Reavon UBR-X200 4K UHD Universal Disc Player (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

I don't own a Reavon, I'm just curious why one would prefer to use the 7.1 output for SACD (which I think is capped at 5.1 anyway) over using the HDMI output and letting the AVR do the DSD decoding? I understand this question assumes one has an AVR that can decoded multichannel DSD, so if the desire to use the 7.1 output for SACD is predicated on not having another unit that can do DSD decoding, I get it.

 

[Richard Brand]

It seems you need to cash in your life savings and go for the mega expensive PS Audio combination of SACD player and DAC via I2S.

Ha! My life savings went on the Reavon ... and I can no longer afford mega expensive. I do feed a Marantz AV pre-processor, the AV8800, which sports no less than eight two-channel DACs from Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM). Based on the specifications, these outclass the Burr-Brown DACs in the Reavon - 32 PCM bit depth vs 24, four times faster oversampling, and 4 times faster DSD than the Reavon's 2-channel DAC. Very similar to the ESS Technology Sabre DAC in the new Magnetar UDP900.

I know good specifications are only part of the story, but if they help explain the differences I hear, they gain my trust. But I do not believe all the bits in high resolution PCM make a difference. After all, 16, 24 and 32 are just convenient multiples of computer bytes when shifting data. The early Philips CD players sounded better than their direct competitors, despite dropping two bits of resolution to 14-bits. Instead, they used 4x oversampling to allow gentler analog filters.

Back in those days, DACs used resistances for every bit. Even laser trimming the resistances was not enough to ensure the output always increased when the input numbers went up! Think about the point where the most significant bit switches in, and the other 15 bits switch off. The most significant bit represents about 32,000 times the least significant bit, so linearity was a big issue. Much better to convert the smaller bits to uniform pulses - enter delta-sigma technology for DACs and ultimately Direct Stream Digital to replace PCM

 

[Richard Brand]

I don't own a Reavon, I'm just curious why one would prefer to use the 7.1 output for SACD (which I think is capped at 5.1 anyway) over using the HDMI output and letting the AVR do the DSD decoding? I understand this question assumes one has an AVR that can decoded multichannel DSD, so if the desire to use the 7.1 output for SACD is predicated on not having another unit that can do DSD decoding, I get it.

You make good points. SACD does indeed max out at 5.1 channels (I only use 4.1 or 4.0). Your point about HDMI versus analog applies to Oppo players as well as Reavon, Sony, Panasonic etc, and to CD as well as SACD. You are then balancing whether the DAC setup in the player sounds better or worse than the DAC setup in your AV receiver. If the player sounds worse, you might as well just buy a disk transport, unless there are other benefits like better video quality!

Audiophiles would probably use dedicated amplifiers rather than a receiver and analog caters for that situation.

Like many enthusiasts, I sporadically upgrade components, but not frequently. So I have an odd mix of quite old and new-ish. My previous silver disk player only had DVI output, no HDMI, so I used its multi-channel analog outputs which were better than the AV receiver I had then. For two-channel I used a simple switch to by-pass the receiver completely, feeding an even older Krell KSA-80 two-channel amplifier. A few years ago, I replaced the receiver with a much better AV pre-processor - which turns out to have a better DAC setup than the Reavon, so in retrospect I could have gone for a cheaper player.

No doubt many will find this odd, but I do not have a center speaker. My main speakers are two physically large Quad electrostatic panels which have excellent imaging. I cannot find a sensible match for a center channel which fits in with an OLED display! A servo-controlled subwoofer adds very low frequencies. Another six speakers provide rear and Atmos effects.

 

[Flumpf]

I just took delivery of a Reavon UBR-X110, and have a quick query about the 8765 code for region free. It brings the screen up fine, with DVD set to region 0, and BD set to region B (I'm in Australia). I am unable to get that B to budge though, and have several US discs that I thought I'd be able to play on this rather expensive thing. Please, does anybody have a secret to budging that B, or is it stuck there in perpetuity? Many thanks if you have time to respond.