What happened to Blu-ray Audio?

Oops. I actually moved the Oppo into another room and my primary multi-format player is now a 4k UHD Sony. I was very skeptical but it's a dynamite piece of gear for audio. And to your point, yes I absolutely love that feature of the Oppos and did use it every time I did critical listening whether there was on-screen displays or not.

 

Just curious, did Sony manage to install a silent drive on the new multi-player? I had an older Sony a few years ago, and while it was a pretty good machine for the price, the constant spinning noise started to drive me crazy at some point. It also continued spinning when a CD had run through.

 

I'm a huge hater of loud drives. This Sony is about as quiet as some of the robust players I've had in the past. Certainly within acceptable limits to me. When I put it into the system, it was primarily so I could check out 4k Blu. I never expected it to stay for too long. (a buddy pre-ordered two, gave one to me to play with - ultimately keep) I didn't expect to like it as an audio transport. In fact I expected NOT to like it. But it's really great!

 

So for once they actually learned, very nice. I‘m not interested in 4K, so when I learned the new Sony had no analog outputs, I stopped considering it. Eventually, I was torn between the Oppo 205 and the Cambridge CXU. After long consideration, I went for the CXU and never looked back. Having upgraded from an Oppo 103, I briefly missed the app, but meanwhile I almost forgot about it.

 

Yeah, the lack of of analog outs not an issue for me as this is primarily a multi-channel delivery unit and I wanted my Elite processor (it's one of their big-boys) to do the decoding anyway. It has those Sabre DACs that are pretty highly regarded. So yes, the Sony was intended at best to be a placeholder for me until the OPPO 4k universal player became available (and maybe a touch cheaper) but I'm perfectly content with the Sony for now.

Cheers!

 

Have you ever heard of disc rot? and you will be very lucky to get a computer cdr to last 5 years never mind 60, not many but i do have a few cds in my collection that have pitted and the silver layer has come off so... but this has nothing to do with bluray theyre not even the same thing. In fact i dont even play them any more, just ripped them to flac and put them away cant even see the point in them in 2018

 

Yes, I’m aware of disc rot and fortunately haven’t had any discs in my collection exhibit it. I don’t rip anything because I enjoy the art of picking out which discs I want to listen to. I enjoy the interaction with physical media, pulling them from the shelf, looking at the art work and filing them away when I’m done listening. I used to do the same with LP’s before I started collecting CD’s. There is something missing without it.

 

I've also heard of disc rot. But I have never seen a factory-made CD that was stored appropriately in a traditional case experience "disc rot." And I have thousands and thousands of CDs. Many of which had been stored in less than optimal conditions previously. No issues.

 

I’ve never seen disc rot. I have cdr’s that are pretty old. If someone could post a picture, I’d like to see a specimen.

 

Compact disc bronzing - Wikipedia

Never had a CD rot, though I had a couple of very early DVDs that did. CD rot was, as linked above, a problem with discs made by a specific plant. Discs made elsewhere are unlikely to be affected.

 

I have the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks compilation (purchased some time in the early 90s) which was affected by this. I haven't taken the discs out of their boxes for a number of years but the last time I looked they were pretty shocking.

 

I've heard of disc rot and have never had the issue with over a 1000 CDs. That's cool that you have your disc collection ripped and have no need to play the physical discs anymore. I have no interest or the knowledge at this time to rip my disc collection to hard drives or other storage devices. Reading through several threads here about the dumping of physical media it points out that computer/media servers aren't without issues.

My disc collection is stored close to my system so the time to select a disc and put it in my player is minimal. To rip my entire collection would take too much time. Far more time than years of getting up to select and play a disc. To each his own I guess .

 

I reckon it took me, amongst other things like getting on with normal life, a good 3-4 months to rip my 1300ish CDs, and I have probably spent the same amount of time hunting through Blu Rays and DVDs ripping music from them. Ripping music is also mind numbingly tedious. I’m glad I have done it now, but have much sympathy with the above view!

 

Understood but my collection is many times larger and physical access was becoming frustratingly inefficient. Ripping, too, was tedious but mostly at the beginning. Then I developed a rhythm for it and, along the way, rediscovered many pearls in my collection that I had forgotten.

 

The process of ripping cd's is pretty tiresome, but I agree that I rediscover great stuff in my collection. It has prompted me to dedicating a section of my physical media to a "premium" status. Most frequently it's great songs/performance and/ or outstanding production and sonics.

 

This is what CD bronzing it looks like:


That CD was silver when it was made. I have a copy of Genesis "Three Sides Live" that only plays in some CD players, and a similarly afflicted "Foxtrot" version. Early UK pressed discs had a manufacturing problem. Most of them are fine but some bronze. Some bronzed discs play fine, but some won't play.

 

Does anyone know if Blu-Ray audio discs will play automatically? Someone at work tossed a perfectly good Blu-Ray player which I'd like to add to my home stereo system, but I do not have a TV. If I hook up the Blu-Ray player to my receiver and pop in the disc, will it play, or do I need to actually hit "play" from the menu, which will be pretty tough without any visuals?

 

Depends on the player. My last Marantz would auto play blu-ray discs. My new Oppo has an option you can set the machine to auto play or manual.

 

Most players have some facility to set auto or manual disc start. Since I presume you have a computer monitor you can hook the blue ray up to it with hdmi cable (or use a converter if you have an older monitor with VGA) to access menus.

 

My experience is that it has to do with how the disc is encoded. In one case, if I pause the disc midway and turn the player off, the disc will restart from the beginning when turning the player back on. My other discs pick up where I left off.

 

Are you asking whether a Blu-ray Audio disc will start without using a display to access the discs menu?

Since users have learned the straightforward, screen-less navigation from CDs over the last decades, it was key for the research team that the Pure Audio Blu-ray also works screen-less – as simple as a CD. Just insert the Pure Audio Blu-ray in your Blu-ray player and navigate through the tracks via the standard transport controls (Skip Forward/Backward; Fast Forward/Backward). And for direct access to the tracks use the numeric keys – just as on a CD.

One can access different audio formats by using the red, yellow, green and blue buttons on most blu-ray player remotes.

Red: 5.1 Surround
Yellow: Stereo
Green: 7.1 Surround
Blue: 9.1 Surround

Concept | Pure Audio Blu-ray

 

The same thing happen to my copy.

 

Any wanna recommend or slam the quality on any of the 3 Nirvana DVD-A releases?

 

I have Nevermind and In Utero. Basically the same masters as the 20th Annversary releases.

Edit: check out the DR scores:

Album list - Dynamic Range Database

 

The only Blu ray Audio I own is Rush's Moving Pictures and unfortunately the original stereo mix is an upsample as Moving Pictures was tracked to analog and mixed down to digital of the time. The multichannelmix has plenty of frequency content passed over 20 Khz.
As a 35 Anniversary 2CD set of the soundtrack for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was released and all the mixing was done at 192/24 I had hopes for Universal to release this on BD-Audio but I guess nobody wants to listen to an almost 40 year movie soundtrack on Hi Res on a physical format. The same happened with the Jurassic Park 20th Anniversary edition, it was remixed at 192/24 from the multitrack master tapes but it didn't even get a physical release, download only.