Going SACD or analog?

I have a Sony SCD-777ES, and a Michell Gyrodec/SME 309/Micro Benz Glider/ARC PH3SE. I personally prefer the sound of my vinyl rig on most LPs to the sound of the SACD player on most SACDs. BUT...

I have a few hundred LPs from "the old days", and getting additional LPs is a chore. New vinyl is available, but expensive. Used LPs are around in larger cities, but in varying condition. Despite owning nice vinyl gear, I find I purchase very few LPs each year.

After purchasing the SACD player, I decided that I would only purchase SACDs, and no red book CDs. Right!! While the SACD offerings are growing, I keep finding the music I want to purchase on CDs, and not SACDs or LPs. It's not clear to me that SACD will "make it". Look at Betamax. It was a better video system than VHS, but it died. Ten years from now, my SACDs may be like 8 tracks, reel to reel, and cassettes.

I have many times more red book CDs than my SACDs and LPs combined. I find I listen to CDs 90% of the time because that's what I own.

If I were you, I would spend my money on improving my red book CD sound, whether that means a new CD player, a DAC, or even some other link in your system. You can go to any decent high end audio shop and hear stunning sound from red book CDs. I think it is too soon to spend money on SACD, and too late to get started with vinyl, all because of the software available at this time.

Gary

Bomarc makes a lot of sense. Duanegoosen mentions what vinylphiles gloss over: every time an lp is played it becomes noisier. Heck, they will say gleefully that they like this noise since it lives in another sonic plane! In pre-cd days, brand new vinyl was bad at least two out of three times. The worst culprits: American pressings, with CBS at the top of the list. I can just imagine what used vinyl is like. Went to a local shop that specializes in used vinyl last week (although they sell new vinyl, the choice is almost as limited as SACD), the records I looked at were scuffed and scratched. My vinyl collection was pampered. A visual inspection of any disc taken at random will show nothing awry at least 95% of the time. Put it on the turntable and half the time (approximately) the disc is noisy. I can just imagine how noisy the ones in that shop are, if you can see on a quick visual examination that the record is just so so. If you want a tt so you can buy recordings not otherwise available, go ahead. Don't expect it to replace your cd player though, despite all the bad press cd is getting these days. They are two different approaches. Some good can be said of either. Something that can't be said though is that abandoning cd will settle all your reproduced music issues.

In my opinion, a good TT setup will sound better than a very good SACD player. I have a nice SACD player that I used to use in my listening room and after a while, I moved it to my home theater room. I purchase a couple of LP's each week for around $3.50 from one of the many used cd stores in town. The albums are usually older material, but that is what most SACD's are also. If it were me, I would get a very nice cd player/transport/dac you can afford and then go out and purchase a decent TT setup with the rest of the money to see if you like using albums. A nice start would be a Music Hall model 5 or model 7 setup. You can get a Creek phono amp for a couple hundred dollars that would be compatible with the Music Hall TT's.

Gary (Gdolin) makes some very good points pertaining to the various musical formats and has obviously experience the pluses and minuses of vinly ownership.

I don't see why you need to make a choice; unless money is the concern. If it is then I would suggest you go with the digital format for reasons Gary suggests.

However; I would buy the Sony and if you are not satisfied with is redbook performance, which by the way is quite excellent, you could always have it modded by the likes of Richard Kern (Audiomod). At which point you will have one of the finest sounding players on redbook(IMO) and SACD to boot.

Chuck

Pbb it's a shame that you never had a decent record playing rig. Either that or you have a personal problem about analog.

I don't think there has ever been a thread at Audiogon where you don't go ballistic complaining about noise and problems with LP. I'm sincerely sorry that you never got it together and made it work, but it gets tiring to have you knock everyone who even considers the format.

If you lived near me I could embarrass you with the facts simply by listening. If you cannot make the visit I will give you the names of about a dozen high end manufacturers that have heard my system and can testify that not only does my analog destroy CD and SACD, it is about as silent on 70% of my 6,000 LP library.

My response to the poster of this thread is to keep your CD library and get a SACD player that plays Redbook well and enjoy what you have.

I would save up for that Linn analog set-up you lust after, buy LP's as you have the chance and enjoy what each has to offer. You may then decide that you want to keep both or decide only one is the best for your situation. I will say that for young people it is very difficult to begin a library comprised of recent releases and popular artists in LP format. There are however, tens of thousand of Jazz, classical and rock titles available for those who seek it.