SHMCD : Second thought on buying SACD player

True that 24/96 downloads will not become mainstream. But they will be more available (more titles) than SACD and, in all likelihood, will sound better, at least on the more modest playback systems most of us have.

currently there are more SACD's than 24/96 albums and 24/96 doesn't sound better than DSD, actually DSD sounds more musical to my ears and I like it more than PCM. There are almost 6000 SACD titles to chose from and about 50 24/96 titles do download, and prices of downloaded files are the same as SACD discs :( I prefer real SACD disc with cover and 30 pages booklet than a file for the same price...

PS when do you think that 24/96 PCM downloads will be more available than SACD? in 5 years, in 10 years? I wouldn't wait for that...

I'd say 2-3 years if there's decent demand for it. Agree with you about the 30 page booklet. A PDF version isn't as useful. Then again, CD packaging doesn't compare to LPs.

My estimate of timing above assumes that it's relatively easy and cheap for a publisher to put up files of different resolutions. If that's not true, then I'm probably optimistic. But the iTunes Store populated pretty quickly if I recall. Seems to me that if there are people willing to pay a premium for higher rez versions and all it takes is disk space and bandwidth, why wouldn't they offer it? Would love to hear comments from industry insiders about this.

I doubt there will be demand for hi-rez, in SACD you have mostly jazz and classical releases

hi-rez downloads of pop music don't make any sense, people won't hear any difference between normal and hi-rez Britney Spears and will soon go back to mp3s