dac or sacd?

SACD is only ubiquitous in the classical music realm. There are very few titles in other music genres.

Wrong.

BUT - to properly play SACD you need a decent multi-channel system, i.e. a 5.1 channel home theater system.

Wrong again.

*none* of the music I listen to is widely available on SACD. I've looked. So before diving in, do some research and see what's out there.

Isn't SACD mixed into multiple channels, why not take advantage of the engineer's intent and play it the way it was mixed? Seems to take maximum advantage of the medium to me.

*none* of the music I listen to is widely available on SACD. I've looked. So before diving in, do some research and see what's out there.

Here's the research:

Pop/Rock: 546 titles (http://www.sa-cd.net/titles/3/0/date/5/1)
Jazz: 1127 titles (http://www.sa-cd.net/titles/2/0/date/5/1)
Blues: 77 titles (http://www.sa-cd.net/titles/9/0/date/5/1)
Classical: 4443 titles (http://www.sa-cd.net/titles/1/0/date/5/1)
All Genres: 7212 titles (http://www.sa-cd.net/titles/0/0/date/5/1)

Not exactly a dearth of options outside of the Classical realm but certainly Classical is just over 60% of the titles. The sa-cs.net site is the definitive resource for those interested in SACDs and for each title listed provides link(s) to vendors where you can purchase that title. Enjoy.

Nothing beats a refurb sony 595 for $60 from sonystyle. It is a sacd unit with a great optical out.

go with the dac. if you rip music to a music server, or have a decent cd transport, a dac is necessary for very good sound.
most of the very good sacd players are 2 channel, not multi-channel. plus, i used to have a multi-channel sacd player and IMO, all of the multi-channel sacd's that i purchased were mixed terrible. For example, there were drums in the rear speakers, sax in the left surround, etc...
i did like the multi-channel DSOTM just because i can hear the cash register in each of the speakers and it would circle the room. if they would just mix the multi-channel to hear what you would hear in a concert hall instead of all the gimmicks, i think multi-channel would have taken off more mainstream. i still have a sacd player but it is only 2 channel.