SACD vs DVD audio vs 24/96..??

I can already see SACD's DVDA discs adding to the same nitch as we have seen for Audiophile labels. People are bitching that the discs are expensive. Yes, they do cost more than CD's, but they are about the same price as Mo-Fi, XRCD's etc that we audiophiles have been happily shelling out for for years. Heck, I have stacks of Direct to disc LP's. And they still sound great! So now we have the oportunity to buy a virtual copy of the master tape instead of overpriced gold plated sixteen bit crap that often sounds only marginaly better than the standard issue. It seems we should all be rejoicing. How many copies of Kind of Blue do you own? I have 4 or 5. I expect the SACD copy to be the final word. Case closed. This is why I hope that the Specialty labels jump on SACD. I think that if enough people have one of the players then the audiophile comunity will demand that all of their issues be in one of the high bit rate formats. It is really tragic that Mo Fi went under. With their connections to the various labels they could have perhaps eventually released their entire catalog on SACD. Perhaps DCC or some other company will pick up the ball. I doubt JVC since they are heavily invested in DVD. If there is the demand someone will fill it unless legal restrictions or cost prohibits it. Telarc, Audioquest, Chesky and others are starting to put out SACD's. NOTE: I'm not interested in replacing my entire CD collection. Frankly, most of it is not well enough recorded to be worth it. But there are great recordings that demand and deserve the highest quality.

RE: my post about "throwing in" DVDA and SACD capability on mass market machines. This seems to finally be happening to HDCD. I just bought a Toshiba DVD player which includes it. It seems to be a marketing strategy to paste as many logos as possible on the front of these machines. If it says Dolby, DTS, Spacializer, HDCD, SACD, DBX and a few others consumers assume that the product is flexible, sophisticated i.e. the latest and greatest. Most will never seek out HDCD or DTS software and they might not hear any improvement on a low end machine if they did. Could SACD and DVDA get that kind of a free ride? Once production is cranked up it probably wouldn't cost that much.

One thing I've always wondered is why do the same titles show up in "audiophile" format after format? Kind of Blue is a great album, but how many copies do you want to buy at the expense of getting other titles in a new format? Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow is another example. I was glad to see Joe Satriani's latest released in SACD - another dozen like that and it'll be really compelling.

I agree with Allie completely. My first SACD was Kind of Blue. Because it's worth it.I would like to start another discussion about which SACD's sound great and which ones to avoid. I think it is really impressive that there are over 100 titles already available considering there are only 2 machines on the market to play them. I remember hearing the same complaining about software availability with DVD and now look what we have! I'm sure it would be beyond wishful thinking that the same order of magnitude could ever hapen with DVDA or SACD But still, check out the new Acoustic Sounds catalog. I started adding up my wish list and went wooah. Can't afford to buy too many turkeys. As for SONY dropping the price of the machine, I'm sure that they are not going to go through all the R&D just to dump the whole thing before it gets off the ground. Remember this is SONY not DIVX. They are one of the largest and most powerful electronics companies in the world. I'm sure they have a well planned strategy. These machines have been on the market a year and It's time to start moving them before they release newer lower price models. I'm sure that even at the list price they were losing money on every machine. They are simply more interested in getting them in the hands of more people to give the format a foothold in the market.