Was the SACD unit properly broken in ? It needs at least 300 to 400 hours to bring out its best. I own a top notch CD/upsampler frontside and comparing it to a well broken in Sony 777, my findings were not anything close to being as decisive as you infer. Besides, your so called "blind test" proves nothing, because it was not properly carried out, apart from being unfair and cheating on those unfortunate participants. Being a vinyl man and no friend at all of redbook CDs, especially as far as large orchestral music is concerned, my finding were, that SACD was indeed a step forward, as far as big symphonic sound was concerned. What I found lacking in the Sony (compared to vinyl, NOT CDs ), were dynamics and resolving power. That was the reason I am having the unit upgraded on its analog side by the Audience people.
SACD : why ?
I have a local dealer here in Paris, France who has become a very good friend. SACD technology is just starting to hit our shores, and after hearing several CDPlayers, inc. the Accuphase 100 transport, we just didn't get it. The differences are just so tiny and are entirely software dependend (a bad SACD sounds worse that a great mastered CD) that we can't see it becoming a new standard. Nor spending thousands of dollars for so little.
We did a blind test for 15 of his customers. We told them we would play them a normal CD version first, and then the same music but with the SACD version. 15 out of 15 said they thought the second sounded much better and that SACD was an amazing technology. They were surprised, shocked and embarrassed when they found out we had switched the order of play and they actually preferred the 'standard' CD.
Here is my prediction : SACD is dead, long live DVD-A. Not because DVD-A is better, it *technologically* speaking isnt, but it makes much more market sense.
We did a blind test for 15 of his customers. We told them we would play them a normal CD version first, and then the same music but with the SACD version. 15 out of 15 said they thought the second sounded much better and that SACD was an amazing technology. They were surprised, shocked and embarrassed when they found out we had switched the order of play and they actually preferred the 'standard' CD.
Here is my prediction : SACD is dead, long live DVD-A. Not because DVD-A is better, it *technologically* speaking isnt, but it makes much more market sense.