Vote

What's the point of paying any amount of money for a player, let alone $3500, when most of your favorite music won't be available in the new format any time soon? Only when the player gets down to a consumer-level price will there be enough music available to justify its purchase.

Remember VHS machines of 15 years ago? Two heads, wired remotes, and $400. As a technology matures, the price of admission goes down. I won't rush out to buy a SACD player, but when my current CD player quits, then I would look into a new format that is also back-compatible. It's always most expensive to be the first kid on the block with a new toy.

Not ready yet!!!

Come Quicly

1) Price of the software is more important. 2) I am not buying any SACD until I am forced to, like when new releases were too hard to get on LP. 3) I am afraid that digital sound will go the computer way—every three years you throw out your old player and buy a new one—or the new records won't play on it.

I'm waiting for the software that'll make it worthwhile. Could this be another Beta VCR?

I have two more important concerns: Will it do multichannel? How much will the software cost?

I'll pay it if and only if it blows away my $5000 wadia cd player

If they want to sell any it had better be as low as possible. There are too many DVD players already out there just waiting for music.

If SACD includes watermarking and no full-resolution digital output, they won't be able to give me one, much less have me buy one. I mean, really, HOW DUMB does Sony think audiophiles are? They increase the price of the discs to include a provision for pirated copies AND include features that blatantly affect sound quality in the process of further trying to avoid pirating. NO THANKS.

If you're going to introduce a new product, its quality will never attract as many buyers as a good price does.

Anything over two grand just isn't worth the money. This is something Sony will come to understand when the DVD-Audio players hit the shelves.

It is build by Sony it can not be that good. And defenently not worth 3500 if they built it.

This format doesn't give me anything which 24/96 DVD can't. Why bother?

I bought a CD player when the price dropped below $200; I see no reason not to wait for this product

That's the price of my CDR-507ESD when I got it new... and I still use it today.

I voted the $499 price point, but that assumes there're lots of CDs to choose from at that time—and I don't think there will ever be enough to make it interesting. The masses (producers and consumers) will flood to DVD-Audio and that will be the end of that.

You can now purchase excellent players for $1500 CDN. $1500 US should be a fair price for an excellent SACD player.

$499 At the most.

SACD has got to be made very adffordable if it is ever going to replace the CD as a new audio standard.

$2000 from a hi-end company,500 from sony marantz etc.

The price for software and the variety of titles is more important than the price of the hardware.

For the price Sony is suggesting, one can get some killer CD equipment. I thought that with the new generation of technology wouldn't require so much overengineering, as in perfectionist CD gear. For $3500 I can buy something that will make me pretty happy with the discs I've got.

Depends on the sound improvement over CD and the availability of anything worth listening to.

Why should we pay any more for SACD than we pay for CD-players now?

Even $999 is pushing it, as formats seem to be changing every few years now. (BTW, anyone looking for a great $2500 LD player that I have . . . No! See what I mean? $2500 down the tubes!)

IF IT WERE A UNIVERSAL TRANSPORT (SACD, DVD-AUDIO, AND VIDEO) WITH MULTICHANNEL CAPABILITIES.

What better way to get it established as a standard. They'll recoup R&D faster by selling more units.

Would be willing to pay more if they really get behind the format and put out more than a trickle of software.

With the current scarcity of music I love on SACD, I would not spend more than $2000 on a player that will have marginal use, at least for the next two years. It's the many thousands of CDs I own that justify my purchase of a multikilobuck Mark Levinson CD transport and D/A processor.