SACDs/DVD-As becoming rarer than hen's teeth???

Looks like it's getting harder to find places, even on-line, to purchase SACD or DVD-A titles. Some titles of well-known classical works are now running between $100-$300 used on Amazon.

Does anyone even produce and sell SACD / DVD-A recordings anymore? I'm not aware of any music-only Blu-rays that use DTS-MA or Dolby TrueHD to get lossless, high-quality multichannel audio.

I have an HTPC that can bitstream full HDMI 7.1 audio, so I have the "hardware" piece if someone starts selling 7.1 digital downloads. But everything over at HDtracks today is 2-channel stereo, either 44.1/16 or 96/24. Not to mention that downloading ~8GB of data for a high-definition multi-channel album would be a drag...

What's one to do if you crave full CD quality audio (or better) in 5.1/7.1?

EDIT: Correction to original post. I meant Dolby TrueHD, not Dolby Digital EX.
Edited by Colin Dunn - 2/8/12 at 1:35pm

Looks like both Naxos and Telarc have stopped producing SACDs; they both stopped around 2006-2007. Likewise for Sony.

Anyone producing SACDs at all left?

UGH, this is what I'm afraid of. The industry appears to have gone backwards in technology, and SACDs / DVD-As are becoming expensive collectors' items. I used to be able to snag them for $15 a pop just a few years ago. Wish I'd known to buy out the whole store...

Just got in a bunch of multi-channel SACDs last night. I made sure to get Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" on 5.1 SACD. Both sounded better than their respective stereo mixes.

In particular, with the Dire Straits, I could hear a lot more layered things going on in the multi-channel mix - voices and instruments were separated into a 3-D space. This was quite different from how I remembered this album from the '80s.

Most of the other stuff I ordered was classical. In particular, I listened to a Pentatone 4.0 SACD of Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony and the Nutcracker Suite. This recording was originally made in 1974 with intentions to master onto quadraphonic vinyl or tape. The original 4-channel mix was transferred to DSD with a minimum of additional processing. The result was a very realistic-sounding recording, with no gimmickry, that belies its age. I'll definitely be acquiring more of these Pentatone SACDs as budgets permit.

Haven't tried any MoFi releases yet. I'm pretty selective if asked to pay $30 a pop for single albums.

Since Pentatone bought rights to old Philips quad recordings to issue on SACD, I wonder why there's not a similar effort going on for pop, jazz, and classic rock titles. If the big labels don't see a market in releasing multi-channel SACDs, why don't they license their old quad masters to niche companies and let them sell the SACDs? As it is I'm tempted to acquire some stuff for quad vinyl playback (SQ, QS, and CD-4 decoders) to increase my options.

EDIT: Oh, and it looks like all those MoFi SACDs are stereo only, not multichannel.

Phil -

Unfortunately, I don't think HDtracks is selling multichannel releases, just high-bit-rate stereo. For my ears and setup, I think multichannel does more for the sound quality than pushing the bit rates above 48/24.