Another sign SACD is dying

It's an interesting post mortum.

My take is that we've all had 20 years to optimize our Redbook hardware and get it sounding pretty good. Then along comes SACD with the promise of better sound quality, so we go out and plop down $1000 on a new SACD player and expect it to compete with our $5000 Redbook rigs (substitute whatever numbers are appropriate).

For those of us with multi-format players, I can't imagine anyone not liking SACD better than CD on the same player.

In most cases we've either expected too much from the format or we haven't given it a fair chance.
With redbook I think the main issue is that recording/mixing/mastering techniques produce very inconsistant results. In this digital age, if one recording can sound excellent then it ought to be the 'rule' and not the exception. Listen to Patricia Barber - Modern Cool as an example of good redbook quality. If it was the norm for other CD's to playback with the same level of performance, I don't think there'd be a need for a 'higher-res' format.

The mistake seems to be that the industry has not addressed the root cause of the problem. If you put crap on a CD your system will playback crap. Likewise with SACD or any other format. It all starts in the studio, or wherever the artists are.

Hi Ben,
I didn't really miss the point, it's been made already, and I agree with it, so didn't feel the need to restate it.
In some ways it's like the chicken and the egg scenario. I actually waited over 3 yrs before finally buying a Universal player, since there wasn't enough music around on the new formats (DVD-A included) to really interest me. It was only when PF's DSOTM came out that I decided to take the plunge. I bought a $1200 player and my intention was to wait and see how the software progressed, and if more titles that interest me became available, I would have taken the plunge and invested in a better player.
Now that scenario must have been predicted by Sony - people reluctant to spend serious money on hardware until sufficient software becomes available.....but the software didn't really materialize, so how could the hardware get a foothold?
It's a shame, but there you have it. I bought a $1200 player and I've bought some discs, so I gave it a try. But would I spend the extra cash on a player that does full justice to the potential of the medium, given the software issues?...nope.
I'm surprised the issue of multi-channel hasn't been discussed more in this thread. Don't some people believe that SACD was always intended as a MC format to compete with DVD? That's been an argument I've seen raised elsewhere....I'm not sure of the facts but it seems plausible to some.

Rooze