Ayre DX-5 bluray player - Page 14

That's why I'm thinking out loud this Ayre player might work great with my Classe SSP-800. The SSP also has extremely low jitter measurements at it's HDMI input. I really like my CX-7e and hate to part with it! I don't think the Oppo BDP 83 or the BDP 83 SE can match the Ayre sonically for CD playback. The DX-5 would be the logical choice for what I desire. The DX-5 seems to be the only Blu Ray player to have both options for me. When I want to listen to a CD I use the XLR analog out or when watching/listening to Blu Ray I have the HDMI as an my de facto choice. Now if Mr Hansen can just keep the price somewhat reasonable in this ever changing economy.

The only downside to this is that if you use the superior sounding audio only HDMI out to feed the Classe, the analog outputs of the Ayre will be deactivated. So you either have to settle for the combined audio/video HDMI out or unplug the Audio HDMI whenever you want to use the analog outs- unless the Ayre engineers can figure out a (menu driven?) workaround for this such as being able to manually deactivate the audio only HDMI circuit.

Doesn't "LCD" stand for Lousy Color Display?

For what it's worth, Panasonic will have a line of 3D plasmas at only slightly higher prices than the Sony LCDs.

There are a handful of really nicely recorded multi-channel audio discs (with or without video content). Whether or not that constitutes something building your system around is a personal decision that only you can make.

But just as bit a problem as the lack of content is the lack of suitable playback equipment. There is no SSP in the world that can hold a candle to the Ayre KX-R or the Audio Research Ref-5 or the Conrad-Johnson GAT, to name but a few.

And if you are going to have 7.1 channels at the same quality level as your main stereo speakers, you are talking about quadrupling your cash outlay. Plus you will either need a dedicated listening room or a divorce!

So for many people, two-channel is the best choice. But if you want multi-channel, then the DX-5 gives you the absolute best multi-channel source there is. I can't help you with the rest of the issues, but that one, at least, is handled.

Just to clarify, the analog audio outputs will only be disabled if an SSP is connected to the HDMI Audio-Only output and it is powered on.

If both the analog outputs and the HDMI Audio-Only output are connected to the same piece of equipment, then you will have a bit of a problem. But most people who want the most out of their two-channel sources will have a high-quality stereo preamp with a processor-passthrough input.

This is done because there is no SSP on the market that sounds as good as a top-flight stereo preamp. Then the two front channels of the SSP are routed through the stereo preamp, and so are the analog outputs of the DX-5. To listen to the analog outputs, just turn off the SSP. To listen to the multi-channel HDMI output, turn the SSP on and this will de-activate the analog audio outputs. All channels will be reproduced by the SSP, with the two front channels routed through the stereo preamp. Make sense?

No, the S/PDIF standard has not been defined for lossless compressed formats. And since it does not support encryption, it's not likely to happen.

That's what I'm certainly hoping for Charles, thanks again.

Scott is a retailer at one of the best audio/video stores in the country. He often gets invited to "preview" events put on by various manufacturers. He knows more about what's coming than I do.

We've been working on the DX-5 for eight months. It's obsolete before it's even shipped because it doesn't have a feature that doesn't exist for discs that don't exist....

I can tell you that Ayre has the best update program in the business. Every design we have ever produced can be updated to the very latest version for a very fair price. All I can say is that if there are ever more than a handful of titles released that Oppo will no doubt build a player. If there is any way humanly possible to transplant the main Oppo board, we will do it and offer an update for existing players. Remember most of the cost is obviously not in the Oppo board, rather it is in the power supplies, audio circuitry, custom clocks, USB audio input, HDMI audio-only output, et cetera.

But I cannot make any promises, as such a product hasn't been announced, let alone built. As you know, Oppo uses the very best video decoders in the world. None of this "three minutes to load a disc" nonsense. The Oppo provides the fastest loading time of any Blu-Ray player on the market. It also does not exhibit the "dreaded" chroma-upsampling bug. At this time, Oppo and their suppliers are taking a "wait and see" attitude towards 3D, just as they did when the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war was raging. You can't make a great player for a fair price if you are rushing things to market to be the first with some wacky new feature that may or may not sell.

With DVD-Audio, the disc could enforce the S/PDIF output to send a limited-resolution signal. I'm not familiar enough with the new audio formats nor the Oppo player to know if there is enough processing "horsepower" for the player to send the lossless signal out the HDMI and the lossy signal out the S/PDIF at the same time.

I've looked at the Oppo manual twice and it is unclear to me. It implies that it will do this, especially since the DTS formats consist of a lossy "core" that to which extra data is added to make it lossless for HDMI. But Roger is the expert here. I will defer to him or anyone else on this forum that has experience in this regard.

