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Hey, I have lots of cd:s and no SACD/DVD/.... whatever. I'll upgrade my cd-player as soon as I have the money.
Whenever a new format rolls out, there's always the fear among manufacturers that consumers will stop buying current models while waiting to see what happens with the new ones. Is this true for SACD and DVD-Audio?
One more listening session with a friend's Sony SCD-1 convinced me to fork over the greenbacks for an SCD-777ES. While I am aware of the limited availability of SACD music, and most of my music may never make it to SACD, the quality of the few SACD discs I have listened to has opened a door to the music that's not likely to close, and will be worth going back to time after time.
I've been waiting for a universal player ever since they announced SACD and DVD-Audio. What's the holdup? Plain and simple: Greed! I wish the industry would just move on. By the time they settle all of the copyright issues, someone will have invented an even better format!
I know the big corporations are going to try to sell us all the same old stuff once again on DVD-A. Witness Sony's SACD catalog: Bob Dylan and Miles Davis! (I'll keep listening to those on vinyl, thank you very much.) When there's a compelling catalog of music at a reasonable price, I'll make the switch.
I'm waiting, though I suspect that my next player will be a PC with a good card and DAC. Don't expect standards to stay still when one of these formats "wins"the idea of a fixed standard only makes sense in a world of physical distribution. With digital distribution, new formats will continue to appear and software-based players will evolve to play them. Do we really think that MP3 will be a long-standing digital format in an increasingly high-bandwidth world?
I got a cheap (read: non-reference-quality) CD player. It'll go when I get my DVD-A/SACD player. I judge DVD-V players based on video performance, not audio, so I went for the best I could afford. It'll always play my NTSC video discs.
I can't help but recall the people who just had to be the first to own CD players. A few years down the road, even the cheapest models sounded better than the expensive launch models. I'm waiting for an audiophile company to put out a unit anyway. When Meridian or Wadia releases a multi-format machine with a full complement of outputs, I'll be the first in line.
It will probably flop. If the mass market doesn't want it we don't get it. It will take many years before we get anything better than CD on digital. It will be right up there with the MD, DAT, and DCCall decent products introduced at the wrong time. But, of course, there is a lot of good vinyl still, which I hope never ends
Not really. In fact, I have been waiting for a combo SACD/DVD-A player. There are still none available. As soon as I can buy oneI think of the PioneerI'll buy one because it's probably two years down the road before an audiophile combo player like a Meridian be availableif Meridian ever comes up with one (they never got into HDCD)and I am not going to wait for it.
This situation has produced a quandary for me. My ears are particularly sensitive to the grain in concert music produced by 44.1kHz sampling and the like. I considered the SCD-1, but I understand that audiophile-grade DVD could also provide the much higher sampling that my ears seem to need. The particularly high price of the SCD-1 makes me reluctant to buy it as long as the standards are not firm. I think it's ridiculous that makers cannot get together and establish standards, so we can get on with it!
What does all this new format serve? Just music. For this, I'm not really care for new technic or sound format, while current format is still fine for me to enjoy music then I just go on with it, why wait for new format like SACD when music on SACD is still too limited!
My Sony ES CD player has given years of sterling service but is now on its way out. I want to replace it with something that sounds better but do not want to invest in old technology so I am waiting to see what happens with SACD/DVDA. In the UK you can get a SACD player for US$680 which is tempting.