vinyl. The detail and clarity of the XCRD's is incredible.

I have most of the RCA-derived XRCD2's, and they are a significant improvement over their conventional CD counterparts. The best ones are the Reiner Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (just breathtaking), the Reiner Respighi (much smoother and fuller than the Living Stereo CD), and the Reiner 'Iberia' (which, BTW, has no Living Stereo equivalant--the XRCD2 blows the older CD issue away completely).

Hi friends I have been buying XRCDS for a while, I love the way the sound much better than Red Book and better than sacd, and LP. I a classical from the movie Gone with Wind it is fantastic. Camaron

Camaron,
As far as I know XRCDs are Red Book.

I have a good number of the RCA Living Stereo reissues on XRCD. While I agree with the above posters that they seem to sound better than the conventional CDs of the same material, even the RCA remasterings (I would call them fuller, more analog-like--the ones that Russell mentions are particularly good), I have yet to hear one that, in my opinion and heard over an EMM Labs combo (perhaps that has something to do with it), sounds as good as the SACD version of the same title, though it's close, and certainly not as good as the vinyl reissues of the same titles from Classic Records. If your sole source is Redbook, though, and you like a fuller, more harmonically rich sound, I think you'd like the classical XRCDs.