Mr. Hansen,

As a satisfied cx-7e owner, who is now even happier since I had the 'mp' upgrade, I can personally attest to your commitment to making upgrades available to your customers. Your belief in offering upgrades when possible to your customers is refreshing in these day of built in obsolesence. Most a/v companies expect you to just buy their new product to get the latest improvements.

Even though I'm very happy with my cx-7eMP all this talk about the dx-5 has piqued my interest.
I was wondering if you could answer a few questions about the dx-5 for me. Please forgive me if they have been asked and answered already in this thread.

Will the dx-5 offer internal decoding of the lossless audio codecs?

Does it offer balanced stereo xlr outs for cd?

Do you consider its cd reproduction superior to the cx-7eMP?

Has a release date and/or msrp been anounced.

Thanks,
Tom

Thanks Charles ; a member of our local forums got this reply from oppo ; is the hdmi transmitter chip up to the task I wonder ? hdmi 1.3 has the bandwidth for 1080i.

When you said lossless, I took that to mean the lossless stream in compressed form. I see now that you mean PCM derived from the lossless track, then yes, that's permissble as you said--downrez'd, and, if a MCH track, downmixed.


On Blu-ray, you can tell the Oppo to output either bitstream or PCM from the S/PDIF, and if bitstream (with secondary audio off) it will be the lossy DTS or DD stream.

If set to PCM, it's a little fuzzy as to whether it is derived from the lossy or the lossless. I suspect the latter for 2 reasons. 1) When the player is decoding lossless for HDMI output, the 2-ch signal is already created as part of that process, regardless if the source is 2, 5.1 or 7.1 channels. It would take a lot more effort to decode the lossy. 2) The player allows setting the max sample rate for S/PDIF. That would not be needed unless it could output high sample rate PCM. Now that could be confined to, say, a DVD-A disc with only a 2-ch 96 kHz PCM, and not apply to BD, but as I said, it would take more work to avoid it.

Are the following two statements correct?

1) The DX-5 can simultaneously output analog audio over the L/R XLR outputs and output the complete untouched Audio+Video signal over HDMI. For multi-channel the L/R will be a mix-down of all the channels including the LFE.

2) It cannot output analog L/R and Audio only HDMI simultaneously.

Thank you.

Charlie,

It makes perfect sense, but my post was in response to Sharp1080 who wants to use the DX-5 with a Classe SSP-800 and nothing else. Beyond that, I have a feeling that a number of SSP-800 owners are going to be interested in the DX-5, particularly since Classe is not going to market a Blu-ray player.

While this type of setup will not be able to extract all the quality inherent in the DX-5, I assume that 2 channel material will sound better via the analog outputs than the audio only Hdmi and that multichannel will sound better with the audio only Hdmi than with the combined output. As currently configured these advantages will not be fully accessible to people using a surround processor only.

I imagine the question you need the answer to is what percentage of DX-5s are likely to be used this way. A quick survey of our store managers indicates that about 20% the people who have shown interest in the DX-5 are using processors only. Other dealers, of course, might have a different result. If the precentage is high enough it might be worth the effort to add (if it's even possible) a manual on/off control for the audio only hdmi circuit.

Hmmm... I guess this thread is getting long....

a) Yes, the Oppo engine decodes all audio codecs known to man, lossless and lossy.

b) Both balanced and unbalanced analog stereo outputs for the audio on all discs. If a multi-track disc is played, it will play a downmix.

c) Yes, please see this posthttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=18127508#post18127508

d) Release date??? As soon as it's done... Plus you'll be at the end of a fairly long line.... Price ???? Best guess at this point and don't hold me to it is around $10,000 in the US and higher overseas.

Dunno.

Since the spec hasn't been released, one can only speculate as to what it might be and what the incompatibilities with other hardware might be. The Oppo uses a very recent HDMI transmitter chip from Silicon Image, the SiI9134. If you can find out what the bandwidth requirements for 3D are, you can probably figure out if that is the bottleneck....

Yes, but will it output the lossy bitstream from S/PDIF at the same time as the lossless output from the HDMI???

I'm sure that anyone with an Oppo could tell us in two seconds....

Yes, the only caveat is that the downmix will not normally include the LFE as this will require the output levels to be reduced by 10 dB. Instead this will be selected via a code on the remote and a red light will glow on the front panel to alert the user.

Sound comes out. Not sure from which track. How can one tell?

I actually emailed them this question a few months ago. Here is the exchange:


The answer:

Here is what I would like to do with the DX-5.

