John Smyth: >. . . SACDs give one almost the whole soundwave in numbers, rather than >1 out of every 4 numbers, or bits, as the CD does. I finally understand >what vinyl enthusiasts have been lamenting about for the last 20 years. >But I don't intend to sell my entire CD collection. No one has to. 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. Really? My ears must not be as sensitive as yours or perhaps I don't care about the difference. I *have* heard SACDs, but it never seemed worth plunging in, although I certainly don't begrudge audiophiles. For me, *all* electronically-reproduced sound is a representation of, rather than an identity with, reality. Perhaps I've just become accustomed to a particular approximation. >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? Need you ask? Of course there was, and not just in obscure Modern and Avant-garde music, either. >We have competing recordings of 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th-rate composers >and the posthumous torsos of Cui, completed by.... You get the idea. Well, I'm sorry, this is specious. There's a lot of first-rate music that hasn't been released, although we'd probably disagree on whether it's first-rate or not. However, there are also some grand performances of first-rate composers that have never seen commercial CD. >. . . 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. It's certainly more than that, but it's also a way to squeeze money. On the other hand, as I've said, is this really a significant technological advancement? After all, more bits = more information hardly counts as news (remember beta?), and, as I've suggested, the improvement may not be worth the *present* cost. Steve Schwartz