After 5 years, format war? What format war?

Sogood51, it just so happens that I thoroughly enjoy my 2-channel SACD/cd player (for redbook cd's) via the pre/pro I use in my 2-channel only setup.

Perhaps some to many enthusiasts are not as quirky as you think. :)

-IMO

I just became a participant inthe "format war". I purchased an Arcam DV-89 relly for the CD and DVD performance (DVD-A was a throw-in). Although I borrowed mom's "Sinatra at the Sands" and bought The Beach Boys "Pet Sound", my wife and I are really enjoying the large CD collection like I've never heard them before. Reading about both formats, I believe that DVD-A has more possiblities in the HT arena, SACD on the run (CD in cars, personal Mini Players). If neither format "won" I don't think there would be any consumer suicides because CD playback has gotten that much better.

My SACD collection is at 100+ and I eagerly await new releases. I've put CD buying in a holding pattern because I'd much rather have an SACD than CD
and new releases are just around the corner. To my ears, there's no way CD can compete with SACD. When I listen to SACD for an extended period and then switch to CD, the air goes out of the sonic balloon, the cream turns back into milk. To me, it isn't logical to spend so much money on the rest of the system in an effort to improve resolution only to doom the entire enterprise to lower resolution with my choice of music format -- especially when a higher resolution format is available. To buy $12,000 amplifiers, for example, and then balk at paying a few extra bucks for SACD or at replacing a CD with an SACD version? That just doesn't make sense to me in the scheme of things. I'd rather feed my high resolution system with high resolution SACD's.

Alas, here we go again. I define the problem by investment and availability. Redbook covers everything and this is where my investment is. I also shudder at the thought of again replacing my favorite albums with yet another format. I refuse to purchase my favorite albums in SACD, having already bought them first in vinyl, then cassette and now in CD. My direction is with the best upsampling Redbook CD player I can find which in my case is the Audio Aero Capitole.

I am bi-amping from from it and it takes feeds from my DVD player, Over The Air(OTA) HDTV, and also from my Satellite Receiver. I have built my system around this one and I really don't want to waste a ba-zillion dollars on yet another format.

I did purchase a few DVD-As which I also on occasion run through my AA from my rather average DVD player. They sound nice. Kind of a good curiosity.

Perhaps, in a few years I might change my mind. I do understand the limitations of Redbook but, for now these limitations don't exceed my desire for musicality nirvana.

I do not care to invest the thousands of dollars that new hardware/software would demand of me as I am one of those fellow who does believe that if it is worth doing, then it is worth overdoing!

Then again, I recently visited the Audio Aero Home Page and they just came out with a SACD player..........