Cheap SACD Player or wait for DVD Audio?

The new unit is $1500 and getting excellent reviews. BUT, it still doesn't play DVD-A. Typical Sony. These are the same people that brought you The Betamax. Just cause the format may be better does not guarantee its commercial success. There are still no titles to choose from two years after its introduction. This is the basic reason so many SACD players are sold from the first units that came out. You can get pretty tired of listening to your 10 favorite SACD's since most people can not find more than this unless you are a classical listener. I would wait and see what happens before I poured $1500.00 down the drain and found out the format is dead. In a year there will probably be some Universal transports that play all formats and maybe even have a Digital out for the DVD-A and SACD for future upgradability.

I have the SCD1 and have found it's quality of sound on standard cd's to be better than anything under $10,000! There are almost 200 SACD titles out so far and this year another 5 manufactures picked up the formatt. Given the reviews of the first DVD-A units you'll be waiting a very long time. I do think somewhere down the road (5 years) we'll see a unit that upsamples, DVD-A, SACD, and the rest come along. I bought the Sony because it allows me to play my present collection on a better cd player than I had thanks to the multiple digital filter options it provides. We may find it has nothing to do with the formats, it's just an improvement in digital filters. For my money the SACD is the best buy around as a standard cd player, it's a hell of a bargain when a SACD you want comes along! Don't forget it was also Sony/Phillips that introduced the CD!

Some people have no fear about buying into a new technology that may or may not make it, but the fact that you've posted this question suggests that you are not one of them. In that case, my advice would be this: Do not buy into any new technology until there is enough software out there that it would be worth it to you even if the market didn't grow anymore. In other words, if you're comfortable buying SACD even if only 1% of new releases come out on SACD, buy a machine when 1% of new releases come out on SACD. There's no guarantee that either of these technologies is going to take off. If you buy in expectation that they will, you run the risk of a very expensive disappointment.