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Blind tests for PS3 blu-ray vs high end?

post #1 of 13
3/6/13 at 3:54am
Thread Starter 
AVS,

I decided against going with the Oppo bandwagon and instead went with a high end $2000 NAD M56. But I want to dump it since I have a PS3 player and want to reduce devices but I don't know what I will be losing in terms of audio/video quality. Can people tell a difference?

I have studied blind tests for cables, power cords and power amps and all have shown results from chance which is what made me ask about this particular link in the chain

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks
Edited by snyderkv - 3/8/13 at 8:18am
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post #2 of 13
3/8/13 at 12:04am
Reduce power? The NAD uses a lot? I just recently discovered that my PS3 won't do 7.1 playback of 3d Blurays. Otherwise enjoy the PS3 quite a bit....and it plays my favorite driving game.
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post #3 of 13
3/8/13 at 8:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovinthehd View Post

Reduce power? The NAD uses a lot? I just recently discovered that my PS3 won't do 7.1 playback of 3d Blurays. Otherwise enjoy the PS3 quite a bit....and it plays my favorite driving game.

Thanks lovin but my room doesn't support 7.1 anyways. My question was from a sonic quality and video quality standpoint. Can't find anything online
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post #4 of 13
3/8/13 at 9:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snyderkv View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by lovinthehd View Post

Reduce power? The NAD uses a lot? I just recently discovered that my PS3 won't do 7.1 playback of 3d Blurays. Otherwise enjoy the PS3 quite a bit....and it plays my favorite driving game.

Thanks lovin but my room doesn't support 7.1 anyways. My question was from a sonic quality and video quality standpoint. Can't find anything online

From what I know the PS3 is highly rated as a BluRay player. It has certainly a better processor and memory than most in any case. I can't imagine spending more than the price of a PS3 on a BluRay player myself as I'm fairly certain I wouldn't or couldn't appreciate any possible differences in playback of discs. I have a decent 7.3 sound system and one of Samsung's better plasma panels for audio/video and have no issues with the player for either (except for that 3d playback thing which I actually hadn't noticed and hopefully will be addressed by a firmware fix eventually).

PS The title of the thread is great, blind testing of a BluRay player smile.gif
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post #5 of 13
3/9/13 at 9:25pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks, I'd compare the two myself side by side but I don't think my projector can split screen using two hd sources. I'll have to go by memory
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post #6 of 13
3/9/13 at 9:37pm
I don't think people will notice a difference at all. You might notice a difference because its your setup but there are a lot of arguments out there about bluray players all sounding the same.
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post #7 of 13
3/10/13 at 3:37am
Thread Starter 
Wish I knew this before going hi end
Edited by snyderkv - 3/10/13 at 6:13am
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post #8 of 13
3/10/13 at 9:01am
A major reason to go high end is for analog audio. For BluRay PQ, most people will not see any difference between players. For digitial AQ, same thing. But for analog AQ and ability to play all kinds of discs (SACD, DVD-A, etc), that's where the high end players shine.
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post #9 of 13
3/10/13 at 9:21am
BillP is essentially correct. I can think of no compelling reason to go high end on a Blu-ray player at all. One player outputting the native 1080P signal off the disc should look indistinguishable from any other, unless, of course, you have some kind of video processing engaged within the player. Turn that stuff off and one player will look just like another.

Like BillP says the biggest differences in high end players tend to be their analog audio output stages. Here there may be an advantage if the player allows you more flexibility than your receiver/ preamp in configuring such things as bass management and speaker levels, etc. However fancy D/A converters have been shown to offer very little (if any) improvement to the sound over more basic sections in double blind tests. If you are using a digital connection for sound (hdmi) all of this is moot.

In short I would be much more inclined to choose a player based on feature set and reliability than supposed improvements in picture or sound.
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post #10 of 13
3/10/13 at 9:22am
That's a shortcoming of the PS3 I'd forgotten about as I don't own any, the slim versions don't support SACD but believe the original fat version did.
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post #11 of 13
3/11/13 at 10:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Schuermann View Post

BillP is essentially correct. I can think of no compelling reason to go high end on a Blu-ray player at all. One player outputting the native 1080P signal off the disc should look indistinguishable from any other, unless, of course, you have some kind of video processing engaged within the player. Turn that stuff off and one player will look just like another.

Like BillP says the biggest differences in high end players tend to be their analog audio output stages. Here there may be an advantage if the player allows you more flexibility than your receiver/ preamp in configuring such things as bass management and speaker levels, etc. However fancy D/A converters have been shown to offer very little (if any) improvement to the sound over more basic sections in double blind tests. If you are using a digital connection for sound (hdmi) all of this is moot.

In short I would be much more inclined to choose a player based on feature set and reliability than supposed improvements in picture or sound.
My only caveat to this is that people may want to consider a high end player to double as a player for serious CD/SACD listening (via analog outs).
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post #12 of 13
3/11/13 at 1:25pm
A few differences:

1. The original PS3 will not bitstream.
2. PS3's are not HDMI 1.4 compatible.
3. The original PS3 is MUCH louder (fan noise) than a nice stand alone.
4. A high end BD player normally does a much better job upscaling DVD's (SD material).


Plus the other benefits that go along with a nice BD (universal) player (ex: DVD-A & SACD playback, analog audio, etc.).
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post #13 of 13
4/8/13 at 3:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LaoChe View Post

A few differences:

1. The original PS3 will not bitstream. Irrelevant, makes no difference to audio quality where the files are unpacked. The only difference is the little light on your receiver coming on. The PS3 probably has more CPU power for this process than any receiver ever produced so far anyway.
2. PS3's are not HDMI 1.4 compatible. But are capable of 3D. The only feature lacking being Dolby TrueHD during 3D playback.
3. The original PS3 is MUCH louder (fan noise) than a nice stand alone. Fan kicks on during intensive games like Uncharted 3, but not usually during Blu-ray playback.
4. A high end BD player normally does a much better job upscaling DVD's (SD material). OP was concerned about video/audio quality so likely isn't watching DVD's. Let's face it, all the upscaling in the world doesn't make DVD look like Blu-ray on a 60"+ setup. Most high-end receivers offer pretty high quality upscaling anyway. OT, but just how many upscalers do I need in my device chain for goodness sake? Seems like every device I buy has an upscaler, BD player, receiver, TV... and I don't use any of them


Plus the other benefits that go along with a nice BD (universal) player (ex: DVD-A & SACD playback, analog audio, etc.).
I agree with you on that part. I hope the PS4 does SACD so I won't have to spring for a universal player to play my SACDs. I won't have room to keep both a PS3 and PS4 hooked up unless the PS4 is considerably smaller than a phat PS3.
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