Perfectimage: SACD, to my ears, certainly has the smoothness of vinyl, particularly noticable in the highs, which are quite natural. It does not have the ultimate warmth of vinyl, unless that warmth is on the master tape, as SACD gets you closer to the master tape. I have similar observations about the 24/96 discs I have from Classic and Chesky (not talking about DVD-A here). I'll note that many of the reissues of vinyl, particularly from Classic, have been criticized mildly for not having the warmth of the originals; I wonder if part of that, other than using solid state vs. tube mastering equipment, comes from getting closer to the master tape as well. I can live without the ultimate warmth for the better bass and theoretical dynamic range improvement (although vinyl's actual dynamic range is very much underrated, in my view, as evidenced by the Classic Mercury reissues), although I think that warmth is part of the reason I still prefer to listen to vinyl. I'll also note that SACD has that openness and ease of presentation that you get from good vinyl playback, which is very noticable to me when I go back to regular CD listening, even through a Purcell upsampler. Hope this helps answer your question.
SACD WINS!
I advise all those who have spent time researching or trashing SACD to visit www.stereophile.com and learn what the industry is talking about todat at the Consumer Electronics Show in LasVegas. Here is a short portion or the current artical "Record labels strongly support the format. More than 235 SACD titles are now available, encompassing "all types of music by major artists," in Demuynck's words, "and all of [it] compatible with existing CD players. We believe in exponential growth for the SACD hybrid." The SACD-1000 should appear in showrooms toward the end of January. At the Philips conference, no mention was made of DVD-Audio, a promising format that seemed to be missing in action so far at CES, at least on the day before the Show officially opens."