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After 5 years, format war? What format war?

After all the hoopla about the DVD-Audio and SACD format wars for the past 5 years, it seems to me that the format war may have existed perhaps only as a figment of a few corporations' imagination. (Kinda' like THX certification by LucasFilm)

I've never listened to a dvd-audio disc, but I do have a handful of SACD discs. Nor have I ever listened to DVD-A or SACD via a multi-channel system nor do I have a hankering to do so.

I thoroughly enjoy a few of the SACD's for their warmth, resolution, and anolog-like presentation, but still cannot see myself rushing out to buy more. Except for perhaps the Red Rose Sampler SACD which contains a few tracks providing a wonderful illustration of what SACD can do.

Don't get me wrong about the benefits of SACD. But I've experienced far greater enjoyment listening to my much older and even newer 'Redbook' cd recordings through component upgrades and through acoustical, electrical, rack designs, and vibration-transferring tweaks than with any SACD formatted enhancements.

Just curious where others stand.

-IMO
stehno
rsbeck
887 posts
 
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.
john_beavers
47 posts
 
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.
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
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.
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