Quote:
Originally Posted by DRC2
I realize this post is over 7 years old.
I am just wondering if anyone is still using their UD9004. I have had mine since 2012 and for me it has worked flawlessly since day 1. I am sure I have played over 1000 Blu Ray's, CD's SACD's and it continues to work as it did when new. I have it hooked up to a Bryston SP3 via analogue both 2 channel and multi channel, HDMI, and digital. I also an Oppo 203 to play 4K.
The Marantz is as good for Blu Ray as the Oppo. Far superior when playing CD's or SACD's via analogue output. The DAC in the Marantz is as good or superior to the DAC in the SP3.
I don't see any currently available multi disc players that cater to the audiophile.
The last one was the Oppo 205 which unfortunately is not available and I missed out on it. I did have a friend that had one and for using the analogue outputs for 2 channel CD, SACD the Marantz was still better sounding and it was already 6 years old technology.
Is anybody aware of any new players?
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You should look hard for a used long discontinued Ayre DX-5 universal disc player. Its original retail price was $10k when purchased new back then. Nowaday a used one can be had for around maybe $3500 or possibly less if you can find one in used markets. It is the best sounding universal disc player for listening to stereo music using its XLR analog audio out. Kal Rubinson of Stereophile even stated that the Ayre DX-5 is also the best sounding unit when using HDMI out to your preamp processor.
The Ayre DX-5 uses the Oppo 83 disc drive mechanism (disc transport) and Oppo's main video processing board (video processor), Oppo's interface and Oppo's remote. Everything else was all Ayre's all the way. Ayre added additional audio only HDMI out dedicated strictly to outputting audio only which uses Ayre's own unique audio clock to transmit the signal. The other HDMI out is for outputting video signal, whereas the Oppo 83 has only a single HDMI out for both audio & video.
Ayre also equipped the DX-5 with a USB asynchronous DAC input which uses separate power supplies, regulators, voltage regulators just for this signal path as well as using Ayre's unique clock for this USB DAC input, which is of course asynchronous. So the DX-5 is also an excellent standalone USB asynchronous DAC and many people use the DX-5 as a standalone USB DAC, which yields better sound quality than when using discs assuming you're using a very good USB cable. The DX-5 only has USB DAC input, no other digital inputs.
The DX-5 uses Ayre's proprietary zero feedback topology, true differential (fully balanced) and fully discrete class A for its analog output stage (stereo). The Ayre DX-5 wasn't a re-badged of the Oppo 83. It only uses the Oppo 83's disc transport (disc drive mechanism) and main video processing board / video processing implementation. That's it. Everything else was all Ayre's all the way.
The Ayre DX-5 would sound better than the UD9004, hands down.
While the video processor used in the Ayre DX-5 was somewhat old by today standard especially when compared to newer latter bluray players these days but the power supplies, regulators, voltage regulators in the Ayre DX-5 are much superior compared to those in any other universal disc (bluray) players thus would yield excellent noise free clean video quality, and the picture looked way better than that of the Oppo 83's counterpart although both players use exact same video processor / video pcocessing board / implementation. Unlike with most other universal bluray disc players, the Ayre DX-5's audio & video circuitry are completely isolated from each other. And the DX-5 uses separate power supplies for its digital audio circuitry, DAC, digital video circuitry, analog audio output circuitry, disc drive mechanism (disc transport), control circuitry, and its USB asynchronous DAC input signal path circuitry with their each own regulators and voltage regulators.
But seems like you have the Oppo 203 4K bluray player for watching movies.
So you can just use the Ayre DX-5 for listening to music (stereo) for CD/HDCD, SACD & DVD-Audio (downmixed in stereo) playbacks as well as a USB DAC.
Trust me the DX-5 sounded superior when used as a standalone USB DAC compared to using discs (CD, SACD & DVD-Audio). And the USB DAC input is of course asynchronous.
How would you compare the picture qualities of the UD9004 vs your Oppo 203 when playing regular bluray & DVD movies? Which one is better? How's the UD9004 DVD video upscaler?
And you mentioned earlier that the audio qualities when using HDMI out of both the Oppo 203 & the UD9004 players are comparable?