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VariableLoudness said:
I NEED that carousel action, at least from time to time, to quench my insatiable A.D.D. musical addiction. ;-) Honestly, I RARELY listen to one disc straight through as I am not a big classical music fan. I am more of "random mode" rock/progressive/fusion/electronic music kind of guy.
Funny, until not so long ago I did not take much interest in classical music either and also considered myself more of a pop/electronic/dance music guy (an addicted collector, arguably with attention deficit) but that never once gave me the urge to have a CD changer. All my CD players are single decks.
ETA: I never feel the need to have or use Shuffle (random play) either. As much as I like variation, I like to control exactly what music I listen to most of the time. That's why I rarely listen to radio and love to have a large music collection to dig into instead.
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This is really quite a good forum. VERY nice people and great, straight forward information. Would you all please let me ask just a few more concise questions with the addition of just a comment or two?
1) Thank you for the common sense, conservative notion, not to pop for the Oppo. In a perfect world I would already have it, but I really got to watch my spending more so than my DVDs.
2) Thanks for clarifying the fact that the old 5.1 system in the closet won't work. I didn't think it would but it's good to know that better AVRs are available CHEAPER today than what I paid for that thing almost 20 years ago.
3) Do you think that the analog outputs from the back of my Sony SACD changer will sound as good (relatively speaking) as a HDMI connection? That's of course the biggest reason I was so drawn to the Oppo. I'm just trying to curb my obsessive reasoning. (or lack there of) ;-)
4) As far as the "Changer Mentality", I NEED variety. It bores me and somewhat irritates my self justified laziness to listen to a single disc selection when I could have 5 available without getting up to change a disc. I also enjoy the element of surprise. I'm a remote control kind of potato I guess. That's what I get for working 11 hours a day, five days a week. ;-)
5) You know, I have to state emphatically that I find it incredibly ridiculous that ALL blueray players don't include the SACD option with respect to play back capability. At very least those just "up" from the entry level players. The two go hand in hand with respect to basic HD audio. Industry people...me thinks (imagines) that basic greed is to blame via the SACD licensed insignia purchase.
6) Since I KNOW that basically anything digital can be copied and therefore downloaded, why didn't the industry simply avoid the download market altogether wherein the alteration of any commercially sold digital format itself were the crime? Via their too sure/quick footed marketing greed, it seems as though they have created a scenario where even they themselves can't tell the good guys from the bad. If they were smart and truly aware of what was going on in the market around them, they could have made up everything they have lost in retail sales by simply getting it upfront in agreement from corporations like Apple and Amazon.com. This would have meant that ANYTHING with respect to specific digital conversions (compression, etc.) had to have their stamp of prepurchased approval, wherein they themselves could have authored/controlled a variable digital signature to constitute playback on commercially available file conversion oriented playback devices.(iPod,etc)
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Post by sibelius2 December 19, 2009 (13 of 19)
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"Very nice people?" You haven't read the last dozen pages of the BIS thread, have you? Prepare to be shocked. Still, glad to be of service...
1) If you did not yet own either a SACD or BD player, then the Oppo would represent the best value on the market. But having said that, I cannot claim that it would perform signifcantly better than the gear you already own.
2) I, too, am amazed at how prices have fallen while quality has skyrocketed, even in just the last 5 years.
3) Sony invented DSD technology. Do not confuse the failed marketing strategies and poor decision-making by the bean counters at corporate HQ with the excellent work done by their engineers. In other words, the DSD-to-analog conversion in your Sony player is probably as good or better than anything else you'll find. You aren't losing any quality vs. an HDMI connection, it's just a matter of one digital cable being simpler to deal with than six analog cables.
4) I see disc changers as simply more moving parts to fail down the road, but you don't need to justify your preference to us here.
5) Indeed. Building on my point #3, Sony has no excuse for not making every BD player they sell offer SACD playback and DSD-over-HDMI, as well as having every receiver they make decode DSD-over-HDMI. They were in the perfect position to single-handedly create a SACD/MC-music renaissance, but instead chose to drop the ball.
6) For the full story on this issue, read the book Appetite for Self-Destruction by Steve Knopper.
