BLU-RAY/SACD PLAYERS general query

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fizzywiggs41

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I have a Sony BD/SACD player which I'm afraid I must now replace .
Had it for six years now, but she's acting up .

So the only players I notice so far that also play SACD are all Sony ? Most other Companies are absent with this feature .

And apart from the SONY 'S and $$$$$ Oppo , can anyone tell me if there are other current Manufacturers that have BD/SACD ??
I'm not really happy with Sony at this point in time as this player i have seems troublesome and has been throughout it's tenure.
Also a reasonable price range would be nice , too , as this olde Sony was just under $300.





Thanks,











-future shopper , thrifty fizzy :D
 
Denon makes universal players (blu-ray, SACD, DVD-Audio)

Pioneer has blu-ray/SACD players (some of them can be used to rip SACDs!)
 
Denon makes universal players (blu-ray, SACD, DVD-Audio)

Pioneer has blu-ray/SACD players (some of them can be used to rip SACDs!)

Thanks Francois, :D

With SACD becoming an afterthought by Bluray manufacturers nowadays :
I was at the local Best Buy and checking out the players . They keep them on display with the boxed players ready to sell, on the bottom shelf .
I usually read the box ends as that's the only way to identify the logo features , and often wondered if some actually do play SACD MC but don't necessarily indicate so on the outer box . And only the manuals would confirm correctly .

FWIW Best Buy and I'm certain other big box stores , don't always provide ALL details in description posts , and those manuals are not available as they are exclusive to the boxed and sealed products .

so some Denon and Pioneer Blu-ray , ok that's more than what I knew before . :upthumb
 
The other thing is do you want analogue 5.1 outputs? if not just HDMI then its easier to find players. The Universal Oppo 203 is excellent, its £650 here in the UK (I got lucky having taken out a guarantee on the Denon so it paid out half the cost!), not sure what you will pay in Canada. Good for BD/SACD/DVD-A & you can stream 5.1 FLACs to it. Pioneer offerings are good but the more useful features pushes the model up in price. I'm not sure I'd by another Denon after all the hassle I had with my DBP-2012UD (repaired twice then failed on the 3rd repair), I've always had good Pioneer decks. Looks like the Universal Pioneers are about the same as the Oppo in price.
 
I have a Sony BD/SACD player which I'm afraid I must now replace .
Had it for six years now, but she's acting up .

So the only players I notice so far that also play SACD are all Sony ? Most other Companies are absent with this feature .

And apart from the SONY 'S and $$$$$ Oppo , can anyone tell me if there are other current Manufacturers that have BD/SACD ??
I'm not really happy with Sony at this point in time as this player i have seems troublesome and has been throughout it's tenure.
Also a reasonable price range would be nice , too , as this olde Sony was just under $300.


My advice, FWIW, is to consider just ditching the disc player outright, and ripping all your optical discs to a hard disk, preferably a NAS (network attached storage device, such as a Synology). Then play your music straight off the disk or NAS. There are many hardware/software options to make this work. You can do it for almost no money, e.g., you can can use a Raspberry Pi 3 running OSMC (Linux/Kodi) as a media player. This solution costs well under $100, and works well, assuming you have a home-theater receiver (HTR) with good D-A covnerters (DACs). You never have to take out or put away discs, and you don't have to worry about damaging them. As a side benefit, you can listen to your 5.1 collection from any computer that's set up to play in 5.1. A bunch of us at QQ have gone this route (or done something similar), and love it.

You can rip Blu-ray, DVD-A, DVD-V, and DTS-CD discs using a cheap (< $50) BD-ROM drive, which your computer probably already has. Ripping SACDs is a pain in the butt, as they're intentionally nonstandard. You need a friend with an disc player that uses the Mediatek MT8560 or MT8580 chipset, or you can get one of these players yourself if you prefer. Players reported to work include the Oppo 103/105, Cambridge Audio 752BD/CXU, Pioneer BDP-lx58/88, Pioneer BDP-160/170/180 and BDP-80. If you're only going to use the player to rip SACDs, you don't care how good or bad the analog section is, so it's fine to get a cheap one: all will give you exactly the same bits:)
 
My opinion is that the Sony 6500 or 6700 is the best budget SACD/BD player out there, by a pretty wide margin (not much difference between the two unless you want bluetooth). Both play all formats except 4K and DVD-Audio and cost about $100. If you look at anything else, be it Sony's X800, the Pioneer, or various options from Oppo, you're going to be paying at least 3 times that. The Sonys also have excellent streaming and file playback options, including multichannel FLAC and DSD, and can output a DSD source over HDMI without any conversion.
 
. I'm not sure I'd by another Denon after all the hassle I had with my DBP-2012UD (repaired twice then failed on the 3rd repair).

Agreed. I'd one and the disc mechanism failed after 6 months, then it took Denon another three months to fix it. And by "fix" what I mean is "not fix". Awful player. Awful customer support. Wouldn't touch another one with someone else's bargepole. Buy something else.
 
The other thing is do you want analogue 5.1 outputs? if not just HDMI then its easier to find players. The Universal Oppo 203 is excellent, its £650 here in the UK (I got lucky having taken out a guarantee on the Denon so it paid out half the cost!), not sure what you will pay in Canada. Good for BD/SACD/DVD-A & you can stream 5.1 FLACs to it. Pioneer offerings are good but the more useful features pushes the model up in price. I'm not sure I'd by another Denon after all the hassle I had with my DBP-2012UD (repaired twice then failed on the 3rd repair), I've always had good Pioneer decks. Looks like the Universal Pioneers are about the same as the Oppo in price.

