SACD Opinions: Gimmick? Like it? Don't? Why?

HI JB3, Gimmick no, however; SACD is in its infancy as CD once was. The question you pose is complex and multi-faceted, in that it depends on what equipment you are playing now. If you have a high end CD front end as in transport, dac and upsampler you would be IMO wasting your money buying a one box SACD at this point of time. Is SACD good yes, the timbre is dead analog and spacial relationships are real good, however; if you have a real high end system and objectively a/b CD to SACD you might be surprised. My current CD front end is CEC transport, Mark Levinson Dac and a DCS Purcell upsambler. I owned a Sony SCD-1 and although pretty good, my CD front end crushed it. Not that the Sony did not do timbre better, it did, but everything else was clearly better with the CD front end. I sold the Sony. My Audiophile friends have brought over their Krells, Esoterics, Modded Sonys and Linns all with the same result. In comes one my friends with a DCS Elgar/Verdi duo and my CD front end was finally trounced. The duo was better in every respect. Therefore, IMO opinion, SACD, if successful is the future, I would however; wait for the two box Sacd combinations to come to the marketpace as in, the rumored Mark Levinson and MBL. I've heard through the grapevine that the MBL combination is astounding.