SACD vs DVD audio vs 24/96..??

I don't know which format will come out on top, maybe neither one will make it. All I can say is that we audiophiles have been waiting for 15 years to have a truly high resolution format and now that it's here I'm going for it. I just ordered the SCD-777ES from J&R Music World. They are selling this machine for $1799. That's like half price! Considering how the thing is built and how it reportedly sounds with conventional CD's I think it is a real bargain.Yes, I'm sure that Sony will soon bring out a machine for $1000 or less but you can be sure that it won't be built like this baby. I agree with the reviewers that SACD is the way to go for purist audiophiles. I will probably get a do all player for my Home Theater system when they come out but I'm sticking to a purist 2 channel aproach for my serious listening. There is some confusion as to compatibility of 6 channel SACD discs. Acording to SONY, there will be a 2 channel mix on all discs, therefore your 2 channel player will not become obsolete (unless the format does). I'll post again after the machine arrives and I have evaluated it.

I would be very happy if SACD survived only as a nitch market. Heck, High End audio is a nitch market. The anaylagy to DAT is apropriate. It was never meant to be mass market. I don't expect there to be a SACD or DVDA player in every home unless it's thrown in for free with every $299 DVD player. I'm sure it could happen. You don't have to ask what they would sound like....

I can already see SACD's DVDA discs adding to the same nitch as we have seen for Audiophile labels. People are bitching that the discs are expensive. Yes, they do cost more than CD's, but they are about the same price as Mo-Fi, XRCD's etc that we audiophiles have been happily shelling out for for years. Heck, I have stacks of Direct to disc LP's. And they still sound great! So now we have the oportunity to buy a virtual copy of the master tape instead of overpriced gold plated sixteen bit crap that often sounds only marginaly better than the standard issue. It seems we should all be rejoicing. How many copies of Kind of Blue do you own? I have 4 or 5. I expect the SACD copy to be the final word. Case closed. This is why I hope that the Specialty labels jump on SACD. I think that if enough people have one of the players then the audiophile comunity will demand that all of their issues be in one of the high bit rate formats. It is really tragic that Mo Fi went under. With their connections to the various labels they could have perhaps eventually released their entire catalog on SACD. Perhaps DCC or some other company will pick up the ball. I doubt JVC since they are heavily invested in DVD. If there is the demand someone will fill it unless legal restrictions or cost prohibits it. Telarc, Audioquest, Chesky and others are starting to put out SACD's. NOTE: I'm not interested in replacing my entire CD collection. Frankly, most of it is not well enough recorded to be worth it. But there are great recordings that demand and deserve the highest quality.

RE: my post about "throwing in" DVDA and SACD capability on mass market machines. This seems to finally be happening to HDCD. I just bought a Toshiba DVD player which includes it. It seems to be a marketing strategy to paste as many logos as possible on the front of these machines. If it says Dolby, DTS, Spacializer, HDCD, SACD, DBX and a few others consumers assume that the product is flexible, sophisticated i.e. the latest and greatest. Most will never seek out HDCD or DTS software and they might not hear any improvement on a low end machine if they did. Could SACD and DVDA get that kind of a free ride? Once production is cranked up it probably wouldn't cost that much.

I agree with Allie completely. My first SACD was Kind of Blue. Because it's worth it.I would like to start another discussion about which SACD's sound great and which ones to avoid. I think it is really impressive that there are over 100 titles already available considering there are only 2 machines on the market to play them. I remember hearing the same complaining about software availability with DVD and now look what we have! I'm sure it would be beyond wishful thinking that the same order of magnitude could ever hapen with DVDA or SACD But still, check out the new Acoustic Sounds catalog. I started adding up my wish list and went wooah. Can't afford to buy too many turkeys. As for SONY dropping the price of the machine, I'm sure that they are not going to go through all the R&D just to dump the whole thing before it gets off the ground. Remember this is SONY not DIVX. They are one of the largest and most powerful electronics companies in the world. I'm sure they have a well planned strategy. These machines have been on the market a year and It's time to start moving them before they release newer lower price models. I'm sure that even at the list price they were losing money on every machine. They are simply more interested in getting them in the hands of more people to give the format a foothold in the market.