Hiya,
You are incorrect on a few things in regards of SACD. I own and use both DVD-A and SACD and I can tell you right now that SACD is the better of the two formats.
Not exactly sure where I stand to be corrected with regard to SACD. Just to clarify, SACD content will not play on anything that is not SACD compatible, and therefore has the SACD logo on it. Hybrid discs will be compatible with standard CD players, but then, you are not playing the SACD disc - you are playing the standard CD Audio layer, which will offer no benefit over existing CD audio discs.
The biggest reason why SACD is better is due to the fact that the audio bitrate stream on SACD is higher than the one found on DVD-A
But SACD also introduces a higher level of noise at higher frequencies. DVD-A is capable of upto 96khz / 24bit 6 channel sound (with lossless compression), or stereo rates of 192khz, with a frequency range of 5-96khz. SACD is marginally better yes, with a frequency range of 2-100khz (but alleged noise introduction due to the DSD technology at higher frequencies) DVD-Audios discs usually also provide a Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 mix allowing playback on a conventional DVD Video player - in digital format. SACD (And DVD-A high resolution) only allow Analogue output, because of copyright paranoia, so at least there is a digital output on the DVD Video portion of the DVD-Audio disc.
plus the fact that SACD is strictly dedicated to audio only.
But is that 'better' than DVD-Audio? Some, if not all DVD Audio players have an 'Audio Only' mode, which bypasses all video circuitry anyway, but at least you have the option of navigation menus and video content - something that isn't available on SACD... To say that something has 'less features, so it's better' isn't quite accurate.
Plus the fact that SACD is capable of allowing both the standard CD plus SACD versions on one disc (the new Rolling Stones remasters for instance are hybrid CD/SACD discs).
And as I've said, current DVD-A discs also include Dolby Digital / DTS versions allowing playback on DVD Video players - available for as little as £59 (Around $100) What's the cheapest SACD player again? I'll agree to disagree. Best regards, J.