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Coping in an Age of Uncertainty

there have been numerous threads here, i know, about sacd v. dvd-a, upsampling, oversampling, etc. a number of these threads have included discussions of which, if any, new digital format will replace what we now call “redbook” cd’s. i don’t wish to rehash these discussions. rather, i’d like to hear from others how they are coping with the “age of uncertainty” in the realm of digital audio. is it better to “roll the dice” and invest in sacd or dvd a? ignore the contenders for the new and get the best possible out of redbook cd’s? buy with upgradeability firmly in mind? follow another path? i don’t post this query out of mere curiosity. i really haven’t figured out what course i should follow. i’d appreciate your giving me a hand. -kelly
cornfedboy
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drubin
3,274 posts
 
No new format will succeed if everybody chooses to wait and see what happens. I recommend Art Dudley's editorial in the January/February 2001 Listener, in which he draws a comparison to the electric car. Yes, yes, I know, you don't want to spend your hard-earned money on something without a clear future. But as many here have told us, you can enjoy SACD for a pretty small investment (about what some of us might spend on one or a couple of pairs of interconnects). And you don't have to use it as your main CD playback.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
New formats won't succeed until they're in mass market players that sell to the general public. Remember the Macintosh operating system appeared 8 years before Windows, but lost out because Apple would not share it. The same thing happened to Betamax. Sony would not share it, so they ended up competing with the whole world.
1953
140 posts
 
I think this whole thread is why the Sony 9000ES is such a compelling product. The only thing it doesn't play is DVD-A (but it will play the 2 channel 24/96 disks which ARE part of the DVD-A spec)& SACD 6 channel (which I bet we will NEVER see). It plays everything else, is inexpensive by high end standards, has high end sound (especially after break-in) and build quality written all over it, plus it's a great DVD player. Damned good value and it's readily available. Why wait?
dudleydog63's avatar
dudleydog63
105 posts
 
It would be a mistake to buy into a new format right now on the expectation that someday "everything" will be available on it. The odds of that happening are long. But given that most of the new machines on the market handle CDs pretty well, it's not as big a risk as buying CD in Year 1. Most of us have hundreds or thousands of CDs, and we're unlikely to have more than a few dozen SACDs or DVD-As in the near future. So the question we must each ask is, am I willing to pay the price for that few dozen recordings?

As for SACD vs. DVD-A, there are lots of opinions out there, but no one has done a true apples-to-apples comparison (because you'd have to create the software expressly for the test). Technologically, it's beginning to look like DVD-A has the edge, although that's not always the deciding factor.
tmartinjr9589
63 posts
 
Article from the most recent Positive Feedback Magazine stating that the war is over.
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http://www.positive-feedback.com/0804/Crock_S_ACD.htm
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