Is anyone in this economy shopping for a four-box, rack-swallowing, two-channel SACD/CD player contending for the state of the art and costing $79,996? dCS is betting that its Scarlatti will attract a small crowd of those wealthy music enthusiasts who, in <I>any</I> economy, reliably pony up for the best. For the rest of us, the Scarlatti will be a spectator sport.

There's an old Russian folktale about a farmer who goes to a fair. He buys a bread roll from a vendor. He eats it, but he's still hungry. So he buys and eats another roll, and then another. Still hungry. Next, he buys a donut from a different vendor. At last, he's no longer hungry. The farmer then says to himself, "I wasted the money I spent on the rolls&#151;I should have just bought the donut first!"

I now own it on vinyl, too, of course, but four years ago, John Atkinson presented me with the SACD/CD dual-disc. It quickly <a href=" http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/101105kindofblue/ ">cured my headaches</a> and has remained one of my very favorite albums. Listening to it at least once a month keeps my mind and body healthy.

On August 17, 1959—50 years ago exactly—Columbia Records released Miles Davis’ <I>Kind of Blue</I>, which became not only the best-selling jazz album of all time but also one of the <I>best</I> jazz albums, period, the spearhead of the “modal” revolution.