Denon's DVD-A1UD: world's first universal (SACD / DVD-A) Blu-ray player
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 3rd 2008 2:24PM
posted Dec 3rd 2008 2:24PM
[Via Impress]
posted Dec 3rd 2008 2:24PM
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Do these who price these live on this planet? I mean seriously, $6k for a blu-ray player?!
This is NOT a true universal player.. I should be able to hook up an external hard drive (fire wire, usb, Ethernet, sata) and the unit should be able to play ripped bluray ISO's. It should have windows media center and cable card built-in. And it must play every single file format there ever was, is and will be.
$5000.00 for a bluray player.. Rich people are dumb asses.
Oh, I'm sure the BDA would cheerfully allow Denon or anyone else to put the Blu-ray logo on a player that could do ripped ISOs. No problem.
As for the price, that's what Denon used to charge for some of its SD DVD players. At least now you get true HD capability.
Not that I back(ed) that format and I know it's of limited relevance now, but at $5,000, isn't the cost of adding HD-DVD functionality just to make it truly universal kind of a rounding error at this point? Why not throw that in? And VideoCD? Pretty much every 5inch format?
That'd be PS3. It does all that
Anyone want to buy a gently used spleen? Only $5,860 this week!
(Buyer incurs all hospital costs)
I'll take 7.
This is a much needed high end player. Many people were dismayed that the current Denon Blu-Ray players were light in the audio department. I can see many of these being sold stateside when they arrive! (FYI rich people arent dumb, they simply can afford to buy best of class hi-fi components for their reference theaters!) Make no mistake, this is being marketed to audiophiles who value MUSIC as much as movies. If you can't understand WHY this thing sells at almost $6,000, I would recommend LISTENING to it and comparing it to lesser players.
Thank you that's what I have been saying. Only the pioneer bd players have any good dacs but they don't do sacd or dvd-audio. I would love to listen to this player with my pink floyd dark side of the moon sacd. But more so I want to listen to the Bd audio disc that I already have.
I'm waiting for an Arcam BD player...
this wont be anywhere close to 6K when it releases in the states. So its pointless to freak out about a direct price comparison.
What Engaget needs to do is to have a versus review section.
Compare these high end devices to the cheapo stuff us poo (can't afford the r) folk would buy.
I would like to see this player go up against a Panasonic DMP-BD55 (video and sound quality).
Even if you are getting "better quality components, are we really gonna see or hear the difference?
Engadget couldn't do a comparison that would have any meaning to the purchasers of this unit, they are by NO MEANS audiophiles, and wouldn't have a system capable of properly exhibiting the differences.
BTW - J. Goodwin - While I highly respect Pioneer Elite, best plasmas currently available only beat by now defunct Fujitsu, I actually still use my DVL-91 LaserDisk player (650 movies), their BluRay players don't compare to a Denon especially on the analog output (subwoofer level WAY too low) I hope your SACD/DVD-A doesn't exhibit these problems.
Actual U.S. price $3800 see link:
http://www.engadgethd.com/tag/DVD-A1UD/
I don't understand what they mean by "universal". The 60Gb & 80Gb PS3s can play SACD and Blu-Ray (plus profile 2.0, internal decoding etc.) so if they mean that they're 2 years too late.
Yeah, but the PS3 doesn't have 7.1 analog outs. That alone is worth the extra $5460.
Or not.
This is why I am thrilled to own a 60GB PS3 that plays SA-CD and Blu-ray. Got it for $300 on Craigslist too, so I didn't even have to cope with the $599 price tag!!
I don't get why this site keeps knocking SACD. I mean, I get it, it will never be a mainstream format, people don't give a rat's ass about fidelity in popular music. But the fact remains that in the classical and jazz arenas the SACD is doing anything but receding, it's actually becoming mainstream in these niche but nontrivial markets.
DVD-Audio is tougher, in part because it always seemed aimed more at popular music, but even so, there are people who care, especially people who are fans of bands like the Doors which released their catalog in 96k MLP.
I agree, SACD and DVD-A while clearly are Niche, are formats any true Audiophile will have in there collection and they are far more than 7.
Jorge
iPods are proof that no one cares about audio quality in the mass market.
However, DVD-A and SACD were light years ahead of anything else out there, and extremely pleasant to listen to. However, at this price point, I can leave my Pioneer SACD/DVD-A player in my rack.
DrXym & MoFro
Actually you are incorrect, a PS3 can read a SACD it just can't output it properly. As it has no multi-cannel analog outputs (and very low quality analog stereo) and is unable to output DSD via HDMI, it has to DOWNGRADE the signal and output it as PCM. As quoted from www.ps3sacd.com :
"Can PS3 output DSD audio?
Streaming of the pure DSD signal would be very preferable over conversion to PCM but unfortunately at this moment PS3 does not support that."