Oh don't get me wrong ? I'd love an Oppo and there is a very reliable distributor here , but on a budget so.........

Just gotta stick with the lower priced players. (Under $500 or less much preferred ). :D

Love my Pioneer combo , but it's for DVDA/SACD .....and she's fantabuluos , never refuses to play any SACD or DVDA .As that I'll keep my Yamaha RCV 'R for analogue purity and eventually buy an updated one for blu-ray Hi-Rez .

So really just need a blu-ray/sacd player . I was thinking along the lines of LG , or.....others. Want to get a new player first , and foremost .
 
My opinion is that the Sony 6500 or 6700 is the best budget SACD/BD player out there, by a pretty wide margin (not much difference between the two unless you want bluetooth). Both play all formats except 4K and DVD-Audio and cost about $100. If you look at anything else, be it Sony's X800, the Pioneer, or various options from Oppo, you're going to be paying at least 3 times that. The Sonys also have excellent streaming and file playback options, including multichannel FLAC and DSD, and can output a DSD source over HDMI without any conversion.

Having purchased a Sony , the inventor's of blu-ray , and finding it a problematic player leaves a bad taste in my mouth.I've never had problems with DVDA ., beginning to think the format sucks in comparison .

Paid $300 or slighltly more for it, and well it should play nice , but....oh well. I am still looking at Sony's because of that lower price , but they can't be the only budget players with that option . Surely there has to be others .


And like an idiot I'm still considering Sony because of the price .:rolleyes:
 
Yamaha BD-S681 and AVENTAGE BD-A1060 Blu-ray Player for SACD & HDCD

http://www.audioholics.com/blu-ray-and-dvd-player-reviews/bd-s681-and-adventage-bd-a1060
To improve CD music playback, a CD Mode has been added on both models that disables HDMI video output and reduce disc revolution by 30 percent to reduce unwanted disc vibrations and improve data reading sensitivity which Yamaha claims leads to better audio fidelity.

Own Yamaha BD-S681 & I use a Sony X800 for DVD-A
 
Having purchased a Sony , the inventor's of blu-ray , and finding it a problematic player leaves a bad taste in my mouth.I've never had problems with DVDA ., beginning to think the format sucks in comparison .

Paid $300 or slighltly more for it, and well it should play nice , but....oh well. I am still looking at Sony's because of that lower price , but they can't be the only budget players with that option . Surely there has to be others .


And like an idiot I'm still considering Sony because of the price .:rolleyes:

This might be a question of managing expectations? I don't know what you had before this, but the 6500 from what I've experienced is incredible for a $100 player. There just isn't any competition at that price point, and the file playback support on all recent Sony players is incredibly robust in terms of high-res audio support - this can sent any audio format and almost any file format over HDMI. The only thing you lose compared to the X800 is DVD-Audio (and of course 4k disc support). It's not going to be confused for a $500 player, but it punches way above its weight, and kind of sounds what you're looking for. If you're just looking for a HDMI transport and don't care about DVD-Audio, I don't think you can do better. If you look around the internet you can find the Pioneer for $150, which is probably your best bet if your main MO is to avoid Sony products.

I just got a 4K TV and have Sony's X800 replacing my Oppo 93. The X800 is a great player but it's no Oppo - there just isn't the same level of heft and sophistication to its build, but for $250 it's a class leader at the sub-300 price point, and the output is flawless. The only area it's been a little wonky is on 4K discs, where the tech is still in flux - it's been totally solid on SACDs (where it's indistinguishable from the 6500 and regular BDs/DVD-As). My only pet peeve is having to use two HDMI cables so I can't just use my AVR as a source switch anymore (I'm not really interested in getting a new AVR, and the Sony doesn't transmit any picture at all over HDMI2, not even an unprocessed one like the Oppo does).

The real question you should be asking is what price you want to pay, whether DVD-A support is important to you, and how much you dislike Sony. Everything in the sub-500 price class is going to be made in China, and quality is going to generally be acceptable but sometimes uneven - it just goes with the territory in 2017.
 
This might be a question of managing expectations? I don't know what you had before this, but the 6500 from what I've experienced is incredible for a $100 player. There just isn't any competition at that price point, and the file playback support on all recent Sony players is incredibly robust in terms of high-res audio support - this can sent any audio format and almost any file format over HDMI. The only thing you lose compared to the X800 is DVD-Audio (and of course 4k disc support). It's not going to be confused for a $500 player, but it punches way above its weight, and kind of sounds what you're looking for. If you're just looking for a HDMI transport and don't care about DVD-Audio, I don't think you can do better. If you look around the internet you can find the Pioneer for $150, which is probably your best bet if your main MO is to avoid Sony products.

I just got a 4K TV and have Sony's X800 replacing my Oppo 93. The X800 is a great player but it's no Oppo - there just isn't the same level of heft and sophistication to its build, but for $250 it's a class leader at the sub-300 price point, and the output is flawless. The only area it's been a little wonky is on 4K discs, where the tech is still in flux - it's been totally solid on SACDs (where it's indistinguishable from the 6500 and regular BDs/DVD-As). My only pet peeve is having to use two HDMI cables so I can't just use my AVR as a source switch anymore (I'm not really interested in getting a new AVR, and the Sony doesn't transmit any picture at all over HDMI2, not even an unprocessed one like the Oppo does).

The real question you should be asking is what price you want to pay, whether DVD-A support is important to you, and how
much you dislike Sony. Everything in the sub-500 price class is going to be made in China, and quality is going to generally be acceptable but sometimes uneven - it just goes with the territory in 2017.


I hear you , uber.

It may be a case of "just a bad player " which is why I still am considering Sony .
 
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