SACD VS DVD-AUDIO

The "superiority" of SACD is a creation of Sony marketing efforts. Either format eliminates the problem of marginal resolution of redbook CD, and any real differences are the result of how the various discs are mastered.

My sonicly best discs happen to be DVD-A, but I am willing to believe that this is not due to any technical limitation of SACD.

For purely commercial reasons I am quite sure that the DVD-A format will survive. I hope that SACD does also, but I am less sure.

I just read some sales figures on these two hirez formats.
While the best selling SACD's are

Dark Side of the Moon SACD averaging 5546 sales/week in the USA.
The Police at nearly 3000.
The Stone's Let it Bleed at over 1500.

Latest market figures show that even the best selling DVD-As are selling under 200 a week in the US.

and vinyl is KILLING them both.

I could care less about DVD-A because I have no video monitor in my music room so I cant play them anyway. But at these numbers how many studios are going out of their way to produce new titles in this format?

Leasingguy...You don't need video to play a DVD-A.

Perhaps you should research worldwide sales figures. Several European audiophile labels are turning out superb DVD-A discs. I look for these first, and buy SACD as a fallback.

The best sounding format to these ears is sacd whith good sonics from DSOTM, better sonics from Steve Earle's Guitar Town and the best sonics I have ever heard from Joe Satriani's Strange Beautiful Music and Allison Krauss Live or her new release.

I find dvd-a superior to redbook on both REM titles I own, but find the Eagles Hotel California to sound rolled off in the highs and to have certain frequencys sucked right out of the recording.

There are only a handfull of songs from either of these formats that sound good in multi channel whith the exception of the entire DSOTM and Aliison Krauss Live where mostly the applause and ambience is done in the rears.

Overall, there both an improvement, but I believe that sacd has more potential and that multi channel has a ways to go.

It's amazing to me so much confusion about these formats still exist. DSD,aka SACD,returns to multibit when dithered. Therefore only new recordings offer the advantages of true DSD. How many new discs are there? Granted just remastering anything into multichannel is more of a gimick than an Audiophile solution. Enter AIX records. Native resolution recordings all of new performances. Not recorded as gimick but as natural means of recovering lost ques from live recordings. Again at CES AIX will share with Meridian and Piega showing the true potential of multichannel DVD-A in it's purest form. Panasonic will also be displaying it's latest DVD-A car system. All this in room 1401 at Alexis Park .
To quote from Scott Wilkinson of Stereophile Guide to Home Theater, October 2003 from the HE2003 report. "A Meridian 800 DVD-A player pumped data into an 861 processor, which was connected to a Butler 5150 5-channel power amp feeding five Piega P-8 speakers; the processor was also connected to a Piega subwoofer. The results were magnificant,dispelling any doubt that DVD-A can sound every bit as good as SACD. "He also called it "one of the best sounds at the show." The only error in his writing is the speakers were C-8 ltd.
We would like to invite all show attendees to visit and gather your impressions of this format on a true Audiophile System. Makes for some good Forum after the show.