"local" sacd's

I live in the Washington DC area. I went to a local Tower Records and they never heard of SACD or DVD-Audio. Frankly, when you think about it, I doubt whether there's 200 people in the DC area interested in buying SACD or DVD-Audio. One high-end store carries a handful of SACDs. It isn't feasible to carry SACD or DVD-Audio right now. Things should change. In the past two months, Sony's probably has already sold as many S9000ES's as SCD-1's and 777s--thus doubling the demand. It'll double again by spring. Phillips, Accuphase, Sony and others will have new players. In the summer, when Sony releases the $400 SACD player, demand should soar. Sony is also promising a lot of new software. DVD-Audio should see a quicker rise. There's only a few DVD-audio players right now, and far less software than SACD. But they already have for $500 players (Panasonic A7 and JVC723) for the mid-fi market. I love competition. Hopefully, the competition between SACD and DVD-Audio will force prices lower and greater software options.

I hate to spoil your party, but SACD is finished before it got started. I have received word from a good source that Sony has already discontinued their 2 top of the line SACD players and will only incorporate SACD into cheap players. So who in mid-fi will care about SACD? Thus, SACD's doom. If you want really great sound today, try a player or dac with upsampling - 24/96khz. Forget SACD, lick your premature, "I gotta have it now" wounds and buy one of these great sounding new upsampling units and make your entire 16/44 disc collection sound better than ever.

Sorry Markel, but you've misread Sony's current marketing plan. Sony never intended SACD to be a high end product. The DSD process was originally designed as a archiving A/D for the digital conversion of their massive music catalog. The introduction of DSD as a consumer product called SACD had more to do with Sony trying to out position the DVD-Audio consortium. Sony now intends to market SACD as a mass market product -- witness the introduction of their $1,200 multi disc player and the annoucement of a $400 (street price) single disc player. Furthermore, within 18-24 months all new Sony CD/DVD players will be SACD capable. Where Sony has fallen down is on the software front. Despite many promises, SACDs are not readily available. Also note that all current Sony SACD players have digital output of 44.1kHz signals, so if desired, an external DAC can still be utilized. By the way, most who have experienced both upsampling and SACD opine that SACD is the superior format.

I think you are right Onhwy61, Sony has to push this to the end (hey got to keep the royalties coming) I do wish I could actually go down the street and by a SACD instead of having to order them and it would also be nice to pick up something a little more "rocking". You would think that with Sony having their hands in so many record labels out there that the software would be a little more prevailent but with the plans you listed above that should change hopefully SOONER not later.

By the way every store I have tried, (Borders to Warehouse) has looked at me with a total look of bewilderment when they hear the term "SACD". Half of them thought it was a band!!!!!!