Coping in an Age of Uncertainty

I have been watching these threads for a while and have decided to buy a 9000es. It's worth the money as a dvd player so it's no loss if the format dies. Sony has shown it's serious about sacd with the introduction of the new less expensive players. If a few thousand titles are released in the next two years, and more are released as backwards compatable in the next year, I think sacd will become the format of choice.

Hey Cornfedboy,
I've been following many of your responses to various threads and it appears to me that you've got one hell of a system. It's reassuring to know that you, too, are having difficulty deciding what future digital format to chase after. I have a pretty decent system and I keep questioning how can I get the most bang for the buck. I'm sure that I can some improvement by upgrading my Wadia 850. I've not heard SACD or DVD-A, but based on what has been written, either format should offer more than what we already have. What I'll probably do is buy as inexpensive a player as I can, buy a few outstanding discs, and if I feel that there's enough difference to warrant further investment, then I'll proceed with caution. A couple of years isn't really too long to get a pretty good idea what format will ultimately win out. Maybe we all should get together as a group and take a shot at one format or the other. Maybe one of the manufacturers could offer a real deal on a player to the members of Audiogon and help us along. If you look at the state of the cellular phone wars today, who in their right mind would pay a lot for a phone. The service is where all the money is, they'll give you the damn phone just to sell you their minutes. Just dreaming I guess!!

What I decided to do? Get the most out of my still growing CD collection. First, hundreds of CDs are out of catalog and most likely will not be reissued, whatever the new format. Second, till now 99.99% of new music (being Jazz, Classical, Rock,...) are issued on CDs. Third, the CD has arroved at maturity with better recording, better digital transfer, and better CD Player. One experience you should try: get a Linn Ikemi home for a trial...you will not be able to live with your current CD player. When will I go "New Format" (I think DVD and SACD are just a transitory stage that will not last before the next more promising non-technical digital: everything will be on high-speed memory chips and we will save transport part of current players)? When the catalog of this new format will be substantial and when 99% of new releases will be in that new format. I think the new war between SACD and DVD will leave many victims, SACD AND DVD among them. So thank you and see you in 5 years!

I've watched this development with interest as well. The initial CD players were beyond horrible and took many years of refinement and hard work for the better audio manufacturers (re. niche) to make them listenable. Still not analog, but tolerable. The inital CDP's were Philips and Sony, the two culprits behind the Red Book spec. Read through the spec, it was outdated on it's intitial release. To go buy a SACD or DVD-A player at a high price now from the mass-market guys may leave you wondering why you spent the cash today, when over the next few years some truly high quality players will emerge and justify the price. Having spent $1000 on a first-generation CDP to play both CD's available on the market at the time, I consider patience a necessary virtue today. In the meantime, cue up some good vinyl and enjoy watching the format wars! Jeff

I just went for improving the sound of standard CD playback within my budget. I have only used CD as a source for the past year, so it is all pretty new to me. My "big" investment was a used Bel Canto DAC which I run from a CAL player. I buy most of our CD's on the used market (just picked up seven today) and will continue to fill our music library in this manner. If I were paying list price for CD's we would probably only own 10%, if that, of what we have accumulated in the past eight months. In the same vein we also have well over 200 feet of book shelves in our apartment (filled mostly with books purchased on the used market). We do not have a lot of main stream "hits" in our music library, but we do have a wide selection of interesting music to chose from. I would love to have the option of playing the SACD disks that I hear sound wonderful (I have only auditioned the first top loading model that was available in my area and did not care for the sound in either format, though I don't beleive that it was properly run in). I have yet to see any feedback as to the new players sounding as good as or better than my CAL/Bel Canto combo when performing standard CD playback, which is why these players do not interest me. To be honest I really can't stand the sound of most CD players anyway, with the exception of a small handfull of them, my combo included. The part of the unit that plays movies/vidios is also of zero interest to me unless it would assist in playing a musical format in the future. If a reasonably priced multi player unit came out that sounded as good as or better than (to me) a Theta Miles, Resolution Audio CD50 or Linn Numerik (for example) when playing back standard CD's, plus sound super with SACD, then it would interest me.