Coping in an Age of Uncertainty

SACD is great and the 777ES is actually pretty good on regular cd as well.

I have been wrestlingwith this issue myself. I recently purchased a 65 inch 16x9 HD ready TV. On DVD playback my Panasonic didn't look too good. I needed progressive scan so I was in a Circut City & they had a demo JVC Xv-723 for$450 so it was a no brainer. Where else can you get what is essentially line doubling for that price? As a DVD Player it works great but it also had DVD A so I am able to play around with that too. In CD playback it leaves a lot to be desired. In DVD A it is Interesting enough if the format takes off I will buy something a little more serious. I have also looked at the Sony units. Thanks to my job I know what it takes to make a product. Only a corporation the size of of a Sony could sell something with the build quality of the DVP-S9000Es for a list price of $1500. I am in the process of purchasing one not so much for the SACD playback but more so the reference DVD playback. So when all is said I will have spent $1500 or $1600 & have a DVD A player SACD& DVD video with progessive scan. I have an extensive collection in CD's & records so in the near future I might invest in an upsampler but I want to see what comes out in the next few months before I do anything because UP& Oversampling is provided by just a few companies at this time. Meanwhile I can spend some time evaluating DVD A & SACD.

none of the sony (or other) sacd players even come close to my wadia 850 on redbooks. so i should go out and buy a player that plays maybe 200 discs, with about 10 titles i want in sacd, that can't touch my 850 on normal cds, that needs a preamp, that the software costs a premium......HELLO! the problem is not the formats, its the companies and their financial motivations. which never seem to be in the end users best interest. i'll stict w/ my wadia for awhile.

Marklivia,not the 850 but 6500.00 860 is said to be bettered by sacd acording to widescreenreveiw,and i will stick with there opinion,as anyone who tells it like it is about dvd-a sounging terrible at the risk of advertising revenue has got my attention.

I had owned a Theta Data III, Genesis Digital Lens and a Theta Pro Gen Va upgraded to 96K. I also use a Sigtech DSP and a Z Systems unit. The last two years have seen VERY significant improvements in transports and DAC's. For example, the MSB Platinum is a major improvement over the Theta Pro Gen Va and the dCs is an improvement over the MSB. The dCs is also modular to handle the new formats. We listen seriously about 10 hours a week, usually 5 plus hours at a stretch. We will continue to upgrade our CD playback (and keep our vinyl rig) but I'm now only buying units that could upgrade to handle format changes.