SACD vs DVD audio vs 24/96..??

I would be very happy if SACD survived only as a nitch market. Heck, High End audio is a nitch market. The anaylagy to DAT is apropriate. It was never meant to be mass market. I don't expect there to be a SACD or DVDA player in every home unless it's thrown in for free with every $299 DVD player. I'm sure it could happen. You don't have to ask what they would sound like....

I can already see SACD's DVDA discs adding to the same nitch as we have seen for Audiophile labels. People are bitching that the discs are expensive. Yes, they do cost more than CD's, but they are about the same price as Mo-Fi, XRCD's etc that we audiophiles have been happily shelling out for for years. Heck, I have stacks of Direct to disc LP's. And they still sound great! So now we have the oportunity to buy a virtual copy of the master tape instead of overpriced gold plated sixteen bit crap that often sounds only marginaly better than the standard issue. It seems we should all be rejoicing. How many copies of Kind of Blue do you own? I have 4 or 5. I expect the SACD copy to be the final word. Case closed. This is why I hope that the Specialty labels jump on SACD. I think that if enough people have one of the players then the audiophile comunity will demand that all of their issues be in one of the high bit rate formats. It is really tragic that Mo Fi went under. With their connections to the various labels they could have perhaps eventually released their entire catalog on SACD. Perhaps DCC or some other company will pick up the ball. I doubt JVC since they are heavily invested in DVD. If there is the demand someone will fill it unless legal restrictions or cost prohibits it. Telarc, Audioquest, Chesky and others are starting to put out SACD's. NOTE: I'm not interested in replacing my entire CD collection. Frankly, most of it is not well enough recorded to be worth it. But there are great recordings that demand and deserve the highest quality.

RE: my post about "throwing in" DVDA and SACD capability on mass market machines. This seems to finally be happening to HDCD. I just bought a Toshiba DVD player which includes it. It seems to be a marketing strategy to paste as many logos as possible on the front of these machines. If it says Dolby, DTS, Spacializer, HDCD, SACD, DBX and a few others consumers assume that the product is flexible, sophisticated i.e. the latest and greatest. Most will never seek out HDCD or DTS software and they might not hear any improvement on a low end machine if they did. Could SACD and DVDA get that kind of a free ride? Once production is cranked up it probably wouldn't cost that much.

I really don't understand why any audiophile who can afford it doesn't buy one of the SACD players. It sounds great to me and my experience with it backs up all the things I have read about it. There are less than 100 titles available now but so what? How else could somethig this fine happen? You think a big corporation is going to flood the market with esoteric product that only a few fringe loonies like us are going to buy? I am surprised they have done what they have. Someone at Sony is interested in good sound and has somehow convinced the money people to give it a shot. And what do many of the audiophiles do? They complain the machines are too expensive! They complain the output stage isn't to tweak standards! They complain they can't immediately buy some Lawrence Welk favorites disc! They complain they don't want another "Kind of Blue" ! Well I bought another "Kind of Blue" and I'm kind of glad. It's about the sound, gentlemen. Sony has reduced the price of the ES 777 machine it is my understanding. Is that frustrating to me since I paid a higher price? Yea somewhat, I don't know what they are doing. I hope they aren't dumping and giving up. I certainly don't regret buying the machine however. I am happy to have supported this adventure. And there is really a lot of great music on the discs that are available. And there probably won't be a universal machine with this sound quality for less money anytime in the near future. It's amazing! This SACD is not a compromise. Support it!

One thing I've always wondered is why do the same titles show up in "audiophile" format after format? Kind of Blue is a great album, but how many copies do you want to buy at the expense of getting other titles in a new format? Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow is another example. I was glad to see Joe Satriani's latest released in SACD - another dozen like that and it'll be really compelling.