To add my 2 cents, I've been listening to a wonderful Telarc hybrid (McCoy Tyner) on my SCD-1 and mentioned it the other night to a dinner party (six hungry mouths)on my deck (strictly non-audiophile). I have a pair of pretty mediocre outdoor speakers on the deck, hooked up to an equally mediocre CD player, but I put the hybrid on so they could hear it. The sonic effect was electrifying. After lots of oohs and aahs one of my guests started quizzing me about hybrid's availability, etc. He wants them for his car! Has anyone had a similar experience with SACD/hybrids? and cheap systems?
New formats, same old story?
OK, we continue to be inundated by advice to upgrade to a new digital format. Most say SACD, the rest tell us that DVD-A will be the ticket. My thing is that I would be ready to buy if things were sorted out. They are not yet. It doesn't look any clearer to me than it did a year ago today. Am I blind? Neither has taken precedence. More importantly, neither has had the major influx of software we have been waiting for. A major determinant as to which one wins out in the end. Yes, SOFTWARE. Where is it? Sure, there are some titles out there(how many currently???), but new albums are still more often than not released CD only. The people at the record stores still have not heard of either of the new formats. Yes, I know Sony keeps dangling the influx of new players(even cheap ones) at us, but I am still in the same mindset I was last year. That I don't want to invest in a new player that won't be a REAL step up in terms of CD playback(which would make it worth it) until one of the formats emerges as the future path. And, once the players come, will they be obsoleted by a new twist a couple of years later? As in multichannel - which I am not interested in, or by offering a digital output of the new format's signal. Are my feelings correct, or do I need the way I see things corrected? Thank you.