After 5 years, format war? What format war?

MY rationalization: Part of being an audiophile is playing the percentages. Many of us have our systems tweaked enought that any small change (isolation platforms, power conditioning, new cables, room treatments, etc.) alters the sound of our systems in an appreciable manner. We'll spend big money on a pair of cables or isolation cones if we think we are going to get 5-10% more enjoyment out of our system.

So, when I was confronted with the opportunity to get a significant improvement out of the music I love, I decided to give SACD a try. Sure, I'll bite. You tell me 'Kind of Blue' is going to sound better.....you tell me you made the Police, Stones, Peter Gabriel, and Dylan sound better than my current versions........you bet i'm gonna roll the dice and check that out.......hey, i'm willing to have my whole damn stereo on pointed cones just to eek out an extra 5% worth of improvement. I'll fill the bottom of my speakers with sand to eek out a little more base control......why the heck wouldn't I take a shot that there is a better recording of the music I love?

I own and XA777ES and about 60 SACD's. I have re-purchased every available Peter Gabriel, Police, half of the available Dylan, half of the available Stones, most of the available Miles Davis, and a bunch of other single discs by artists I love. Will I re-purchase every one of the 600 discs I own? No way, only the stuff I love. I would say that all of the SACD's I have purchased sound atleast 15% better than the other versions I have and that is the bottom of the scale. Most of them sound better than that -- some as high as 40% better! In my experience the only alterations one can make to a system that will guarantee a 15-40% improvement are a new source or a new set of speakers. Every stereo benefits from a good recording!!!

I am too lazy to tweak a good a analog front-end. As I have said in othe threads, a very high-quality well-tweaked analog front end can deliver all the music you need. But in a game of percentages, where many of us are willing to invest the time, money, and effort needed to exact even the smallest percentage of performace, I'll put my money down for a almost guaranteed minimum 15% improvement.

I love music and since I bought my SACD player I have spent almost all my time buying new music. For me, in my system and room, SACD has been great. Enjoy!

What matters is how much FUN YOU HAVE with this hobby & the MUSIC! I have an all McIntosh, Magnepan system with Pro-ject Prespective & Sumiko Blackbird. I love playing records and CD's through the McIntosh player.

Well for fun I bought the inexpensive but well reviewed Sony Scd-775 SACD used for 125$. I have bought about 30 SACD's so far. They are excellent.

Here is MY EXPERIMENT. I have Brubeck Take-5, Billy Joel 52nd Street, Elton John Yellow Brick, Patricia Barber all on Vinyl, SACD, Redbook CD. I carefully played each and made notes all at the same volume level.

Results: I liked vinyl the best, however certain SACD cuts were not far behind. Redbook CD was not as good (McIntosh MVP-841).

I'll keep obtaining these 3 same formats and continue to study and keep you posted.

SACD is good! I wonder if a really top player will take me noticeably further?

The answer is yes -- a top SACD player will take you much further. I started with a Yamaha s2300 Universal Player that I bough new for $1,000. Sounded
pretty good on SACD, but then I moved up to a Sony SCD XA777ES which I bought used for $1,600 and it was another world. You will see a huge difference if you move up the SACD player food chain. I'm sure the SCD XA777ES would blow your current SACD player away.

It's not the format quality "edge" that decided it for me, it's the availability of the musical artists I enjoy on said format. I've got about 80 SACDs, and as much as I enjoyed them, I felt the audio quality was only marginally better in some areas, and marginally less in certain aspects, than the redbook version. My last attempt at finding a player that did both redbook and SACD well was the Sony XA9000ES, and as much as that player was good at both...after hearing the Audiomeca Mephisto II.X CD player, the Sony was gone, and so were all of my single layer SACDs. I don't think I'll be missing the format...there just isn't enough on SACD to warrant a high end SACD player. I much perfer having a player that can access a musical library in the millions, than one that has a limited existing library, and releases that number in only the handfuls per month. I may return to SACD one day, but for now I'm extremely content and excited with what I'm hearing on the Mephisto player.

John's testament above echoes my own experience.

Sadly the failure of the format to capture some Audiophiles imagination is also a testament to how badly SACD has been marketed.

Even today here in the UK I doubt you could find more than 3 hi-fi dealers who could sell you a serious SACD machine.
Simply put you couldn't demo a machine probably to save your life I know I couldn't.
Tough some say and I stay in the 2nd biggest city in the UK for hi-fi.

Even more so of the approx.300-500 CD's I've bought in the time since SACD became available I would say less than a handful of good new releases have been released on SACD.
As an avid fan of new releases this is no use to me.
The SACD hybrids have been remastered on the CD layer so I'm still winning.

Of course those with serious dollars to spend are in a win win situation-the likes of Emms Labs probably gives world class performance in both formats but most of us do not have that cash to spend.

The war has been lost in my eyes because many audiophiles have already walked away from SACD so there is no chance now imho it can or will catch on in a wider sense.

It will survive in all likelihood as I have always said as a niche Audiophille format which will be great for those who enjoy but even they will arguably come across great music that again imho will never be released on SACD.