SA-CD/DVD-A?

It's really no different that reel-to-reel tapes. It's mostly a high-end niche. I imagine SACD and may DVD-A (dualdisc?) will remain audiophile niche products for the forseeable future. This means players as well as audiophile media (software). If it really bothers you, invest in vinyl instead (unless you prefer newly recorded classical music, then stay with CD and SACD). And given the two titles you selected, and fact that they aren't classical music (IMO), you may be better served by the vinyl format.

If everyone had a crystal ball there wouldn't be these sorts of debates twice a week over ont he hirez board on the audio asylum forums.

Yeah, I had been holding off on either format to see where they would go ... and my CD sound was actually pretty decent overall, so there was little motivation.

I recently bought a cheap universal and modded the hell out of it (Toshiba SD4960). Amazingly it replaced my aging CD rig and gave me the benefit of SACD and DVD-A playback as well.

Now this Toshiba is a cheap transport and player overall, so I don't expect that it will last forever (engineered obsolescence through mechanical breakdown will undeniably be its post-mortem). So when I buy an SACD I make sure it is a hybrid, so I can play the CD portion in the future if SACD goes the way of the Betamax. I'm sure Redbook CD will still be around for a long time.

As for DVD-A, haven't delved into that due to the many, many incompatibility problems. Had a couple of loaner disks from friends and some play, some don't.

Enjoy,
Bob

DVD-A incompatibility problems? I too have an inexpensive all-DVDs player, a Pioneer ...563. It plays every DVD-A and SACD I've purchased and sounds good enough for now. The classical stuff I buy sounds great.

I prefer DVD-A over SACD slightly but I can't tell you exactly why...maybe I have a slight aversion to the monster company $ony.
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SACD and DVD-A obviously didn't catch on and take over. It still has a small slot in record stores. And it isn't new anymore. A lot of audiophiles predicted it was going to take the world by storm - It didn't. They were wrong.

I think the reason they were wrong was that there is a small percentage of people that appreciate quality music. So, where is the compelling event for the general public to get into "hi-rez". Not only that but a lack of a marketing push pretty much sealed its fate.

That being said I don't think it will go away any time soon, and as mentioned above, it will fill a niche for audiophiles for years to come.

I prefer LPs. Hi-rez sounds better than CD but not as good as LPs. There’s really no disputing that (although some foolish people will try). LPs cover the best sound (if properly recorded of course), and CDs cover just about all recorded music available. And I'm not about to add another format and software – two formats are enough for me.

Rob

It's still not that grin Bob. Going to your analogy you could likely still find a used (ormaybe new) serivable Betamax player if you wanted to. So you wouldn't totally be up $%!# creek. sony long supported betamax long after the public dismissed it as a mass market format. I imagine the same will be true of SACD (and DVD-A to a point with Toshiba and Panasonic) between Sony and a few of the audiophile equipment companies. Granted you might not be able to find $99 players everywhere, but I don't feel it will be a grim of a picture as you paint it to be. My $0.02.

Aaron