2nd only about 1/2 of PS3's can even read SACD's :
http://www.ps3sacd.com/faq.html#_Toc180147566
Only 1 Sony SACD product can output DSD via HDMI @ $1500.00
http://www.engadget.com/tag/scd-xa5400es/
3rd - PS3 will NEVER play DVD-A
Sorry, your game machine does not compare. At least you are a few steps above mainstream iPod/mp3 crap, they may as well listen to AM-Stereo or 8-track.
The SACD output of PS3 is actually quite good. The analog outputs may not be of the same quality as this Denon (at quite a different price) but very decent, especially when using the bitmapping options, and while conversion to PCM sounds like a bad idea at 176.4 kHz 24-bit you also get *very* decent sound quality, almost on par with DSD.
As for DVD-Audio, technically the truth is probably that every PS3 can read the disc but just will not output the content although that's possibly hackable under Linux. There's a thread about that on the forum you refer to.
For SD DVD players, does anyone know if Oppo players have better video quality than Denon players (with or without the HQV chips).
I know that Denon's picture has more depth than the other brands (e.g. Sony, Pioneer) but I've never tried an Oppo before. Does an Oppo have the same picture depth as a Denon?
Steven, why are you even trying to justify the comparison. How can you compare 2-channel to 5.1, it doesn't work, also someone shopping for a high-end audio piece doesn't want "decent" sound quality *very* or not. Don't even get me started on the fact that the PS3 doesn't even have RCA jacks and you are forced to use "Radio Shack" quality cables or "Monster Cable's" lowest quality which isn't much better. No audiophile will want DSD converted to PCM no matter the bit rate, it's the sampling rate of 2.8224Mhz (16 times 176.4Khz) that makes it sound more analog, also you don't have the multi-level compounded errors of PCM decoding / encoding since the steps are never quite 1/2 or double depending on direction. I can remember the day when a high-end cd player had potentiometers that were hand tuned to correct the first 3-5 bits of D/A decoding, I'm sure that today's A/D and D/A chips are much more accurate negating that need in general but they all still make errors and that is why Burr-Brown, Crystal and ALL high quality ADC/DAC manufacturers are constantly refining their products w/ new models. If it was a perfect conversion in the first place then all these companies would be out of business and you could get your DAC's at the 99cent store like Sony does.
"Despite that fact that about eight people on this Earth still care about their beloved SACD / DVD-Audio collections, "
Well , I guess that would be 9 now-asshole.
Lee(retard/a-hole)
If you don't have a SACD / DVD-A collection why are you reading or commentating on a player. If you could actually count you would notice there are 1000's of titles in both SACD & DVD-A, you might also notice there are 100's if not 1000's of brands of equipment catering specifically to High-End Audio customers. Now if 1000's of titles and 100's / 1000's of brands sell 100's / 1000's of units a year, then there must be at least 1 million customers with some interest, as no one is going to buy every title & quality equipment is expensive (not to mention lasts longer) and not replaced anywhere near as often as your Walmart BOOM-BOX.
So please for everyones sake stay out of discussions that don't pertain to your gnat-like narrow minded perception.
To be fair neither Denon nor I have ever stated that this player is intended for or could possibly sell to mainstream customers, who neither care about SACD / DVD-A nor have the equipment to show-off the differences. Is there a market for it - SURE - are they looking for Hannah Montana / Britney Spears or worse RAP on SACD or DVD-A ?? HELL-FREAKING-NO !!!
It was you guys that made the snide comment about 8 people having SACD/DVD Audio collections. Yes , I was a tad harsh and I'll apologize for that.
Oddly enough , my WalMart boombox looks just like a Marantz SA8260. If you're going to review a $5860 disc player , and refer to SACD as "mainstream" , some people may ask WTF?
P.S. "commentating" isn't a word.
I run an 'amateur' level recording studio. I will record at different levels depending on the content, mainly using 192 etc for acoustic sessions whilst staying at around 48 etc for computer based music. Downgrading all this music to 44.1/16 can often be devastating, as the artist has heard the playback in the studio and then hears it on a CD or MP3 player.
However, for everyday background music MP3/CD level is fine, in fact for traveling including in cars, there are so many external factors involved that MP3/CD quality fits the bill perfectly, but in the relative peace and quiet of your own home if you had the funds and the original recordings warranted it, then wouldn't it be brilliant to be able to listen at the quality recorded in the studio in the first place?
We would all love it if the music we liked could be played live in our front rooms (some people do exactly that - oh we do that too, preferring to see music live rather than stay at home and listen to recordings....).
What we are trying to do is to be able to put to disc a rendition as close as possible to the original which was never possible with CDs and some say is only just acceptable with standards like DVD-A and SACD. Put it another way, if recording mechanisms did not exist, we would all be spending small fortunes seeing our favorite performers so ultimately ALL recordings offer a relatively cheap and convenient way of hearing them.
P.S. I do have 1000's of MP3s/CDs and various ipods in the same way as Mr 1930s man had cylinders and 78s.... as for sheet music...... we won't go there today.