The short version is: MP3 (and DVD and SACD) appeared on the scene at a time (late 90s) when record labels were being bought up by huge corporations, while at the same time unit sales and profits were the highest they'd ever been in the history of the industry. But the emperor had no clothes: all that cash was coming from the "boy band bubble," sales of CDs by N*SYNC and Britney Spears, et al, to preteens who did not have access (at the time) to advanced home computers. So while a college student might download a pirated MP3 or buy a R.E.M. CD and then burn 20 copies for everyone else in his dorm, a group of five preteen girls would walk into a record store and walk out with five copies of Backstreet Boys.
So the corporate suits (with no history in the record business) saw the huge profits in '99 and assumed 2000 would be even better if they just didn't change anything, and 2001 better still if they kept on not changing anything. The old-timers tried to tell them that the record business simply didn't work that way, and were shown the door for their efforts. Then some teenager living in his parents' basement invented Napster and the whole thing came crashing down. Record labels started treating their customers like criminals, while those same customers started refusing to pay $18 for an album on which they only liked one song. The bills came due on all those loans the corporations had to take out to buy up the record labels in the first place, while Apple stepped forward with their iPod and iTunes and suddenly 99-cents-a-song seemed like a fortune.
In this climate, it should come as no surprise that the biggest music release of the year was The Beatles getting reissued yet again.
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VariableLoudness said:
5) You know, I have to state emphatically that I find it incredibly ridiculous that ALL blueray players don't include the SACD option with respect to play back capability. At very least those just "up" from the entry level players. The two go hand in hand with respect to basic HD audio.
Well, the Oppo is an obvious example that goes against this but there are many more. See http://www.ps3sacd.com/sacd_bd_players.html
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Post by QuadESL63 December 19, 2009 (15 of 19)
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The Seventh Taylor said:
Well, the Oppo is an obvious example that goes against this but there are many more. See http://www.ps3sacd.com/sacd_bd_players.html
It looks like there are actually 2 sources of Blu-ray + SACD universal platforms: the Oppo's and the Denon's. The Marantz and McIntosh are most likely based on the two Denon models, where as the Lexicon and the Theta are rumored to be slightly modified Oppo BDP-83's. The 83SE has an upgraded power supply and new DAC board (w/ the Sabre^32 and Sabre Premium or something multi-channels DACs) but basically it is an Oppo 83. The Cambridge Audio one is rumored to be based on the (again, rumored) upcoming Oppo "BDP-80" universal player.
The ezGear one... no idea.
Only the launch PS3 (20GB + 60GB) and the first batch of 80GB can play SACD. However, all of them can play those "DSD" DVD-ROM/disc like the Sony 5400ES CD/SACD player.
If you want to send DSD or decoded hi-res LPCM via HDMI to your receiver the only solution readily available right now is the Oppo BDP-83. I don't think you can find a SACD capable PS3 SKU in store anymore. If you happened to settle with a Denon receiver with Denon Link 3 or above you can get one of the Denon Blu-ray universal players listed on that web page for SACD. None of the two can decode the DSD and send hi-res LPCM out via HDMI, I think, but both should have decent analog outputs. You will go outside of your price range for a Denon combo, though.
Failing that, just use the analog multichannels output from your Sony CD/SACD player, assuming it has one. The optical digital audio out on your Sony won't output anything on SACD/SACD layer on hybrid discs. Do find a receiver with analog multi-channels input and don't assume all receivers have one.
I have a big box store Denon AVR-989 which is quite decent, at least as a pre-pro in my setup. I think it is equivalent to the AVR-2809 someone has suggested. You may be able to find one in your price range because it is not in the current model line-up anymore (superseded by the big bix store model AVR-990 I believe). It has analog multi-channels input and can decode either DSD or hi-res LPCM on HDMI inputs. I'm pretty happy with what Audessey MultiEQ XT does on the Denon and I'm moving on to an Integra DHC 80.1 as my pre-pro. From what I have read Onkyo receivers will be good choices as well. Also, make sure the receiver you ended up with can decode audio on HDMI because some entry level receivers can only do HDMI video switching.
No, it is not pathetic ;) Have fun and enjoy!
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Post by jzpchen December 19, 2009 (16 of 19)
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I hope I am not throw people off track. For consumer (mass-market) AV Amps we need to set the right expectation. We need to be careful about its work horse inside. For example, I just checked AVR-989. It uses DSD-1608 for DSD. http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/dsd1608.html. The chip was built in 2002. It doesn't have DSD Direct, for example. To save cost, everything including all analog circuit and all old digital filters is on the chip for 8 channels. Don't even worry about good or bad opamp is used. Power supply, etc, et. I am not sure how much care goes into consumer AV Amps nowadays.
