I love both formats, but here's my beef. Shouldn't there be some sort of required labeling for things that are recorded digitally at a lower resolution than the format permits? I mean: some of it sounds really good and I'm happy to have it. But the part where they tell you how it was originally recorded is often in infinitessimally small type or not even on the front cover. Case in point: the SACD of the Turangalila Symphony. It's a good performance and a lot of fun to listen to. The sound is pretty good. But it's NOT hi-res. It's just a well-mastered 5-channel (no center, by the way) recording. Okay, the price should be lower, and there should be a logo for the bit rate and sample rate of the original recording. Like the DSD logo. Similarly, if you get one where it says Stereo/Multi-Ch it's usually either quad or 5.0. Usually. But sometimes, it's 5.1. This is where I think some standard like the old A/D/D or whatever would be helpful to the consumer. Like it could say A [or D for analog or digital] 48[or 96 or 44.1 or DSD or whatever - this would be only if it was a "D"]/D [or A if it was analog mastered, which wouldn't make sense really]/2 [or 5.0 or 5.1 or 4.0 or 4.1 - so 4.0 would be quad with no LFE, etc.]. If you bought a disc that was an SACD and it said A/D/5.0 you'd know you were getting something recorded on tape and mastered to DSD with no LFE. If it said D/96/D/2 you'd know it was hi-res stereo. Does this make sense? -s
