In the below link, check out Sony's announcement to the introduction of the SACD format 20 years ago Sony Global - Press Release - Sony Launches the First Super Audio CD Player High-end model fully recreates the atmosphere and nuance surrounding the original music source
I'll take an SACD out for a drink when it turns 21. And I promise not to use it as the drink coaster.
Still love the SACD format and have purchased many over the years. I just wonder how much more successful the format would have been if Sony made all SACD's as hybrids from the beginning?
And we had such high hopes. When is DVDA’s birthday? I love them both, but they’re like a couple of old prizefighters.
I remember one of the local audiophiles finally cracked and bought one, along with some classical SACDs. We convened to assess the technology and we auditioned every disc. I remember being very underwhelmed.
I'll go 15 years. I honestly wish this wasn't true. It wasn't still born like DVD-A. But crib death is an appropriate metaphor. DSD isn't dead, but selling a few thousand a year from AP & MoFi doesn't make this a viable format. I'm not even using a player anymore. I switched to ripped ISO files that I've burned on a PS3 years ago.
How long did it take from SACD format launch to first PS2 ripping instructions? It seems it was a tough cookie to crack, for a while there anyway.
I’d have taken to SACDs a decade earlier if they had been easier to rip. Sadly, it’s probably too late now, but many more happy returns, anyway.
I was only in them ever for the surround layers. So many of them had no interest to me. Thankful the reissues of Quad masters appeared on SACD format in strong numbers. I bought a universal player just for quad reissues on SACD. Great investment.
Amazingly my first SACD player, a Sony SCD-C333ES which I purchased on-sale as a way to experiment with the then new SACD format, is still running all these years later. It hiccups from time to time now, and now it occasionally doesn't read a disk's TOC on its first attempt. But usually cycling its power gets it working normally again. The really cool thing about this player is that it is one of only a handful of models which is based around Sony's legendary VC24 (I think?) chipset, which both the SCD-1 and SCD-777ES used. But despite being Sony's cheapest model which featured this chipset, it has outlasted, by far, all of its more pretentious siblings. I purchased a spare laser assembly for it about 10 years ago, but I haven't needed to install it yet. Although the fact is that disks don't get spun very much on this player anymore. I usually listen to my optical media by using a modified Oppo 103 as a transport to drive my PS Audio Direct Stream DAC these days.
