Hey young people! Do you listen to SACD?

Indeed there is, but how many of these contemporary artists are releasing SACDs, unless we're talking audiophile showroom demo type music? Let's not count reissues either.

I like plenty of contemporary music and can't think of a single non-mainstream, contemporary artist I like that's released an SACD of new music in the last 20 years. These artists I like often release music on multiple formats - could be vinyl, regular CD, cassette, downloads in any PCM flavor you want, etc. but no SACD or DSD is available. None.

Outside of classical music, demo show stuff, audiophile specialty reissues, and a niche portion of the Japanese disc market, SACD and DSD are both pretty much dead or on life support from what I can tell.

 

I guess I should have stated my assumption. That being, that anyone buying a SACD is an audiophile.

I know there are people who are as young as teenagers actively participating in threads on the board. I noticed an increase in the amount of SACDs being released lately. I figured most of the sales are from Gen X and older. The reason I was asking is that when I did frequent record stores before the pandemic I was often surprised by young people perusing rock music from the 60s and 70s. I also do have some contact with people in there early 20s. They're not audiophiles or record nerds but I'm often surprised how diverse their taste is. It goes from the first Beatles records to whatever is number one on the charts this week. My experience of some young people in my orbit having such diverse taste, I was curious if young audiophiles are buying SACDs because they may be interested in the titles that are being released and possibly being involved in a small revival of the format.

 

Nope. I’m 22 so I grew up with CDs and then iPods being the norm but I can count on one hand the number of albums I’ve bought on any digital format. I listen to only vinyl at home and the occasional local punk or indie cassette, and if I’m out and about, streaming with spotify or occasionally reListen for Grateful Dead shows. I have very little interest in an SACD or any digital format besides streaming. If I couldn’t have my records I supposed I’d probably buy a few CDs or SACDs but only of albums which are very important to me.

 

I am 22 and I mainly listen by normal CDs or Spotify. I don't have good enough stuff to really get a benefit from SACDs (I use a protbale CD Player or I rip them to my laptop). They are also usually a good deal more expensive (at least the ones I seen), so with my setup the extra cost would not make sense for me.

 

Perhaps in 30 - 40 years, because it will be retro.

Seriously, my kids don't have any use for physical media.

 

As it should be

 

I'm 35, so older millennial I guess. SACD seems interesting, and I would like to try it, but it's just a hard sell. I still have CDs, I have hundreds of records (primary format now) and do streaming. I think I do have 2 SACDs that are hybrid discs that I play the CD layer on my transport.

As much as I'd love to try SACDs, for the price of a player and some discs, I could just be upgrading my other existing equipment further. And like others have pointed out, just not enough titles that I'm drawn to on the format. I could pretty easily find 100+ SACD titles I like... but chances are I already have them on vinyl, if not vinyl and CD. I would be more interested in one of the streaming services offering DSD as a streamed format. That might allow streaming to truly surpass CDs, and would lower the barrier of entry.
Because right now, looking at new SACDs, I would be choosing an SACD over a vinyl pressing. Would be fun, but I'd have to be pretty sold on the format to stop getting the vinyl versions. And if I want a disc, I can get the CDs for much less (which I do in many occasions).

 

No.

 

That's not only wrong but on a forum like this it's massively wrong. Because there's definitely people who are into more than just mainstream material in large numbers.
I happen to be one of them and I'm 22.

 

35 year old here! No SACDs, but I have some Dual Discs. I'd completely forgotten about this format until the other week when I picked one out for the morning drive on a whim.

DualDisc - Wikipedia

 

24 here. Though I do have a blu-ray player that supports them, I usually don't buy SACDs. A good chunk of what I like just isn't available on the format to begin with. The stuff that is, I feel that I'm fine with it on CD.

 

I don't even remember this.

 

Im older but i love Multi channel music

Tis the Air between the Instruments

Happy to have found this n that other forum for music in Quad n 5.1 on Sacd bluray audio n that old outdated format called dvd audio

Havent had a turntable or cassette player in about 3 decades

 

Mid 30s, interested in SACD but can barely afford my vinyl habit. And I really find Apple Music sufficient, even in comparison to high res flac files, the recording is 98% of it at least on my system. I'm more interested in it because it's hard to know the provenance of streaming files, the immutable quality, and not having bonus tracks foisted on me.

If I had a lot more money I'd be in for SACD and open reel

 

GenX here so not that young and the only SACD's I own are a couple dual layer Stones reissues. Never had a SACD player and these days I'm 100% streaming.

 

I think the better question might have been “Hey young people, have you ever even heard of SACD?”

 

With few exceptions, almost nobody under the age of 40 uses spinning optical media anymore.

 

My kid in college and BFF and roommates would pause a microsecond from iPhone to answer "Huh? What's that???" and then move on, uncaring. And no, they have zero interest in vinyl. Nor DVD-Audio nor Blu-ray nor Elcaset or 8-track. If it's not on a phone, it might as well be in a forest, it does not exist.

 

Not sure if I classify as 'young', but I'm 32 and have a few SACDs (20-ish) and buy more whenever I can. Helps that I listen to a lot of classical music.

 

As an audiophile and collector you cannot beat the feeling of tracking down and buying a copy of an LP CD SACD 12" single etc. Owning a physical collection is a massive part of the experience. I do not think I would ever totally rely on streaming for my music although there is a place for streaming in the 21st century (until the next big thing comes along- downloading music directly to your brain...) Of course every technical innovation has its disadvantages- If the internet goes down then you're fecked. Folks should look to history to see the future. All those who rushed to offload large vinyl collections then later regretted it. I see a pattern emerging. Why do we have to "take sides"? It's not a binary choice- we can easily live happily within a mixed audiophile world owning a music collection that extends across all formats without dissing folks for their choices!

 

My player is SACD-capable, yet I don't own any.

 

U heard of dutton vocalion?

They have lots of sacd. Me i prefer Rock but theve got lots of classical n easy listening on stereo n surround sacd

 

The whole “if the internet goes down you’re screwed” argument is pretty weak. How many times a year does people's internet really go down when they want to listen to music? And it’s pretty easy to cast it from your phone via Airplay or Bluetooth for the couple of hours that internet might be down.

 

I don’t know if I am younger, but I am a 39 year old millenial. I got on the SACD train when the Bob Dylan SACD box came out back in 2003. After the format nearly died, I didn’t continue looking for them, but have been buying them steadily from the audiophile labels since getting into hifi about 10 years ago

 

All depends where you live! Not everyone lives in the city, many live in rural areas with less than perfect services!