A few years ago a battle of the gauges began, to see what kind of CD, if any, would replace the regular CD, for playing music.

And the winner is: Hybrid SACD.

This is a Super Audio Compact Disc, which means that it will sound even sexier than a regular Compact Disc, provided that you have a zillion quids worth of SAS (Super Audio Stuff) to play it on, but which, being also "hybrid", will in the meantime play on a regular old coal-powered CD player such as I still have, and will go on having for the foreseeable future until the price of the new kit drops enough (see below).

Hybrid SACD is a format developed by Philips and Sony and combines a SACD (ie physically a DVD layer) with a CD layer.

Both layers are read from the same side, which means that the SACD layer must be reflective for the red laser but will transmit the infra red CD laser. Such discs can then be played on both a CD player (which will read the CD layer) and a SACD player.

The original idea may have been to get us all to replace our old CDs, the way we replaced our old gramophone records and cassettes, and what is more go back to buying CDs at "full price" instead of for a fiver or less. But that won't happen. The great CD bonanza of the eighties is not going to be repeated. CDs are okay.

On the other hand, if they want to sell me a Hybrid SACD for the same price as I now pay for a regular CD, to play on a machine which I don't yet have, but in due course will have because it has become as cheap as a regular CD player (see above), well, then, okay.

But if they think that all of us who love, e.g., the Elgar Violin Concerto are going to rush out and buy Hilary Hahn's new DGG version of it, just because it is a Hybrid SACD, and pay DGG an extra tenner for the privilege, despite the fact that the reviewers say it is boring, they will have to think again. A few may splash out on the new format. See the Karajan Beethoven below, which was recorded in 1963! But not enough to rescue business-as-usual.

This is a photo (click to get it more legible) of a New Formats classical music flier that came with a DVD I bought recently of Lang Lang at Carnegie Hall. (Worth a go second hand at £6. Not worth remotely the full asking price, from what I hear.)

This is not a new world. It's just the next bit of what really is business as usual, concerning which more anon.

The most interesting thing about Hybrid SACD is probably the re-design of the plastic case which they are using to flag up which is regular CD and which is Hybrid SACD, concerning which more anon also.