You know, I do like SACD's, and I am glad they are still a device for surround music delivery to this day, but in reflecting back to 1999, I have to think about how the HiRez and surround market would have played out had Sony stayed with the DVD Forum group, got behind DVD-Audio, the European Hack never happened, allowing ALL DVD players manufactured from the beginning to play the DVD-A layer, and the entire industry got behind the format, including an aggressive push to get CD/DVD-A players installed in most 2000+ model year cars from Detroit and around the world. (Cars were the key to surround mass appeal, but that did not happen. Even the ELS system didn't arrive until 2004, about when the whole thing was imploding)
There's a lot to say about having a single format.
We all know how it all played out. Still, the major thing that annoys me about Sony and SACD (other than what's stated above) is that the SACD was in fact the
perfect "Dual Disc" already, and in early 2004 had Sony put the pedal to the metal and blasted out a large barrage of pop/rock/hiphop SACDs instead of getting their feet wet with the utterly crappy DualDisc, the SACD might have had a shot to become what they wanted it to become.
So here's to SACD. The survivor.