SACD has hit first, and that means it has hit twice. Never mind that the blow is pretty weak, as we all know industry trends are usually commercially driven and not quality driven. Almost all of the SACD material out there does not significantly improve on what's achievable with standard redbook CDs. The best sound in the market today comes from 24/96 recorded DVD-A. Unfortunately, if the very proponents of that format, such as Chesky, abandon it for the lure of bigger bucks with Sony's support, the result is, at best, compromise. Arguably, many redbook CDs sound better than most of the SACDs out there. Sony, or someone, is going to have to do better than this. For starters they need to build a decent SACD player in a reasonable price range. Then they need to dramatically improve the recording and mastering process.
SACD WINS!
I advise all those who have spent time researching or trashing SACD to visit www.stereophile.com and learn what the industry is talking about todat at the Consumer Electronics Show in LasVegas. Here is a short portion or the current artical "Record labels strongly support the format. More than 235 SACD titles are now available, encompassing "all types of music by major artists," in Demuynck's words, "and all of [it] compatible with existing CD players. We believe in exponential growth for the SACD hybrid." The SACD-1000 should appear in showrooms toward the end of January. At the Philips conference, no mention was made of DVD-Audio, a promising format that seemed to be missing in action so far at CES, at least on the day before the Show officially opens."