"local" sacd's

I'm sorry to say that, in the NYC area, the only place I've found carrying them is Tower, and their selection is pretty much limited to a few of the Sony discs, which they kept in the rock area next to the mini discs (oh, the irony), and the Delos Mahler 2 (which they didn't even know they had!). I haven't checked HMV, nor visited J&R lately, so I'll have to check them out. I guess when "Goody's got 'em", we'll know the medium has caught on.

Excellent post, Onhwy61. Markel's point about upsamplers (or filters, or whatever they really are) is a good one, and I in fact did that about a year ago when I bought a Purcell upsampler, rationalizing at the time that between a $5000 SACD player with no software and a $5000 upsampler which made my 1500 or so Cds all sound better, I'd take the upsampler. I have not regretted that purchase. I then bought an SACD player (777ES) when the price came down to $1500 last fall and upgraded it as described in other posts. I can see the lowering of prices on these units only as a positive; if the masses buy them, it may encourage the making of more software. As far as comparing upsampled Cds vs. SACDs--same recordings, and the analog stages of the SACD player and DAC (Audio Logic) being the same--I can tell you my opinion, which is that while the Cds sound very, very good, the SACDs are more natural and have a greater ease to them, closer to analog and real music. I can listen to both very easily, but the SACD (and, I will also gratuitously add, vinyl) is my preference.