SACD - what gives?

The answer to your question is very simple. For the most part, they don't exist. To have them means that the recording studios have to convert to machines capable of making these recordings. If you ask the same question about DVD-A recordings you get the same answer. Why invest in a machine that may be obsolete if the format dies. So even though many studios can make a high resolution digital recording, they are not in native SACD format and have to be digitally converted.

Why reissues? Most of the recordings in the studio vaults are on analog tape. There are millions (well, at least a whole lot) of hours of tape that can be remastered and reissued in a higher resolution format. These are recordings of proven sellers versus the crap shoot of recordings of new music. Which would you do?

Well, I don't completely agree or disagree with anyone. I have a pretty high end system, so I feel I can comment on each medium as played back through some of the best representative equipment around. As to software, things are getting much better. Right now, I have 9 SACD's on order which are due out this month or next, and just got 3 others in the mail (all classical). As to comparisons with LP on analogue material, it depends on the quality of the original masters and the original LPs. Yes, audiophile LPs sound better on a high quality front end, but if you compare lesser sound recordings--like most analogue Columbias--the SACD's are substantially superior, even when you have collected pricy European alternative pressings. As to CD vs. SACD, I have yet to hear an SACD which wasn't superior in most respects to the CD version--especially in soundstage and depth--even when the CD is up-converted through my dCS Purcell and Elgar. As to high frequency response, here I am really baffled, because SACD high frequency response sounds to me much more like analogue LP than CD does, and my tweeters are certainly not overly polite. The one comment I certainly agree with is that there is no point criticizing SACD sound after playback on a bottom end player; that defeats the whole purpose of the medium. Does it matter whether CD or SACD sounds better through a $250 player?

I join Mgottlieb and Tbone and the few others in the minority here who are still enthused about SACD. I find little of the high frequency problems Detlof has found, although I would have to say my system cannot be as revealing in that area as his Soundlabs, and perhaps my mods from Jerry Ozment have something to do with it as well (the latest transformer mod is even more pronounced in its improvements to my SACD player than they were with my DAC, which surprised Mr. O as well as me). As far as new recordings taking advantage of the medium, there are more and more classical recordings coming out in pure DSD recordings that really show off the medium's advantages over CD--the Telarc Vaughn Williams Sea Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony Mahler cycle are absolutely spectacular examples, and there are more and more of them, although admittedly the analog remasters still are in the vast majority here (much as it was in the early days of CDs as well). I still prefer a good LP on my vinyl rig, especially where the master tape isn't the greatest and I don't want to hear everything on it, but the glimpses of what SACD can be I've been getting from the most recent DSD releases are closing the gap on analog significantly and widening the gap between SACD and CD. All that said, I still don't think the medium will be anything more than a niche market; hopefully we'll at least get some good recordings and performances to listen to from the specialty recording companies or perhaps the orchestras themselves (LSO Live, perhaps, as they record in DSD, to go with the SFO).

Prior media, LP, Tape, CD, have never been able to convey the quality of sound inherent in the master tapes made even 40 years ago. SCAD can bring those master tapes into your listening room (assuming that the people who made the SACD didn't screw it up).

Eldartford is pretty much right, but part of the problem also is that some of those master tapes weren't so great to begin with, particularly with some labels who seemed to like to put mikes in musicians' laps or which had producers who wanted a "hot" mix to better catch your ear on a small transistor radio. In those cases, the warmth and lack of absolute ultimate resolution of vinyl are a Godsend, as they let you enjoy the music instead of hearing the recording.