If they die, it will be from th manufacturers'i own lack of good sense. DVD-As often/usually need a monitor to navigate - comparred to CD's this is distinctly non-user friendly. Sony won't allow digital output of SACDs and refuses to build a universal player under their own name.

Only SACD sufferes from lack of copatible players. Nearly any home with a TV has a DVD player. DVD-A have DD5.1 and/or DTS tracks as well.

I have found it very hard(impossible, actually) to tell any difference between the DVD-A track and the alterate DD-5.1/DTS tracks. In fact after, doing some listening, I decided not to bother buying a DVD-A player because the results were just as good (very good) listening to the alternate tracks. My impesssion is the DVD-A industry plays down the DD-5.1 alternate track (presumably to encourage salles of new machines) to the extent that many people are unaware they already have playback capability in their DVD player. This certainly can't help media sales. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Before, SACD and DVD-A appeared there were DTS CD. These were (are if you can find one) very good although usually, except when the producers were having trouble with the aesthetic issues of multi-track presentation. (Much like early stereo LP, ans early CD issues had problems because the nuances of the new process were not yet understood well.) DTS CD were 24 bits with a high sample rate and played on existing equipment. They were a logical, cost effective way to get higher resolution and multichannels, but DTS the company wasn't up to the marketing task. The BS about "lossey compression" hurt them in the audiophile world desopite IMO it haveing no detrimental effect (except in some mind). Too bad. If they could have been as clever as Dolby in cassette days and got everybody to licence and use a common technology, we wouldn't be faced with the possibledeath hi-def multi-track music.