DVD/SACD on the Verge?

Tony, What many people non't realize is that a good SACD player will greatly improve the sound of your regular CDs. There are now between 300 to 400 SACD disks released so far. Some good and soom not. As you wait for more SACD releases, just sit back and listen to the improvement in sound in your old CDs. To get more information on this, please read Kalman Rubinson's review of the Sony SCD-XA777ES SACD/CD player in the January, 2002 issue of "Stereophile" magazine.

I guess all you doubters have pretty short memories and don't remember when CD was the new format. I recall visiting my local music retailer every week, wad of cash in sweaty hands, ready to pounce on ANY new arrival of decent CD's. At first, all the CD's were kept in something just larger than a SHOEBOX on the front counter. People would stop and regard them with curiosity, then move on to the cassette tape and vinyl section of the store. I would implore the always sympathetic owner to find more CD's for me to buy. It took a couple years to get a reasonable library of favorite recordings, and nearly a decade to get most of the stuff I owned on vinyl. SACD is not as revolutionarty a format change as CD was from vinyl--it is more of a refinement than a totally new medium. However, it is better--there is no arguement against that. I don't care how super your CD player is--SACD is better. Almost every recording in every style of music simply sounds better. Sony will eventually clear the considerable bottlenecks of SACD production (imagine the amount of equipment needed to remaster and reproduce discs all over the world), the software will flow, prices will drop, players will be sold, and you cynics will need to find something else about which to gripe!

Madisonears, why were you so hyped on CD when they first came out? The early CDs & players sounded dreadful! SACD & DVD Audio are only as good as the rest of your system. If someone is to own a $500 Sony receiver and some JBL mini monitors what's the point? IMHO if everything else is up to the task and the material was recorded in DSD then SACD has a chance of being the highest fidelity format yet. Until then, my Classic Records "Kind of Blue" and "Time Out" still smoke their SACD versions.

Thanks all... I think I'll wait until May.

I don't agree that an SACD player will greatly improve the sound of redbook. I've read many reviews that claim there is no real improvement.It all depends on the quality of the electronics. As usual, there is no shortage of seemingly irreconcilable observations.