OK, I'm pretty happy with the new player (the denon 2900/b-stock), but I discovered finding good titles is hard. I found sa-cd.net as a place to find reviews etc. Any other good sites to find reviews? Any good bricks & mortar stores in the austin tx area for sa/dvd-a? Fry's has a few & so did borders. I haven't tried anywhere else yet.

I was really disappointed with a sony classics I got of Carmina Burana. They took a 1960 recording & put it on sa. Shame on me for not looking closer at the label. I kept hearing a background noise like hiss on the recording. That's when I took a closer look at the label. The sa did a great job of reproducing the noise floor of the master tape. I was amazed sony had the balls to sell this on sa. I'm going to try to avoid this in the future if I can by reading the label carefully & trying to get a review before I buy.

mike

This idea is a part of my disappointment too. In my reading before purchasing a player, it seemed I was lagging behind, missing out on some great audio on SACD/DVD-A. Once I had my player connected, I went looking for material. I think the field is rather ‘thin.’

If you're adventurous, try some of the offerings of AIX records and Chesky records. These two companies are truly utilizing the formats.

Hey Stabie, like you I'm new to the DVD-A and SACD party. For reviews try http://www.highfidelityreview.com/reviews/dvdaudio.asp?offset=25 they have been pretty accurate so far.
The local C.C. and Bestbuy have next to nothing so I've been buying everything online try http://www.dvdpricesearch.com/ and in the search field type in DVD-A or SACD and they will list all selections as well as the best prices. Good luck and if you come across any good titles pass them on to the rest of us.

I would try to find titles in the genre that you like to listen to the most. If you don't like jazz, there's no way you're going to like a hi-res jazz recording no matter how wonderful it sounds. Here are some titles in my collection that I currently enjoy:

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
It's fun to listen to as the surround effects are pretty cool. Also some really good bass on this album. Musically, well, you can decide that one.

Joni Mitchell: Time*Sex*Love
For general female vocal rock stuff, sounds great.

Anything by Louis Armstrong
I only have one album right now, but "Pops" is the man no matter what material he's on.

Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops:
I think the album is called "Swing".
The John Pizzarelli tracks on this album really stand out.

Hope that helps for a start. I'm a general music fan so my tastes run the gamut. Please post any you find that you like.

There are several types of surround material. I can understand that, if you bought an SACD and found that it was only a stereo recording you'd be disappointed. (For example, the recent Sam Cooke reissues are mainly 2.0 except for the "Live at the Copa" SACD which is 5.1.) One type of 5.1 recording has "discrete" channel information like "Dark Side" or Beck or James Taylor (October Road). Musical information comes from a specific speaker. The "Dr. Chesky Amazing Sound Show" is an interesting example of this type, too. Another type yields "space" like what you'd hear in a concert hall. The Telarc orchestral SACDs illustrate this type. IMHO, you can't go wrong with Steely Dan/Donald Fagin recordings...he/they recorded them orignally at a high level so their music translates well to SACD/DVD-A.

I read "The Absolute Sound" journal which has descriptive, valid reviews of "high-end" recordings.

Jay