When I first purchased my Marantz SA-8001 SACD player, I inquired of Marantz what the burn in time was. I experienced improvement with other components over time, and expected the same with this player. I was quite surprised with the response that for CD playback, the burn in time was 200 hours, but was a whopping 300 hours for SACD playback.

I noticed a decided improvement in CD playback as time progressed, but little in SACD since I had so few discs. Over the last year, I've purchased 37 SACD's, and devote my listening primarily to those recordings, especially my most recent purchases of all of Beethoven's symphonies on BIS, conducted by Osmo Vanska with the Minnesota Orchestra. Christoph Esenbach's recording of Tchaikovsky's 6th (the Pathetique) is another stunner.

I guess it's safe to say that I've surpassed that 300 hour mark, and spent a little time yesterday comparing the two layers on hybrid discs to see if there was much difference. In the past, I thought the SACD layer always sounded better, but sometimes that difference was just marginal. That's certainly not so now. I have to fully agree with Paul Blakemore of Telarc (actually Concord Music now) that, on a decent system, the CD layer on a hybrid disc "pales by comparison" to the SACD layer.

I've also found another website - sa-cd.net - consisting of listings of all available SACD's, and places to buy them, as well as a forum much like that here, except that each and every member is an avid supporter of the SACD medium. Some are even amongst those who have, and still do, detest the sound of CD's.

Still, despite the huge improvement the DSD-mastered SACD's bring to the sound of a symphony orchestra, unless other musical formats and artists start recording via this medium, its future doesn't bode well. I've said this before, and I feel even more strongly now saying it again, that's a crying shame.