By far, this is my favorite topic for music format discussions.
At the moment, option number one leads your poll by a wide margin. I'd argue that, as much as I hate to admit it, I don't believe that the format matters. The DVD-A and SACD formats want for nothing when a well mastered multi-channel disc is paired with good speakers.
I have quite a number of both DVD-A and SACD discs, and I'm of the same mind concerning the Floyd Immersion discs. Just give me the opportunity to buy the multi-channel disc, and keep the rest, thanks.
The problem is that, as the major studios/publishers discovered, the market doesn't care enough. Some years ago I read articles that cited something like Soundscan sales results which indicated that multi-channel discs accounted for an infinitesimally small portion of total unit sales.
The typical explanation is along the lines of "times have changed. Nobody wants to stop and sit in one place listen to an album from start to finish now like they did before."
I've got everything from Steely Dan to Porcupine Tree, Queen to Beck, The Beatles to Robert Cray, and wish that I'd bought every disc that I'd hummed and hawed over in the stores when those discs were much more readily available. Asking prices for many of those discs, sold as "new", are now astronomical.
I find the whole thing very disappointing, because new discs from major artists are very rare, and when they do produce them, we "fans" get gouged with needless marketing fluff like the Immersion packages. Just sell the damn disc, will you? And there's no reason to ask three times (or more!) the price of the stereo CD for it either, by the way.
Maybe the rate of adoption of multi-channel recordings if the hardware manufacturers hadn't engaged in rampant profiteering. Seriously, most of the players that handle the formats were sold in the several hundred dollar price range. I bought mine for $150, and it works wonderfully, thank you very much Pioneer.
Now, we all have a second chance, as (now) affordable blu-ray players that easily handle hi-res multi-channel audio have been widely adopted. Now give us the software, and unlike the DVD-A/SACD disaster, let's keep this ball rolling this time.
