I agree w/ Jaybo. The tragedy of SACD is that it could have been the digital playback standard from the beginning, but nobody at Sony-Phillips wanted to rock the boat, even back when the "boat" was just an innertube! So we're stuck with Redbook.
The good news is that:
A. DACs (and even transports) are improving, and frankly, I don't believe Wadia's proprietary Digimaster algorhithm software has been updated since the original company was taken over by the investors 10 years ago (the brains were not included in the takeover!) That's why GNSC (Steve Huntley was one of those brains) is able do do "miracle mods" on the new Wadia stuff. But there's some really great digital source equipment out there now that can equal even modified Wadia gear.
B. The reproduction available from HDCDs and XRCDs through the best Redbook DACs (even without HDCD chips) rivals that of SACD, and both of those formats are being improved further.
C. The discoveries made recently by the Reality Check re-recording folks, along with the increasing popularity of HDD (server-based) sources will continue add fidelity and convenience to the current digital (Redbook) standard.
And I'm an analog guy! Too bad about the collapse of SACD though. The DSD (Direct Stream Digital) technique should have been the way digital was done from the outset.
.
The good news is that:
A. DACs (and even transports) are improving, and frankly, I don't believe Wadia's proprietary Digimaster algorhithm software has been updated since the original company was taken over by the investors 10 years ago (the brains were not included in the takeover!) That's why GNSC (Steve Huntley was one of those brains) is able do do "miracle mods" on the new Wadia stuff. But there's some really great digital source equipment out there now that can equal even modified Wadia gear.
B. The reproduction available from HDCDs and XRCDs through the best Redbook DACs (even without HDCD chips) rivals that of SACD, and both of those formats are being improved further.
C. The discoveries made recently by the Reality Check re-recording folks, along with the increasing popularity of HDD (server-based) sources will continue add fidelity and convenience to the current digital (Redbook) standard.
And I'm an analog guy! Too bad about the collapse of SACD though. The DSD (Direct Stream Digital) technique should have been the way digital was done from the outset.
.