2 channel SACD vs Multichannel SACD players...

Eldartford, Thanks once again for the info. It wont be long before I upgrade my DVD/SACD player and this time I am going to look for one that offers DVD-A as well. I am really enjoying the multi-channel format as a change up from my normal 2 channel listening and I dont want to leave anything out.

Bonger...You use the word "mode" which indicates to me that you are configuring your player for stereo playback, and the player is doing the final mixdown. (Remember all recordings these days are mixdowns from dozens of tracks on the master. Stereo is the most mixed of all, except for mono if there are any). SCAD does have a separate area of the disc where the complete program is duplicated in stereo format, and this area is selected in a manner that resembles choice of the stereo DVD-A format, so it is easy to think that they both select a stereo program on the disc.

That said, the DVD-A protocol is very flexible, and I guess it would be possible to put a duplicate program on the disc a la SACD, but if so you have a very unique disc. DVD-A allows for 192 KHz sampling (instead of 96KHz) when the program is only stereo, but I have not seen any discs that are actually made in this way.

I do have some discs that are recorded on both sides, with a 2-channel Dolby program playable on DVD-V players on the backside.

Eldartford, the only DVD-A's I have are American Beauty and the producers cut of Emmylou Harris, and both have 2 channel separate mixes.

Arafel...Interesting...Exactly how can you be sure that it is a 2-channel program on the disc, and not the player realtime downmix which DVD-A provides? Is the program 196KHz sampling? Can you provide more details about the Emmylou disc: Label, etc. so I can look into this.

I find the answer that Eldartford gave very interesting. I had never heard that about a DVDA player having to "mixdown" a multi-channel recording down to two track to properly play back a stereo signal but never really read anywhere that DVDA discs did not have a seperate two channel audio layer either. I am in the market for either seperate SACD & DVDA palyers or one "universal" player. Could you tell us where you got your information so we (at least I) could look into this further. Thanks alot...