Checked out Towers, HMV and Sams in downtown TO today. Rather disappointing, although I was able to depart with about $250 in SACDs that I hope I like. The biggest store, Sam the Record Man, told me bluntly that they don't carry SACD, even though they carry a small selection of DVD-As. Towers so called 'high end' section is little more than 30 discs, mostly the Sony remasters and none of the better small lable stuff. DVD-A is still a joke with respect to selection --I believe multichannel SACD will soon overtake it.
HMV.com is still the best source by far and the prices are better than the store by at least 10%. Shipping and delivery times are also very good, at least if your Canajun. By the way, I'm finding that JVCs XRCD sound as good as SACD and sometimes better on the SCD-1 -- seems there is good synergy between the Sony and this format. But I can only take so much Jazz, and the xrcds selections are skewed towards Jazz and Blues.
Still can't stand many Redbook CDs in Sony SCD-1, no matter what filter I try. And I'm unsure if I should buy a good DAC (seems a shame that the big Sony requires a DAC) or wait for the new EMC-2 with 24/192 and use that exclusively for Redbook. --Lorne
HMV.com is still the best source by far and the prices are better than the store by at least 10%. Shipping and delivery times are also very good, at least if your Canajun. By the way, I'm finding that JVCs XRCD sound as good as SACD and sometimes better on the SCD-1 -- seems there is good synergy between the Sony and this format. But I can only take so much Jazz, and the xrcds selections are skewed towards Jazz and Blues.
Still can't stand many Redbook CDs in Sony SCD-1, no matter what filter I try. And I'm unsure if I should buy a good DAC (seems a shame that the big Sony requires a DAC) or wait for the new EMC-2 with 24/192 and use that exclusively for Redbook. --Lorne