Post by terence August 6, 2014 (1 of 69)
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So Blu-Ray, but no SACD. Hmm....
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Post by fausto K August 6, 2014 (2 of 69)
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terence said:
So Blu-Ray, but no SACD. Hmm....
shame, as the performances are pretty damn good.
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Post by krisjan August 6, 2014 (3 of 69)
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It's a pity that this isn't available on SACD. I am usually a fan of Chailly's conducting (his Brahms piano concertos with Friere are excellent mostly because of Chailly's conducting). I am not equipped to play Blu ray on my music system - only the home theater which has crappy sound.
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Post by wehecht August 6, 2014 (4 of 69)
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I'm reluctantly coming around to the idea that I may have to add blu ray capability to my music system, but I won't be parting with any money for Universal's stereo only products. No indication here about whether this new set has multichannel or not, but most of the blu rays that Universal has released have been stereo only retreads of earlier stereo/mc sacds. Nuts.
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Post by Fugue August 6, 2014 (5 of 69)
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I've been patiently waiting for Helene Grimaud "Resonances" to appear on Blu-ray, but after connecting my Sony 5400ES SACD player via XLR, 2-channel RBCD sounds great, so I just purchased that version. The only other 2-channel Blu-ray I own is Karajan's Mahler 5th, which sounds only slightly better than the RBCD, and some of that might even be attributed to today's better mastering technology. So, all in all, I approach Blu-ray audio with caution!
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Post by terence August 6, 2014 (6 of 69)
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I have both Blu-Ray and SACD. The problem is that my SACD player is way better than the Blu-Ray machine, so I can't really get equivalent results with my current set-up.
Does anybody have a recommendation for a really good Blu-Ray player, which I imagine is going to cost well in excess of £1000 if it's to match my SACD output?
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Post by Claude August 7, 2014 (7 of 69)
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I have less than 20 BD-A discs, and I've chosen not to play them in a Blu-ray player (although my Oppo 93 is not so bad) but to rip them on my PC and convert them to hi-rez files, that I play just like downloads. Stereo only.
The main reason for this is that I have a good DAC, but Blu-ray players cannot output more than 24/48 resolution through S/PDIF (for copyprotection reasons). So ripping the discs is the only way to hear the full resolution from BD-A on my system, using my DAC.
I think it's too early to invest into a high end Blu-ray player for music listening alone, given the uncertain future of the BD-A format.
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Post by Claude August 7, 2014 (8 of 69)
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Fugue said:
I've been patiently waiting for Helene Grimaud "Resonances" to appear on Blu-ray, but after connecting my Sony 5400ES SACD player via XLR, 2-channel RBCD sounds great, so I just purchased that version.
The only other 2-channel Blu-ray I own is Karajan's Mahler 5th, which sounds only slightly better than the RBCD, and some of that might even be attributed to today's better mastering technology. So, all in all, I approach Blu-ray audio with caution!
That's also my experience with the Mahler disc. I suppose they reused the 24/96 transfers from the early 2000's, which are not state of the art in terms of transfer quality. The same is true for many 24/96 downloads of Universal Classics analogue material.
BTW, the Grimaud "Resonances" album is available as a 24/96 download.
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Post by AmonRa August 7, 2014 (9 of 69)
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terence said:
I have both Blu-Ray and SACD. The problem is that my SACD player is way better than the Blu-Ray machine, so I can't really get equivalent results with my current set-up.
Does anybody have a recommendation for a really good Blu-Ray player, which I imagine is going to cost well in excess of £1000 if it's to match my SACD output?
If you use HDMI to send the signal to the pre-pro, there should/can not be any sound quality difference between players, not even between your present ones. Are you not using HDMI? Even the cheapest Blu-Ray players are perfect via HDMI (unless they have inter-track clicks).
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AmonRa said:
If you use HDMI to send the signal to the pre-pro, there should/can not be any sound quality difference between players, not even between your present ones. Are you not using HDMI? Even the cheapest Blu-Ray players are perfect via HDMI (unless they have inter-track clicks).
Not necessarily. There is the jitter thing, which is supposed to introduce fairly high levels of jitter with HDMI with potential audible consequences. I have seen reputable evidence that it is still a potential measurable and audible problem in this day and age, though I have been a HDMI Mch guy for quite a few years.
Different players and different processors might be more or less susceptible to the inherent jitter of HDMI. So, I think HDMI can be good, and it is often the only way to achieve Mch playback, which can be very good and easily worthwhile in spite of jitter issues, but I doubt HDMI is "perfect".
Asynchronous USB on paper seems it might be a virtually jitter free interconnection scheme, though players, AVRs and prepros do not support it in Mch, as it is not copy protected like HDMI. Downloads, etc. from PCs into asynchronous DACS can make use of this advanced interconnection scheme via DSD over PCM (DoP), various ASIO interfaces or native PCM.
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