SACD WINS!

I hope the SACD medium takes off, I have a player and think it sounds great. I look forward to the release of hordes of new titles, although the above notwithstanding, I've not seen this yet. And although I've not heard the Accuphase units, I've heard all the Sony's and Marantz, and to these ossified auricles, a good analog setup STILL sounds better. Viva-la-Album.

Another reality check. I was in Dearborn Music (a lagr independent two branch record store that has been in owned by the same family for almost 40 years. They have, for anumber of years, specialized in remastered CDs; jazz, classical, and, over the last couple of years, pop and rock. They were the first stores in this area to carry JVC XRCDs and Japanese import jazz reissues. They no longer carry XRCDs, didn't sell them to anyone but me. I asked two employees about SACD and DVD-A. One heard about DVD-A, neither has ever heard of SACD. Both said no customer has ever asked about either. Again I say there is no demand whatsoever from 99.9% of people for either format. I can see SACDs quickly becoming like XRCDs, not available execept through mail order, and a very small number of titles to choose from. In fact, will Sony continue to support this cost once they realize there really are no sales to speak of? Didn't Sony only create this format because their stranglehold (patent) on bluebook CDs ran out a couple of years ago? I still think our best bet is our high end manufacturer buddies who make upsampling/interpolating machines (especially ones that can also do room and speaker correction), and the record companies who are switching to 24/96 CD mastering and remastering.

You may well be right. It's a shame that the format isn't getting outside a very small circle. The sound quality is so nice, it would be a shame to never see it given the chance to grow. My SCD-1 player must have about 400 hours on each laser now. I swear it's continued to improve!

I have never heard SACD or DVD audio. Does it have the warmth and smoothness of lp's?

Perfectimage: SACD, to my ears, certainly has the smoothness of vinyl, particularly noticable in the highs, which are quite natural. It does not have the ultimate warmth of vinyl, unless that warmth is on the master tape, as SACD gets you closer to the master tape. I have similar observations about the 24/96 discs I have from Classic and Chesky (not talking about DVD-A here). I'll note that many of the reissues of vinyl, particularly from Classic, have been criticized mildly for not having the warmth of the originals; I wonder if part of that, other than using solid state vs. tube mastering equipment, comes from getting closer to the master tape as well. I can live without the ultimate warmth for the better bass and theoretical dynamic range improvement (although vinyl's actual dynamic range is very much underrated, in my view, as evidenced by the Classic Mercury reissues), although I think that warmth is part of the reason I still prefer to listen to vinyl. I'll also note that SACD has that openness and ease of presentation that you get from good vinyl playback, which is very noticable to me when I go back to regular CD listening, even through a Purcell upsampler. Hope this helps answer your question.