2 new Yamaha uni players - including one with balanced analog outputs

The Oppo doesn't support HDCD? That's surprising. I can confirm that the Yamaha does.

 

Not 203 or 205

 

The Yamaha's loading speed is a bit on the the slow side, but every high-end player I've ever used has been a bit slow.

I don't think you can go wrong with the Yamaha. It's geared toward audiophiles, has a 32 bit DAC, has balanced outs and sounds great. It also does a good job of upscaling to 4k. Nothing else offers more for the price.

 

Any opinions on the sound quality for CD playback on these two machines compared to each other? Or compared to other Yamaha CD players, like the CD-S300?

My Blu-ray player is toast and I've been considering replacing it by a universal player and selling the CD-S300, nevertheless the price makes it almost too good to be true, espacially the BD-S681, which sells under 300$CAN right now.

 

This Yammy would be on my short list if it had multi channel analog outs

 

I just purchased the BD-a 1060 yesterday....Unless I am missing something, this unit is not compatible with DVD-Audio....While it may actually play the disc itself, the sound being output is the lower bit rate content which can be accessed with any standard DVD player...

 

there's a Marantz with actual XLR balanced outs if that is what you want and stereo is your bag. I went for Oppo because it has multi-channel analog outs and plays DSD unconverted and I'm really happy with it.

 

Why do you make that assumption?

 

The on screen menu only showed options for LPCM stereo and DTS surround....There should be options for MLP lossless stereo and 5.1 which did not appear.

 

Is that assertion based on the options menus of other brands?

My BDA1060's front panel displays "HDCD" when playing such discs but there's no menu options that mention HDCD.

 

My Denon DVD-757 shows those other options..

 

I wouldn't judge a players' capabilities by comparing its menu options to that of a different brand.

One of the reviews of the Yamaha I read claims that it does support DVD-A. I suppose maybe the reviewer might have assumed it does simply because it played the redbook layer, or maybe it does in fact support DVD-A?

I don't own any discs of that format so I can't confirm either way.

 

Which DVD-A was it? Do all of your DVD-As when played with the BD-1060 not have a MLP option? Setting with the BD-1060?

Looking at the BD-1060 manual there is no mention of DVD-A playback. I find it very odd that if the BD-1060 has DVD-A playback that Yamaha wouldn't have it listed as a format that is available.

http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?language=en&site=usa.yamaha.com&asset_id=67676

 

Players with DVD Audio capability usually have an option for "Audio" thereby having access to the MLP menu, and "Video" which lets you choose from dts, Dolby, LPCM etc.
In my case I'm not that worried about not having access too the MLP if the disc also has a stereo LPCM option in the Video menu.

 

I went with the BD-A1060 after trying a Sony UHP-H1, I was disappointed in the 2 channel analog out. The Yamaha was clearly a better sounding player. I'm going XLR through a BAT preamp. No DVD-A on this model, the previous BD-A1040 had it.

 

Very confusing on whether these two Yamaha players have DVD-A playback. I'm wondering if those that said they do have DVD-A playback were actually just playing the DVD-V portion of the disc.

 

That's my question as well. One of the pro reviews claims it can do DVD-A. I can't imagine why a previous Yamaha universal player would have the capability but not these new ones.

 

Maybe that reviewer was wrong. Several owners of the Yamaha players in this thread stated that there is no DVD-A playback. That along with the fact Yamaha doesn't list DVD-A playback capability in any form leads me to think there isn't DVD-A playback.

 

How can one tell for certain is the real question. Would it be clearly audible?

 

It should show on the Yamaha's display. On Oppo players it shows the disc format that is playing (SACD, CD, DVD, DVD-A or Blu-ray). On page 6 of the BD-A1060 it shows that there are indicator lights for CD and SACD playback. No indicator light for DVD-A playback.

http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?language=en&site=usa.yamaha.com&asset_id=67676

 

Is one better to buy the 1040 model if it supports DVD-A?
Though the balanced outs on the 1060 would be nice.
Is the audio performance of 1060 clearly better than the 1040

 

Does anyone know if these two players will play gapless, when playing files via USB??? I have a Yamaha BD-S677 and it adds a gap between each track which is not only eternally annoying, but renders live performances unlistenable.

JQ

 

Got a BD-S681 & there is no DVD-Audio playback.

+ Is support for HDCD dying out? (OPPO no longer supporting)

 

The new Mediatek chip in the Oppo 203 and 205 do not support HDCD decoding. So it isn't really that Oppo isn't supporting HDCD but that Mediatek no longer supports it.

 

Playing WAV seems to be gap-less.