As I read this thread again, I couldn't help but wonder if any of the above opinions have changed in 1/2 a year, and, if so, how.

From the beginning of the release of Hi-Rez, MC discs, I've marveled at the lobbing of grenades from one side of the format nuetral zone to the other. From the wordlength/sampling rate discussions to the nonsense that EQ is all that's required to 'make people think there is improvement'.

It's simple...6 full range channels have multitudes more headroom than 2. Less information in each channel leads to cleaner reproduction from the source to the speaker.

SACD's advantage is an obvious one. A 1-bit system is easily converted to any format, existing or future. DVD-A's 24/96,192 system is a math nightmare to convert. That's why SACD has hybrid discs that play on any CD player and DVD-A doesn't.

If it was as simple as an EQ tweak to make any recording 'sound better', then surely those tweaks would have been implemented with the CD format years ago. The truth is, there are virtually no production tweaks that haven't been tried and certainly no yet-to-be-invented hardware that hasn't been built, bought and used to 'improve' the sound of a CD.

Hi-Rez, MC formats allow more information through with headroom to spare. They reduce intermod distortion. If the bass is 'cooked', it's because the format allows for it, not to 'trick' you into thinking it sounds better.

The CD process 'tosses' information from the originally peak-limited, compressed master to get the information under the format's headroom wire. Hi-Rez, MC formats have rendered the peak-limiter a dinosaur.

Though I know it's a cost-effective move to rehash 30 year old tapes that have been rotting on some shelf, it annoys the hell out of me. I like the fact that SACD has more titles that were written and produced for the format...they sound better, and offer more of what the format is capable of.

Be all as it may, I have recently purchased the Denon 5900 player. Long live BOTH formats and those to come.

CD (or as we who vehemently fought 16 bit digital drummers, samplers, midi keyboards and the rest of the "age of the cruel" referred to it for years, Corrupted Decimation) has had it's run as the cheap version of stereo.

Next time, I'll say what I REALLY think