John Smyth asks me:

>Is the cost of an SACD really that outrageous?

No, it's the cost of 5000 of them to "replace" material I already have
that's perfectly adequate to my needs.

>While one can live with Lp's and CDs because both do different things
>very well

I don't think LPs did anything well.  They got dirty, they could easily
be damaged, they wore out, they took up a lot of space.  And compared
to the sound I heard in the concert hall, they left a lot to be desired,
especially when the music got big.

>living with the two new formats, CD and SACD, in which the later beats
>the former in every way *is* kinda weird, and it took me a long time to
>stop being irrational and just do it, as SACDs give one almost the whole
>soundwave in numbers, rather than 1 out of every 4 numbers, or bits, as
>the CD does.

I'm not going to to try to argue you out of your apparent misunderstandings
about digital recording.  There is a theorem, extremely well understood
in practice, about just how many bits are necessary to perfectly reconstruct
an analog signal of a given bandwidth.  As I said in my original posting,
the additional resolution and S/N ratio that SACD apparently provides
is "in the noise" for me, compared to the differences I routinely encounter
in halls and orchestras.

>If you like large-scale orchestral music, and have a stereo system
>@$1000+, set up correctly in for stereo or surround, and you listen to
>music as an event, (you sit in a chair triangulated with your speakers),
>you'll hear a difference.

I'm sure I'll hear a difference.  I'm saying that difference has little
value to me.

>It is the obsolescence of CDs that has caused me to actually *buy*
>music again.  Was there really much left to buy in the old format?
>We have competing recordings of 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th-rate composers
>and the posthumous torsos of Cui, completed by....  You get the idea.

There's no accounting for taste, is there?  But calling the CD obsolete
is, I believe, premature, and dissing the availability of a huge amount
of worthwhile music is beyond my comprehension.  Yes, there really is a
great deal "left to buy in the old format".

>But please--and I direct this to all dissenters--don't call the
>introduction of *one* technological advancement in 20+ years nothing
>more than a devious way to squeeze money out of people.  This is silly.

I didn't say that.  I said I don't expect to participate in this
"revolution", and I gave *my* reasons.

len.