Kalman Rubinson's explanation of the problems playing hybrid SACDs.

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As you note, there are issues of compatibility due to the rapid advance
of technologies and a lack of backward compatibility with older
hardware.  The physical layer used by SACD is the same as that used by
DVD (and DVD-A) but older DVD drives (stand-alone and in PCs) will not
be able to read this.  Nonetheless, these older drives will default to
the (unreadable) DVD layer and never get to the CD layer on hybrid
SACDs.  Hybrid SACDs are unreadable in my old DVD drive but run fine in
the CD-ROM drive of the same machine since the CD-ROM drive ignores the
SACD/DVD layer.  The same holds true for home machines as I have old(er)
DVD and DVD-A machines with the same problem and newer ones without it.

The DSOTM and Rolling Stones SACDs are just fine on regular CD players,
CD-ROM drives, SACD players and the newer DVD drives (stand-alone or PC)
I tried.  Only older DVD drives were sometimes a problem.  People who
report these difficulties need to be more specific about the equipment.

Kalman Rubinson
Stereophile Magazine