As I will be dropping the CD player back at the dealer tomorrow AM, I figured I'd post a few final thoughts. I spent most of today up in Gettyburg, PA (with my friend John as it is not a terribly long ride from here) hiking around the battlefield spots and I wanted to compare some stuff on SACD on my Sony 2000ES changer which sits on the wall in the bedroom system that backs to the main system. While I do have cables running back and forth, they were just too much of a mess of wires at the moment and I was not in the mood to crawl to figure it out. I'll be unhooking everything with several weeks anyway when I'm ready for carpeting so I figured I would just listen to the Bryston player more.
I listened to several hybrid discs I would consider avg. quality for SACD (e.g. Eric Clapton's "Slowhand," Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King "In Session"). I found that with many discs of this quality going back and forth between the SACD layer on the DV9600 vs. the CD layer in the Bryston, there were positives and negatives. I would say in most of the cases I slightly preferred the Bryston. It is fairly consistent with what I noticed before. On better sounding SACDs, the technology shines through and while it is not sure say there were no qualities of the Bryston that I did not like vs. what I heard on the other player, it is something that someone can only personally evaluate in terms of their current hardware and software and the software they anticipate getting down the road.
While I have a significant investment in SACD in terms of hardware and software, the number of CDs is much more and growing much more rapidly. Multi-channel is not something I prefer on most hi-res music discs as well. In my case, given it price point, it is certainly worthy of consideration as an addition to what I currently have. Given some of the info I noted in my last (and long) post, I feel that SACD and DVD-A were not necessary as formats. They were more about expiring royalties on CD technology and copy protection for the studios. Yes, they both are capable of better sound than a CD. The technology used on DADs, like the Neil Young stuff could have been used to satisfy large segments of mainstream and audiophile customers. I have DVD-Vs (e.g "Stargate") that require flipping halfway thru the movie. They could have easily done 24/96 stereo audio on one side and Dolby Digital 5.1 (and/or 2.0 or any other flavor of it) along with MP3s, ringtones or anything else they wanted (or just 2 DVDs or a DVD and a CD like some things have now). While I have not seen anything recently, Warner announced some time back about DVD-V albums. Would have it satisfied every single audiophile or non-audiophile? No, of course not. But I bet that many would be happy with it. No special format players to buy. DVD is the most successful consumer format in history. For those with pre/pros or rec'rs that could handle a 24/96 digital input it would just require a single cable already in use. For those that felt an analog path was better for their set-up, it would just require analog interconnects in addition. CD sales were also sagging (which of course was almost totally blamed on illegal downloading which may be part of the issue but certainly not the whole picture (of course like quality of the product and price have no impact
)
. The avg. (non-audiophile) member of the buying public has chosen convenience over other factors.
Today we have slowing DVD sales (the studios of course point a major finger to the same problem they have with CD sluggish sales). Now we have competing DVD formats requiring specialized players. Costco, in a week or so, has a $15 coupon for a 1080p upconverting DVD player with an HDMI cable making the cost $64.99. HDMI 1.3 can support 1440p. When DVD was released, in terms of quality and convenience it was head and shoulders above the mainstream format of the day, VHS. Today we have HD TV, we have digital cable and satellite broadcast on HD, TIVO, etc. We even have internet protocol TV in its baby stages. So there is a lot more choices of better quality stuff. As internet enabled stuff becomes more commonplace and makes it more convenient, it could be a significant factor among consumers. With ltd. niche software (not unlike SACD and DVD-A) and more quality choices, along with the format war with not all the studios providing full support to either format. If the status quo continues with these formats and std. def DVDs con be upconverted to 1080p and beyond, I'm not sure either or both will become mainstream.
A few years back, I used to hold back buying CDs with the hope that an SACD would be released. I'm at the point with this hobby for this particularly moment in time to have hardware within my budget comfort that plays the software I have and will likely able to buy. I'll continue to enjoy what I own on SACD (and DVD-A and also buy more if it is avaialbe) but given where it stands it is certainly niche, on life support (e.g. heavy duty classical music enthusiasts are giving it a little mouth to mouth) and not releasing stuff that the masses (customers, not just audiophiles) are about to embrace. As I've noted, I still have LDs (2 players one in the basement and one in the main system and extra key parts like a spindle motor. The main and basement system players share many common parts if I had to keep one of them going I could for a bit. SACD is certainly dead with the masses and if not on the endangered species list it is a stone's throw or two away from being there.
