As far as I can see on amazon.com and other places, DVD-Audio and SACD are far from coming to age when it comes to classical music. Yes there are some titles released, but many seem almost like an "experimental" recording with relatively obscure artists. Even those few titles with reputable artists tend not to be one of the artist's best performances. Selection seems so restricted that you have to buy them for the sake of experiencing a native surround-sound recording, rather than to enjoy your favorite artists' musical interpretation and performance. I am not one of those "audiophile" people who are more interested in improving the sound quality of one's equipment than the contents of the music itself. Rather, I am one of those wacky folks who opens and follows the orchestral full score while listening to symphonies. LOL
John, I just recently did that in one of my local hi-fi/HT stores. The 5.1 system seemed to be well calibrated. Unfortunately, however, I did not like the speakers (Infinities) they happened to demo in that room at all. But still I did very much enjoy one of my favorite recordings of Mahler's #8 "Symphony for one thousand" (a Denon recording with Eliafu Inbal conducting Frankfurt Radio Symphony). That experience certainly reinforced my motivation to go for a 5.1 system.
That said, of course my (our
) major reason for 5.1 is movies! Also, I have a rather large collection of classical music video DVDs and LDs, some of which are truly outstanding.
I plan to buy a front projector as well in the near future. (now talk about WAF and KAF...
)
