The plight of SACD....

tmartinjr@cox.net, Circut city.com sells lp's ! No hard numbers but it looks to me like there have been more lp's released last year than SACD's

T.Martin says (young people are not interested in vinyl
I just came home from Amoeba records,and the vinyl section
was so packed with young people i could hardly look around

I asked the clerk where the sacd were located,he replied
"whats that"
.

In 1981,at the introduction of the CD format I was,initially, quite relieved to be escape the inherent problems with vinyl ... most notably hiss, pop and high-maintainence. I was not alone in this regard, I can assure you.
Now, twenty-two years later I find myself returning to vinyl relieved to escape the aggression, harshness and general lack of naturalness of the CD format. It is not that I have not heard impressive sounding CDs .... it's just that such discs are so extremely few and far between. Perhaps the best CD that I have ever heard has been 'For the Duke'. A gold CD on the M&K ' Real Time' label. A truly fantastic listening experience.
We know that it is possible to achieve great results with the CD format. It is just that it is so rarely done.
We have wrestled with this format for years now, seeking mythical and magical tweaks which would make it all come together. I am sorry to say that it all been in vain and as many others have mentioned, it is simply time to face the facts ... CD audio has been a complete shell game regardless of it's powerful selling points...convienence and relative indestructability. We, sincerely, wanted to believe. It was a musical 'Emperor's New Clothes', if you will. Let's eat our humble pie and accept the fact that if one truly loves listening to music, one simply has to embrace or re-embrace analogue (vinyl) in spite of it's obvious shortcomings (maintainence). We want to hear the full breadth and depth of every note .... of every word. We want to connect with something resembling a real human being on the other end. It is why we bother to listen at all.
Now, having sung the praises of vinyl I would like to point out that I have a SACD player as well. This format is also vastly superior to CD. It offers the convienence of CD and some of the better qualities of vinyl (smoother and more human). I truly hope that it survives as a format for it is a very reasonable compromise between CD and vinyl. Actually, some SACDs sound quite fantastic. Verdi's 'Requiem' on Sony comes immediately to mind.
I have, gladly, accepted SACD for general listening. However, for those special listening moments late in the evening when all is quiet and the power supply most stable I prefer vinyl. Long live the music.

Eno, example of our great diversity; I cringe at the thought of having to use vinyl again. I owned a SACD player for a short time and admit that I never gave SACD a great trial, but I am quite pleased with the CD player I own.