Send video over HDMI to video processor. (Actually what I would really like to do is split the video output and send one run to the video processor and another run direct to the projector. I assume an outboard HDMI splitter would not cause harm.)

Send decoded audio over HDMI to Meridian HD621. The audio will not be at the highest level as discussed above, but I do not think this is signficant since I will only be using the Sides, Rears, and LFE from this stream.

The HD621 separates and dejitters audio and video and sends the audio via three S/PDIF cables to a Meridian 568.2mm processor. The 568 sends out S/PDIF Sides, Rears, and LFE to outboard DACs and outboard Placette Remote Volume Controls.

Send L/R analog audio to L/R Placette volume control. I do not use a center, so I do not run into any type of mismatch problem across the front using only the L/R from the Ayre.

My L/R are full range and do not need crossovers. They are farther away than my Sides and Rears and do not need delays, thus they do not need to go to the Meridian processor.

My only difficulty is that I would need the L/R analog from the Ayre to be without any downmix from the Sides, Rears, or LFE, but would need the Center channel included. We had discussed this earlier in the thread and you thought it might be something you might do.

I bring up again in case it would be a simple thing to include while you are involved in the programming. It would not matter to me how it was implemented (via remote, dip switch on rear, internal jumper). So please keep this setup in the back of your mind in case it becomes feasible.

In general, there are two limitations with a SSP compared with a dedicated, ultra-high quality stereo component:

- The D/A converter section
- The volume control section

These are the harsh realities of trying put 8 or 10 channels plus a computer's worth of decoding and equalization plus video switching plus a hundred connectors on the back panel all into one box.

Using the analog outputs of a high quality disc player will bypass the first limitation. But you will always be stuck with the second limitation unless you spend some money for a high-quality stereo preamp with a processor-passthrough feature. There are several good choices in the $3000 to $4000 range from Ayre (surprise!), Conrad-Johnson, Audio Research, VTL, and others.

We can't keep endlessly adding features that will raise the price and complexity of the product to cater to every potential customer's specific application. I would say that this is a good opportunity for you to make a compelling in-home demonstration to those 20% of the customers with one box solution as to what can be gained by buying one more box.

If two-channel music playback is important to them, they will probably want to buy a nice preamp. If they mostly care about the video side, then they will still get a performance boost by using the analog outputs in conjunction with the combined video+audio HDMI output. The jitter won't be quite as low as with the dedicated audio-only HDMI output, but ya' gotta pay if ya' wanna play...

Heck, in the old days you would have $250,000 of test equipment in your lab that would instantly identify the type of signal.

Short of that, I would assume that most SSP's have a light on the front panel for "Dolby Digital" and "PCM" and "dts" and so forth.

We are keeping it in mind. There is a lack of sufficient switches to implement all the features we would like. If this is included, it would have to be some sort of strange dual function switch. I don't like doing things this way, as I prefer that our products be as easy to use as possible.

The biggest problem is that literally you are probably the only guy in the whole world that would ever use this feature. If there were a big market for this kind of thing, the Audio Research multi-channel preamp wouldn't have been such a flop.

After that it just becomes a slippery slope. We could build an eight-channel HDMI input DAC. But then people wouldn't have any worthy preamp to use. (Unless they wanted to spend $74,000 on four KX-R preamps that can be slaved for multi-channel use!!) So then we would have to include a volume control. But then people would want additional inputs, both digital and analog to take advantage of the great circuitry that is there. And at that point we might as well build an entire surround-sound processor. Which we would do, if they didn't keep changing the spec every six months.

And here I was thinking that Blu-Ray would be the final optical disc medium ever offered, only to find out that it's already obsolete because it doesn't support 3D...

There you have it. Now I forget what the original question was...

Oh, that's right. If you want to use the analog outputs for the front left and rights, you can also use either the combined video+audio HDMI for lossless retrieval of the other channels (if that is how they are encoded on the disc) or the S/PDIF for lossy playback of the other channels. The only problem is how to synchronize the volume levels of the two disparate playback chains. Which is really, really hard to do. Was that really the question? I must need another cup of coffee or something...

Actually there are three of us. One lives in Argentina and the other works undercover for the CIA, so you probably can't count him.

P.S. The guy in Argentina is also very sick.

All these codecs, even the lossless ones, once reduced to PCM from S/PDIF, tend to look the same.

I got my Mark Levinson N40 5 years ago.

With the single addition of an HDMI card, and of a $750 Edge video processor to overcome one stupid limitation of said card (no pass through of 1080/24) by spliting audio and video, it still up to date.

If you made a processor, I'm sure that it would be useful for a long time. And that it would be pres-sold like your BR player already is.