I've been an avid DVD-A supporter ever since getting Beethoven's 5th on multichannel DVDA and being completly blown away by the presence, soundstage, and realism to what I was listening to. Since then I have found a number of great DVD-A mixes (not to be confused with DTS-CD or DTS-DVD...which for some reason don't quite appeal to me as much).

My reccomendations are:

Beethoven Symphonies, conducted by Daniel Baremboim under the Teldec label. Wonderfull classical music.

Blue Man Group: Audio. I cant realy classify this music...it's an infectious groove that will max out the sub in points.

Pat Metheny Group: Imaginary Day...huge stylistic differance between pieces (some flamenco, some techno, some light "acid jazz". But overall a very satisfying multichannel experiance.

Phillip Glass: Koyanasquissi..Very unique music...The organ is what sold me on it. There is a very solid sound stage and a great depth to the choral voices. The music is an aquired taste, but the sound is amazing.

SACD, on the other hand has been a mixed bag. I only have five SACD recordings, and I've only been floored by one of them. The three that I have which I"m rather unimpressed with are Harry Connic Jr: We are in Love, Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain, Miles Davis: Kind of blue, Bernard Herman: The Film Scores. I've done head to head listening tests to the Miles Davis recordings, and the HCJ recording and cant hear a whole lot of differance between SACD and the CD's. The SACD's have a little better dynamics, but that's it.

Now the one SACD that I do have that (to me) lives up to what I'm hearing in those DVD-A recordings, is Mahler 1, performed by the SF Symphony Orchestra. It's blown me away with the detail, clarity, and "you are there" feeling.

The funny thing to this DVD-A/SACD format war is that DVD-A's are compatable with current hardware. Most of the DVD-A's that I have also have the Dolby Digital track, and can be used with any DVD player that has the DD decoder. SACD players must have an SACD player to operate on...meaning consumers need to make the equipment upgrade.

Jason