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It is the biggest selling Hybrid SACD, it generates a lot of preess, and it replace a CD.

Help compared to what? Baby-boomer audiophiles are not that big a consumer market.

Hopefully, the Stones SACD releases will become a model for many future releases. Certainly, a percentage of the people who purchase these SACDs will go out and get a SACD machine.

Rolling who?

In effect it's an endorsement of SACD by the Stones.

The average joe will not buy a new cd/sacd player and then spend $$200+_for a set of recordings. They might for a DVD=-Audio player and a DVD-Audio set.Why? There going to watch a DVD movie anyway. I plan to go DVD/DVD=-Audio myself. Unless the industry comes out with a multi-format (DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, HDCD, CD-R) player.

Customer: What's SACD?
Clerk: Higher quality CD.
Customer: It plays in my boombox, right?
Clerk: Yes, it's a hybrid!
Customer: Uh, okay, thanks.Lesson: Until CD players are completely replaced with SACD players, 99.999% of the public will never know what they have bought—and may still not know!

Of the fraction of people the buy these remasters, only a smaller fraction will play them on a SACD player.

I imagine that this high visibility announcement could be the first introduction that SACD has to the mass market. Not that people will rush out to buy SACD players. But at least people will start to become aware of the format's existence.

People who have already purchased the hardware will probably buy one or more Stones SACD, but I can't believe this will lead to many new hardware sales.

I'm old enough to remember back to the introduction of stereo, let alone CD. From a British viewpoint, stereo for the majority only took off towards the end of the 1960s or early 1970s. It became a mass medium because of the demands of the most popular music at the time rather than from any audiophile (as we were then not known) perspective. The most popular music at that time was "progressive" rock and the albums had lots of gimmicky psychedelic stereo sound effects, hence people bought the gear to hear them. The SACD era offers nothing similar for the hoi poloi, having regard to much of the most popular current pop music, even if the medium has the possibilty of a multichannel format. I see no evidence of today's hit artists providing a similar "must hear" spatial experience for the majority of record buyers (not us) that will make them buy multichannel equipment to listen. In many cases quasi-mono (low separation) is actually how those hit discs have been recorded for dance hall/radio impact. From the other perspective of what SACD provides one has to ask if listening to Eminem, etc, requires a hi-rez experience. Of course hi-rez is a meaningless concept to the masses who really make the decision as to the success of any format. This leaves open the question of what software will really open the floodgates. Well, as above, I don't think that hi-rez or multichannel per se for pop music will encourage the major record labels into the expense of issuing lots of SACDs. There has to be a mass market pop music artistic reason which doesn't seem to exist right now. Other mass market needs, such as portability or ruggedness are already met by other media. So, where do the Stones fit into this? Not a band highly regarded for "audiophile" recordings (the word "muddy" applies frequently in reviews). The feat of re-mixing to multichannel seems ludicrous considering the rootsy content of much of their output. So where are they in the SACD future, if there is one? The answer is that they fit the baby boomer profile of high-end equipment consumers exactly. So, the issues of their back catalogue will sell to some of us older folks. But we are limited in number, hence my expectation that the SACDs will help the new format, but only a little.

Any new Software will lead to an increase in Hardware and the fact that it is hybrid even more so. 22 Stones SACD's YEAH!

Its not being advertised as SACD, so I think it will only help a little, but it is an important step.

The Rolling Stones have been played to death. Poor choice. Joe Average does not know what "Super Audio CD" means. When he looks at the package he will think that the CD inside is just "super audio" compared to the CD he already owns and will not buy still another version of the same thing. He has no idea this is a new format requiring him to replace his perfectly good CD player and the related home equipment (amp and additional speakers). Just to hear the same old Stones songs all over again? Then he looks at the price on the SACD which is way higher than the price he paid for the Stones CD he already has and decides to forget the whole thing. And all of this time he never even knew what the "SACD" on the cover even meant. He goes home and plays his old Stones CD's on his funky little two channel sound system and is happy. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

At last a set of real releases for real people, that will allow average person to judge the difference between cd and sacd. These real people are what is necessary if any format is to succeed, or be a fringe item, that is here today and gone tomorrow (Betamax). The success of sacd, will depend on timely releases for the masses, and realistic pricing,in the $17-19 range, for single disc sets.

The new releases should help the format, but new releases of "new" music would help SACD even more!

The floodgates seem ready to open. Can the Beatles' archive be far behind? And then Led Zeppelin. It's high time for Warners to get on the bandwagon with Pink Floyd and Steely Dan material. Hybrid SACD seems to be the winning ticket for all concerned. Let the good tunes roll!

To pay top dollar for some recordings I've already purchased, and to buy a player for the new format? The Stones make it tempting, but I don't listen to them so often anymore. Maybe, when I'm rich.

This will probably expose SACD to the mass media, but it might not help because most people will be happy with the sound of their current system. I hope that I'm wrong and they will be curious and try the higher ressolution format.

it will take more than one group or artist to release their entire catalouge to make the price of SACD's viable

If SONY promotes the disc as a CD/sacd combo, c/w an add for an affordable SACD player then it should help.

How is JoeBlow consumer going to learn about the advancement in audiophilia known as SACD? "SACD? Is that like HDCD?" This is what a 'salesperson' at Best Buy asked me. (Hey, retail chains are where the big boys are made or broken and you know it) Sony has not exactly been gangbusters in promoting their new media schemes in the last decade. (Minidisc, anyone?) Sony seemed to be waiting for the U.S. mainstream buying public to embrace SACD, before it produced much of a music cataloge in SACD format. Gee, it only took 10 years for CD to supplant the cassette as retail music format of choice, but that was mainly due to the proliferation of CD titles. Even though for most audiophiles, the MD format was more for archival advancement, not playback, MD failed to catch on with the general public because of a severe lack of titles in the MD format. MD never even made a dent in cassette recorder market. Then came affordable CD-R and CD-RW. No, they weren't as user friendly as MD, or as versatile, but they played our CDs (second generations did). Now with DVD-A rounding the bend, Sony looks to be once again, a day late and a dollar short. Of course, DVD-A will be hamstrung until its backwards compatible to the movie discs.

The hybrid discs, priced right, will raise the profile of the format to the average consumer.

Superior music + mostly bad original recordings doesn't equal a solid step forward for SACD. It'll probably sound better than the originals, but will it really demonstrate the superiority of the SACD format?

With respect to DVD-Audio I would think that the format with the most breadth and depth would definitely give Super Audio a competitive advantage.

Having The Rolling Stones in stores in a high quality format will help to create customer awareness of the new SACD format, this rock group along others such as The Beatles, Santana, The Who, etc. are big and long term sellers.

Any new release on SACD, even Lawrence Welk, will help.

Beats the competition software rollout promotion. Beat that dvda!

Does anyone outside of the "audiophile" community know that they exist?

Really, SACD is backward-compatible with CD, and DVD-A - no. By my opinion, SACD can be winner on pure audio market, but this market very small, witch comparation to Home Cinema (DVD). Audio discs—SACD; Video—DVD.