Bluray as a transport

[killie99]

Bored at the weekend, peeing down with rain outside and the wife and kids are out for the day. Hmmm, wonder if my blu-ray player is any good at playing cd's?

So, system currently set up as follows:

Meridian 508 connected balanced to a Meridian 502, connected balanced to a Meridian 557 to Impulse H2's.
2 year old Panasonic Blu ray player connected optically to Eastern Electric Minimax dac connected to 502 with rca's.
Several cd's copied on my computer so that I have the same material in both players. 502 input gains adjusted to ensure both inputs are at the same level.
Started both players playing at the same time on the same track and switched between the 502 inputs from the remote so that I didn't need to get out of my chair.


What did I hear? I couldn't tell the difference. I occasionally thought I was hearing a difference but when I listened again I wasn't sure. Swaped the cd's about so that each player had the copies and the original played through it. Made adjustments to the gain to check I had them level matched. Still no difference.

I was surprised and I wasn't. The 508 is a great CD player and the EE minimax is a great DAC but I was surprised that I coudln't tell the difference. I was sure I'd at least be able to tell them apart.

Next I took the coax out from the 508 to the DAC and switched the DAC between optical and coax inputs. Still the same.

Conclusion 1 - the 508 dac and EE dac sound as near as damn it the same.
Conclusion 2 - The panasonic bluray transport is just as good as the 508's transport.
Conclusion 3 - if you have a good dac you don't need an expensive transport.

If I get bored this weekend I'll swap out the 502/557 for the Puresound A30 and see if I still think they sound the same.

Note: all the above is true for me listening to my system in my room :sofa:

[griffo104]

I've done similar recently with a budget Philips Blu-ray player, used the co-ax out in to my Audio Analogue CDP which has a digital input. Very good response and very little to choose between it and the AA player itself.

I did some blind tests recently between transports and it was interesting. I was planning on doing a full write up when I get time.

[CentraL]

Well let me state my case then...

I initially got the Caiman DAC in order to output hi res (96/24) files - purchased by HDTracks - from the BDP-80 blu-ray player.

I thought this set up could maybe save some hours off the marantz SACD in my gig which was also (mostly) used as a CDp.

Having one coaxial digital link and no time to spare I never went into comparisons, until another coax link came my way...

The marantz was linked to the Beresford DAC and the current favorites were loaded to the tray.

The difference is hard to miss. The marantz "drives" the DAC in a better way. The sound signature remains, but other than that every aspect is enhanced. Detail is more, the sound is enveloping and not flat, the bass lowers more and is better controlled.
The treble is both more informative and much smoother - this has to be the most striking change. More detail along with silky smooth feel.
Voices sound more convincing and humankindish... theres a certain warmth that the initial combo misses here.

I don' t like note-peeping and to be frank I never intended to perform tests of any sort...

But placing the first cd into the marantz and heading to the kitchen, I turned around and sat into the sweet spot. I didn't expect a major change but it happened. and being able to switch back and forth between the players the finding kept being verified.

The better built player gives consistently better sound. In every genre, disc, track.

I later added an Arcam A5 into the mix - again as a transport driving the Caiman dac. The CDM-9 equipped Brit managed to produce the very worst result of the three. Even compared to the Panasonic the cd playback offered by that combo is annoying to say the least.

[CanDAC]

I use a blu-ray player as transport too, and found this helps:
http://www.musicdirect.com/p-3272-millennium-carbon-fiber-cd-mat.aspx.
The difference was clear enough for my wife to notice as well. It is definitely a cost-effective tweak!