In reply to:
DVD-A will play in a dvd player, but not a cd player.
Is this true for ALL DVD-Audio discs? I'm not sure... I thought that som were DVD-Video player-capable and some were not?
Remember that for the ones that DO play in a "standard, video DVD player" it won't be with the higher-resolution tracks. Those discs have more than one set of tracks encoded and you have to play the disc in a DVD-Audio capable player to hear the highest resolution tracks.
I agree with Spiffnme that some of the DVD-Audio openings and menus are a P.I.A. Many will just default to "play" after several seconds of hearing logos swish around, etc... but some require a TV to be on to select something in a menu. It's like they were authored by "DVD" people instead of "audio" people who assumed that you'll want to turn on your monitor when playing a music disc.
I haven't heard any differences between the two to have a preference in that regard. It seems to me that DVD-A has more "pop" recordings in general and SACD has a slightly "deeper" catalog of music types. In general, I've chosen discs based upon musician, not format.
Be aware that some discs sound hugely better than their original releases (such as Yes' "Fragile", an amazing quality rerelease), others only marginally so . Some are simply stereo, others use the surround format. Some are worth replacing a CD you currently own, some probably not. Unfortunately, I haven't found a definitive website that offers reviews of the hi-rez releases ("yes, this one sounds so much better after being remastered for SACD"), but rather only reviews of the "album" itself.
A good online source of discs is
http://store.acousticsounds.com/
