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In Reply to: Strange posted by Eric LeRouge on April 08, 2003 at 10:13:50:
Just a question, on that.
Follow Ups:
mmmmmmmmmmmmm
The short answer:
I'm happy with my universal player
- One box
- one set of cables
- one set of controls and adjustmentsThe Long answer
Overall, I'd say a universal player is an easy way to test the waters of either and both formats, without having any issue related to an investment made in one or the other.
When I bought my Marantz, in fact I was looking for a replacement for my DVD player. I was more curious about DVD-A, and SACD was a nice "extra" which I picked up thinking "I'll try that some day". It turned out I really liked a lot of the software on SACD, and the sound quality as well. I also realized that my player said "DVD-RW compatible", and that got me started in the idea to try to burn music on DVD.
Anyway, I can see now the points made by other inmates: to get the best of each format, it is probably wiser to invest in separate players, and optimise each choice separately. Also, I think you get better value for the same budget (the Marantz was 2000¤).
However, pushing this logic a little further, I think you would end up with different receivers, amps and speakers as well. Since I have a small setup, that is not an option for me :)I have one caveat about universal players, which is to check whether they are fully compatible with DVD-Audio specs, and allow to read more than 30-34 tracks in Group 1 (Pioneer models). If you don't, you may have to buy other DVD-A players to play your discs, like me...
Best
Eric
PS: I have not used my Marantz as a DVD player more than once or twice, because it got me more interested in music, and I stopped watching movies.
.... Any idea why they couldn't do this? I can't imagine it being an actual design limitation, sounds like an oversight in firmware and bad QC to me...
Michi,The limitation is 30 to 34 files (sometimes less) in Group 1, but only if they are PCM files (WAV or AIFF).
If the files are encoded in MLP, no problem at all. As soon as you have more than one group, you can have more files in total. So in practice, this is almost never a limitation for commercial titles, which have several groups and are encoded in MLP for MCH tracks. Some commercial titles also have limitations, and the pulishers group the number of tracks into larger tracks (1-4, 5-8, etc). The Teldec Matthaus Passion is an interesting example of structure.This is definitely a limitation of Pioneer models (including universal players like Marantz and Onkyo), because other brands like Toshiba, Technics, Panasonic, etc, do not have that problem. I don't know about the Yamaha and the new Denon.
Best
Eric
PS; I discovered very recently that the limitation of the number of files in a group (the DVD-A spec allows for up to 99 tracks in a single group) actually includes each file of multichannel tracks (1 track in 5.1 = 6 files). So, in effect, if you do not use MLP, the number of multichannel tracks allowed is actually much lower. I'll post something about this soon, as I am still checking with various combinations.
I suspect the Pioneer software problem is somehow related to this.
But personally I will buy seperates.There are design issues starting at the laser that diverge for both systems.
But most people will not be bothered by these issue's though.Quit another issue is the recording and production side of the matter.
I think that 64*fs with high order noise shaping is not the best option for recording audio. I'd much prefer a higher bitrate of at least 128*fs to push any artifacts that still exist out of the audio bandwith.Multibit processing will always be a better solution because the final end result can always be properly dithered down into the final delivery format.
Ending up with different recording formats is a awkward situation.
Michelle,If there is sufficient DSP power to do time alignment, channel level and bass management in native mode I think that a universal player plugged into a transparent 5.1 passthrough is the best solution. I'm hoping that the Linn or Teac will satisfy these requirements. I was hoping to get HDCD as well, but I'm close to giving up on that.
I didn't know they were still in the game. Huh.Okay - Actually, yeah, I'd love to see one that does HDCD, as well... No prospect on this yet, then?
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