SACD?????

Twinsdad makes a good point.
I bought the Sony 9000ES for 2 reasons...
1-It was a significant step up from my previous CD player
2-My family enjoys watching DVD movies
To be sure, there is better digital playback available, but this all-in-one package will hold me until I can upgrade to Accuphase or the like.

Twinsdad - Can you point me to a list of "thousands" of HDCD titles? I've found a few hundred - perhaps less than SACD.

I also wouldn't bet on HDCD gaining much ground.

People usualy fall into three camps.

1) They don't care about any future titles. They just plain want SACD so they buy it.

2) Since the prices on the Sony ES SACD players are coming down and some folks consider the redbook performance to be 'good enough' they buy the player for redbook and consider the SACD as a free bonus.

3) Stay out of the pool and put the money into non-SACD gear. The thing here is if you decide you want SACD a year from now you'll wind up buying two players.

Nobody knows what will happen. I fell into camp 2 when the price of the C333ES fell below $600.

Good luck in your hunt!

- A

I think the SACD or DVD-audio are already obsoleted !!!! The original redbook CD came to the marktet in the early 80's and are already obsoleted(5 years ago!) according to the so-called "experts". It had been five years(estimate) since the born of SACD or DVD-audio and they are still not gaining ground. Half of the SACD or DVD-audio product life were past already !!!!!! Somethings new will be around the corner very soon !!!!!
If I were you, I will keep my original digital system and use the money to invest on a high quality turntable and forget all the "digital fuss". I guess the old LP will be around for another 50 years........

Hi, I own a SACD player (Marantz SA1) but mostly play regular CDs on it with GREAT satisfaction! Super musical, incredible detail, etc. The few SACDs I have don't sound all that much better, if any, to my ear. But I love the Marantz player because it plays all my discs so well. My recommendation would be to buy a good CD player and all the JVC XRCD recordings you can find (these are mostly jazz recordings, but there are some pop titles too). The XRCD's sound so good on all my CD players that I listen to them over and over. They cost about the same as SACD's but are WORTH it. You won't hear better sounding CDs, and I include HDCD recordings in that claim.

I bought a 333 when the price dropped and I am extremely pleased with it as a CD player, and the SACD brings the player into the $5000 sound category. At the current price, the SACD capability is free. I disagree with the previous postings. I think SACD is in its infancy. There are more titles everyday (although the retailers haven't figured out what to do about them). Check out the hirez forum on AudioAsylum.com for lists and updates on availability. The big shoe for sacd and dvd-a is just beginning to drop. The companies believe for a mass market, they need to offer something besides better sound, and that something is discrete multichannel. If you want to keep your options open, the replacement for the 9000 is about to hit the market , at $1000, with multichannel. The prices will be dropping on the software, to about the current level for new releases on CD. CD will become the low cost medium of the future, like cassettes. And LP's- I'm sorry, but I am more convinced than ever that it will continue to shrink, and become more and more a "collector's" market. The sound quality of SACD, to my ears, is better(read: more accurate to the recording, not necessarily "better" sounding) than Lp ever was. These changes are in part a response to MP3s. If the companies are going to be able to charge for a product, higher quality and new features are the only way to go for them. BTW, I have been a very active audiophile for 35 years, and have had hundreds of front ends of all types. Just my opinion, of course. Your mileage may vary.