Future of DVD-A

I'm not going to comment on the health of DVD-A as a format, since this discussion is generally the same as the discussion of SACD, but I can offer some user comments.

I recently purchased a couple of DVD-A discs by Chris Botti and Donald Fagan. The sound is superb on both. Dynamic, detailed, spacious and real. I prefer the sound of DVD-A to SACD. The re-mastered "Nightfly" by Fagan is excellent.

However, DVD-A discs are not as user friendly as SACD for two channel listeners. For example, I do not have my Denon 3910 connected to a video monitor, so menu navigation is a pain. When I insert a DVD-A disc, the player defaults to multi-channel playback, and a couple menu steps are required to set the player to stereo playback. The Denon 3910 does not "remember" the last setting, so the same steps are required every time the DVD-A disc is played. It's not a huge process, but it's a step away from the user-friendliness of redbook CD or SACD.

So, DVD-A sounds excellent, but it's not as elegant to use as other digital formats.

If you already have a player for DVDA, why not buy a few and see what you think? My sonicly best discs are DVDA. I think that DVDA offers more features than SACD, and the PCM format is more mainstream than DSD which gives it a better chance of survival than SACD.

IMO both sacd and dvd-a are dead. And I think dvd-a is deader, in terms of new releases.

The consumer market has already voted on this issue, and I think it's clear that both SACD and DVD-A are dead as a commercial proposition. The equipment manufacturers and entertainment industry are now focusing on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, but that "format issue" is far from settled.

In short, we will see less product, not more, coming out on both the SACD and DVD-A formats, so enjoy what's here now, or wait for "the next big thing"...