I just heard an SACD for the first time - damn

Not only not taking off but just about dead except for some of the smaller audiophile labels. Was your CD a separate disc or the CD layer of the SACD? In most cases the CD layer is inferior. If you listen to enough titles you will find that, in many instances, SACD and CD can sound very close. It's all in the mastering.

Agree with Narrod that a lot of it has to do with mastering (although I do think the SACD format offers something that CD can't, at least in theory). There are some very fine sounding CDs that have come out in the last, say, 10 years...AND, there are some weak sounding SACDs. Although I'm not a hard-core smooth jazz guy, I use Nelson Rangell's Always as one of my test discs with some regularity, which came out in 1999 and is only available in CD format. Really well-engineered disc, in my judgment.

The down-side of higher end gear is that it makes you more aware of the mistakes in the studio, etc. So it goes...

Narrod - you got it. Try Aerosmith box set Gold of their first three albums - it is the same sound as the SACD made by Doug Sax two years earlier - same remaster and sounds just as good. PInk Floyd DSOTm was mixed "hot" on the CD to give SACD the advantage....

Tinear1, I know what you've mean about the SACD sound. Sure got my attention the first time I heard it.

I've owned a few SACD/CD players, and in every case the sound was better from SACD, even if the redbook CDs I played were of very high quality.

But when I compare SACDs with good redbook--try the K2 Samper from FIM recordings--played on good redbook players, I don't have a clear preference. I do notice a difference in characteristic sound, though I'm not sure I can describe it all that well.

Regardless, I do like SACD, and if I randomly chose an SACD and randomly chose a redbook CD, chances are that the SACD would sound better. I agree, though, that has more to do with the mastering.

Multi-channel SACD really shines for classical music, so no surprise that a good portion of SACD releases are multi-channel classical. I have a dedicated stereo system and a dedicated multi-channel system. Component quality is better in the stereo system, but I'd rather listen to most classical music in multi-channel.

New SACDs are still being released--look at the reviews in Stereophile and TAS--and a fair number of us are buying them.

http://www.sa-cd.net/home is the place to go for news and reviews as well as links to sellers of SACDs. There's a lot of jazz on SACD.

I just listened to my first ever SACD on my new Marantz SA-7S1. The difference was uncomfortably noticeable, especially going back to listen to a Redbook CD afterwards - the CD sounded pinched and grainy by comparison, like going from a great preamp to a much lesser one. I'm more a smooth and electric jazz listener, so there just aren't many SACD titles for me. Such a damn shame it's not taking off, it's really wonderful stuff!
................

I agree, SACD quality is of course better than standard Compact Disc (no matter how hard someone would try to convince you that there's no difference). I got over 300 SACD's in my collection, and from nearly 6000 SACD titles available I still have many on my "to buy" list, for at least few more years and new SACD releases are still coming from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, APO etc. by the way Analogue Productions will soon be releasing new 25 SACDs from Blue Note jazz series

APO Blue Note SACDs

25 Blue Note titles

of course if you don't see any interesting titles in the SACD catalogue it isn't for you. In my case, I'm buying 3-4 SACDs a month and they are really great sounding, even better than MFSL and APO normal CD releases, maybe that's why both APO and MFSL for example are releasing APO SACD's and MFSL SACD's :))

PS I do not limit myself to SACD titles only, as I have CD/SACD player and still checking rbcd's like XRCD, MFLS, APO, DCC, Chesky etc although these remasters in low resolution format don't sound as good as Chesky SACD's, APO SACD's etc

regards