I don't have a player compatable with these formats nor do I own and of these formats. I'm quite happy with the CDs and vinyl that I own. Am I missing out on something? Does it really add realism to the music like 5.1 did to movies/films. I really enjoy the imaging and lifeliek soundstage from my two channels.
I think the major benefit of SACD and DVD-A are the surround capabilities. This is especially true or antiphonal programs.
The Britten War Requiem under Rilling has a good deal of the whole program from the rear backs. The children's chorus is at the back, at the back and the parts involving the music of the WW1 poets. The Latin mass from the front with the main Orchestra. I actually own quite a lot of antiphonal music on SACD.
However you put your finger on the problem, it requires a special player to play them. The next issue is that SACD is very difficult to set up for optimal results. This stems from the fact that SACD is not PCM based but uses Direct Stream Digital (DSD).
Set up and decoding issues are most confused areas in SACD. Few people have it straight, and the players manuals are dishonest.
First no consumer products can perform any processing within DSD other than decoding.
No bass management and no delay or channel balancing, only volume.
If your receiver or prepro has no DSD decoder, and most don't, then the player must convert from DSD to PCM before sending the signal via HDMI.
If your pre pro or receiver has a DSD decoder, then HDMI 1.3 will support sending DSD to the processor via HDMI.
However if the receiver or pre pro does not convert DSD to PCM, there is still no bass management, delay or LFE ouput, or output of any kind to the sub. Also after PCM conversion and decode, the surround signal is sent to wrong speakers. So the whole issue is a mess. By wrong channels I mean that the rear channels are sent to the surrounds and not the rear backs as they should be for SACD. SACD has a different speaker mastering layout from Dolby 5,1.
To top it off many SACD players do not output at all from the DSD decoder, but always do a PCM conversion, but this is not admitted to in the manual.
I have no experience with DVD A as this never had any significant penetration among classical companies.
AES are making a heavy push to phase out SACD and DVD-A. I agree with that. They have a lot of educational materials and on line videos to members to assist the switch to audio only BD as a replacement.