Dave's review of the current situation re multichannel & new formats
is comprehensive and helpful in making some sense of the very confusing
situation.  But what it mainly does for me is to reinforce my decision to
stay on the sidelines and stick with CD (and, yes, LP) for now.  I should
shell out several thou to go multichannel/SACD/whatever just so I can then
go out and buy new versions of The Four Seasons and The Planets? I don't
think so.  Fortunately, when I feel the need to experience music with
convincing hall ambience I can visit Davies or Herbst or, occasionally,
Wigmore Hall and get a dose of the Real Thing.  And my film tastes are
antediluvian -- His Girl Friday and The Maltese Falcon are woefully short
on explosions -- so the home theatre experience doesn't tempt me either.

I am only likely to consider a new format if and when it clearly threatens
to sweep CD away, as CD did to the LP.  Right now, the only real threat to
supercede CD is not SACD or DVD-audio but, frighteningly, MP3 -- not a high
fidelity medium at all!

By the way, I concur with Dave's point that addition of a subwoofer can
surprisingly enhance the sonic quality of classical music, *if properly
set up*.  Most sub systems I've heard (including mine for many frustrating
months) have not been.  There is also the drawback of bringing to light low
frequency garbage missed or ignored by the recording engineers.  Some of
the Scott Ross Scalatti sonatas, for instance, have near-nausea-inducing
thumping noises; and of course there are the beloved subsonic rumblings of
the Piccadilly & Central Line underground trains on many great Decca & EMI
recordings from Kingsway Hall (Weller's Prokofiev 6th, for instance).

Art Scott
Livermore, Cal.