Another sign SACD is dying

I went into my local Circuit City store the other day and they had taken out the SACD demo that had been installed for quite awhile. I asked them about it and they said that SACD had "gone by the wayside" to repeat their exact words. I have only listened to it on mid-fi systems. I thought it sounded crisp and detailed, but maybe just a little bright. It made me want to listen to it with highend equipment to get a better feel for it.

I never got into SACD mostly because of the format war between that and DVD audio. I wanted to wait until one of them became the clear winner, and when that didn't really happen I just decided to stick with redbook cd's for now. I will admit that CC and BB aren't highend but they did carry SACD players, etc. for quite a while. Maybe something even better will evolve from these 2 formats in the near future. Hopefully by then companies will realize that working together towards a common goal will benefit them far more than arguing and bickering over who has delivered the best format.

I guess the feeling I got when I left CC was that if it was going so well, they would continue to carry players, etc., regardless of it being highend or just midfi. I also went to the only local highend dealer in town and the salesclerk basically told me the same thing, that it just wasn't doing well. That doesn't mean that it's dead, but will probably just be a niche market. I think a lot people felt like me, that they were being pulled in 2 different directions without a clear path. It wasn't really the machines as much as the software. I would like to see a better format survive, but I also just want to go into any store in town and buy CD's for my player, not have to special order them. I walked into Sam Goody's approx. a year ago and the manager had never even heard of SACD's. (They may have them now, I haven't been there since) A universal machine just didn't appeal to me either, possible because there could be glitches about playing certain discs, etc.