I auditioned SACD today

No SACD that I posess is as good, sonicly, to several of my DVD-A.
Why do American audiophiles put down DVD-A vs SACD?

I don't know, but I do know that several times I have queried the forum
for suggestions for DVD-A players. When the subject of SACD comes up,
you can always count on a flurry of posts from people talking about how
much they love their SACD players and the sound of SACD. I see none of
that with DVD-A. I got few responses to my DVD-A queries, got the distinct impression that not one of the respondants was excited about any DVD-A player -- none of the effusiveness I see from proponents of SACD. Granted, this is anecdotal at best and does not represent a scientific study, but -- to me -- it is telling. I see a few posters who will predict success for DVD-A over SACD, but even those posters don't enthuse over the DVD-A format or over the fidelity of their players --
certainly -- nothing like the enthusiasm I hear from SACD proponents.
On the other hand, I think it is stretching to say that there's a concerted effort to put DVD-A down. I just think DVD-A sometimes gets lost in
the swell of enthusiasm audio enthusiasts seem to have for SACD. That's
just my take on it.

Eldartford-I think SACD got it's software sorted out a lot quicker and also I think there was clearly an effort towards Audiophile quality machines on SACD that was totally lacking from the DVD-A camp.
As such I'm not sure Audiophiles even had the choice and as such the guys on the cutting edge have invested in the format have indeed already made their choice.
What player could Rsbeck even consider to challenge his Emm Labs Dac?
More possible bad news for DVD-A with this report.....

Warner Music to Drop DVD Audio?
An article in the U.K.'s Financial Times by Richard Milne provided the biggest news of the day in the High Resolution Audio arena and talk at CES. In it, Milne highlighted some of the progress the Super Audio CD format has made over the past year with some of their big name releases including the Bob Dylan Remastered Series, Sting's "Scared Love" album, Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", The Police and the Rolling Stones Remastered Series.

He notes that some of the titles, primarily those being released as "single inventory" discs where the Hybrid SACD serves as both the SACD and standard CD release of the album, are selling quite well, with several titles moving over 100,000 units - a target seen as an indicator of strong sales in the industry. The article also quotes officials at Universal Music, Acoustic Sounds, Sony and Philips citing audiophile interest in the format and its high quality audio and copy protection aspects.

However, the section of the article that drew the most attention is Milne's comment that "Warner is the only one of the five record majors not producing SACDs and rumours abound that it will soon pull out of DVD-A." There has much speculation about where Warner Music will go in the high resolution audio market now that the Music Division is being sold off to the Bronfman Group. AOL Time Warner has owned some Intellectual Property (IP) used in the DVD Audio format and this has given them a strong incentive to remain faithful to the DVD-A format and their DVD-A release plans. If the IP rights remain at AOL Time Warner after the sale of the Music Division is complete, the new owner may not have the same financial incentive to continue in that direction. We will watch and see what develops next.

People will be accussing me of being pro-SACD next!

Just talked to a guy who attended the show in Vegas. He tells me they were demonstrating car audio systems that play High Rez, SACD and
DVD-A. Universal players for the car. So, High Rez does not seem to
be going away.

For both SACD and DVD-A (and CD) the limiting factor for sonic quality is probably the analog output circuitry, which, in a universal player, is shared for all media. The Denon 2900 as modified by Underwood HIFI (and perhaps by others) addresses the issue of this circuitry, and replaces it with what is pretty much as good as it gets. Such a player would give a fair comparison of the two media.

I have an unmodified (so far) Denon 2900. Using it, I have several DVD-A that will make your jaw drop, but no such SACD. I really think it is mostly in the mastering of the disc itself, and in Europe there are "audiophile labels" who are making good use of DVD-A. I don't see similar work in the SACD field.