Kurtis Bahr wrote:
In my feeling after initially purchasing a lot of the Sony SACD's I found
that it seems that SONY took the multi-generational masters and made SACD's
from them. They did not go back to the original masters and start carefully
with SACD from scratch.

And you know this for a fact in which instances?

Sony also did a lot of cheesy surround effects that
were poor. I quit buying any SONY SACD's. Now there are other companies,
Mobile Fidelity, Chesky, and others that are doing SACD correct and it
sounds good.

Also, if you are using you $200 Sony DVD/SACD players the quality of the
electronics in the box kill all the sonic advantages of SACD.

Any demonstrated examples of this?

Cheap low
cost parts and noisy power supplies. With a quality player a difference can
be heard.

Which players would demonstrate this in a blind, level matched, time-synched
comparison?

So; If you have an audiophile system the difference is there if the
recording was done correctly. If you are using the average consumer
equipment then SACD differences may not be heard. You will still hear how a
good company like Mobile Fidelity, etc start with better original master
tapes and take more care in mastering as even their stereo CD's are better
than anything Sony puts out.

As it happens Mofi did not always use the original masters, and they were
not averse to applying a dollop of eq to their releases , such that some of them
probably sound different from the sources.