My friend has a DVD/SACD player. It uses the same DAC. You can certainly hear the extra channel but you cannot tell the difference between CD and SACD for sure. It is hard to tell between bad and good CD either.
You just cannot expect too much for those feature rich systems. You may like other features but do expect too much into audio quality. Especially not the stereo quality. For SACD player, OPPO appears to be better from what I read. I have an old PS3 that has SACD. It gives me nothing. My Onkyo 2 Channel CD/SACD is good. I guess it doesn't have much features. That's how I can justify this consumer component.
Right expectation is the key. Quality audio is never easy. I may sound a bit to generalize. I just want people to be careful. I hope good value gears are there.
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Post by QuadESL63 December 20, 2009 (17 of 19)
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jzpchen said:
Right expectation is the key.
Yes, I agree. But the OP has a budget and he has to start somewhere.
Not to mention it is not really that mediocre to start with, esp. if you are going all digital on the connections (HDMI + coax or file streaming from a PC available on some receivers/pre-pros). I wouldn't say I will junk my 2 channel system and live with the AVR 989 exclusively for everything including vinyls, etc. but I'm pretty happy with things like Audessey MultiEQ XT, etc. that I'm moving to a (hopefully better :) ) pre-pro for movies and multi-channels musics. Same for the Oppo: will I replace my SA-7S1 with the Oppo exclusively for analog 2 channels listening? No. However, I wouldn't say the Marantz (and from my fallible memories of EMM Labs & Cary SACD/CD players, for instance) is 10x better in this regards, and it is a bit more versatile than the Marantz for sure.
Yes, I'd love to have an EMM Labs multi-channels source + preamp too but like the OP I have to live with a budget (not that I could possibly afford the combo ;) ) and have a reasonable expectation.
May be the OP can start with an integrated amp to go with his Sony 5 discs SACD player, too, instead of a receiver. Something for him to think about.
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sibelius2 said:
6) For the full story on this issue, read the book Appetite for Self-Destruction by Steve Knopper.
The short version is:
...the short version is both fascinating and tragic. Me thinks I owe this book a read.
Here's what I did guys and so far, I am extremely happy.
I opted to keep the LG 390. So far so good. For 280.00 USD, plays VERY nice, albeit I am experiencing a few routine BD growing pain hurtles. Namely BD-Js lack of resume play post the stop command.
Q1) Is leaving the disc in pause on the screen going to hurt anything with respect to the LCD monitor? I wouldn't think so, but I'd rather ask those who know.
I went with the Pioneer VSX 1019AH-K. It gets pretty high marks as far as an entry level AVR from numerous sources. I carefully considered the Dennon 790 and the Yamaha 665. I must say that I am extremely happy with the choice I made. This receiver is absolutely the most capable thing I have ever had. Like something that was back engineered off a UFO or something. Tons and tons of digital encoded interpretive ability and it sounds absolutely amazing to boot. Very true or flat, coupled with enough power to accurately define the natural sound and imagery that the mastering engineers designed the audio source to consist of. Minus all that nasty artificial coloring that I have heard with cheap/er electronics in the past.
I want to to REALLY thank everyone for the help I received here. I am awestruck SHOCKED at how wonderful real multi channel SACD is! I have always wanted to have an old pristine American made 70s quad receiver/decoder with a super nice collection of M- Quad LPs. Just so I could enjoy the 4 channel mixes in all their original glory. I still remember having an 8 track version of ELP's Brain Salad Surgery, waiting 3-4 months for an opportunity to get over to my cousin's house at a family gathering, and begging my Uncle just so I could listen to the Quad musical delight on their big Quadraphonic wooden stereo console with it's two remote speakers. Complete with superb bass response. No doubt due to all that brown shag carpeting. ;-)
To sit and listen to that same album nearly 40 years later in 5.1 SACD is as mind blowing as it all was for me way back then.
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Post by sibelius2 December 21, 2009 (19 of 19)
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VariableLoudness said:
Q1) Is leaving the disc in pause on the screen going to hurt anything with respect to the LCD monitor?
You've probably already discovered this by accident, but I'm sure your player has a computer-like screen saver to protect your display.
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