I don't know much about the HDMI to RCA cable but you can bet your bottom dollar that the results will be no better than the standard CD layer (in terms of sound quality). If your AVR takes Coaxial or Optical in hi rez and the de-embedder breaks the SACD inscription, ie can transfer the hi rez over the Coaxial/Optical then that can work, however, it will convert the DSD to hi rez PCM so isn't perfect. Personally I wouldn't bother and would save up for an SACD player at some stage in the future..... or get one of the oppo's/pioneers/sony players that can transfer the SACD DSD layer to you computer and play it from there.
Yes you would need a de-embedder. Might be deal breaker for some but honestly for what you spend on an X800 and a de-embedder, which is just north of $300, you will be hard pressed to find much in the price range to match that combo sonically. For fairly short money the Sony brings a lot to the table. -Matt
I saw these were on clearance last week at Target for just $210. Don't know if Sony has stopped making them or if Target has just stopped carrying them. Either way, if you're interested in this model now might be a good time to pull the trigger. I suspect it's going to become harder and harder to find nice Blu-ray players in stores going forward, as consumers shift rapidly to streaming, and the remaining units are likely to be either cheap junk or high-end specialty models. So $210 seems like a really good deal, although if Sony is pulling the plug we aren't likely to see any more firmware updates or new applications for streaming services, which is a minus. Then again, streaming gadgets are getting cheaper and more capable all the time, so maybe that doesn't really matter very much. If this Sony is no longer particularly useful as a streamer in 2-3 years, it won't be the end of the world since a more capable gadget is likely to cost around $50.
Sony's lack of support for firmware updates - so that newer blu-ray discs would still play on the device - is the reason I retired my Sony blu-ray player (only a few years old at the time) and bought my first Oppo. Sony's lack of support for firmware updates (combined with my previous experiences with bad sound quality in anything but their ES line*) is also a reason why I may never buy a Sony product again. * Which was less of an issue since I only used the HDMI out of the Sony blu-ray player I had, letting my Denon receiver do the decoding and converting. The analog outs of that Sony blu-ray player did not sound good.
Well, Oppo is gone now. I'm more interested in this Sony as a universal player - CD, DVD, Blu-ray, DVD Audio, SACD, Blu-ray Audio, especially the audio formats - than as something that will play future formats. Mostly because I don't think we're going to be seeing many future physical media formats. If any. The fact it may not be terribly useful as a streamer a few years down the road is a bit disappointing, but then again those are plunging in price so I'm not sure it really matters. It's also possible Sony isn't pulling out of the market, that the player isn't being discontinued (it's still on their website), or that it will have a replacement with the same computer brain and firmware updates and streaming capabilities will continue to be developed. Not holding my breath on that one, but at $200 I think it's a fine deal for a universal player apart from any streaming abilities.
No, I recently discover that this player outputs 176.4/24 PCM when playing SACD's through its SPDIF output.
Hmm, I’m not sure what exactly the SPDIF output is as I’m not too familiar with hi-res digital audio playback in general. Most of this is new to me. Right now I’m just running an HDMI cable from the player to my tv, and a standard RCA from the tv to my stereo receiver.
The SPDIF output is often called the digital coaxial cable output. It was often how digital audio was passed before the invention of HDMI. SPDIF
I ran the firmware update tonight, but didn't notice any obvious differences. It was a minor dot release, so that's not a big surprise.
My UBP-X800 has been terrific but it looks to me like Sony is out of the universal player market, my guess is after unloading the UBP-X800 inventory at a loss, they have had enough. The UBP-X1000ES probably did better but not well enough to justify another model, I hope I am wrong but I sure haven't seen anything that makes me believe we will see another. Not very many companies will even try to fill the gap left when Oppo Digital discontinued operations, it is a tough market to compete in. The UBP-X700 seems like it may be among the very best cheap plastic 4K Blu-ray players which is the bigger market, at least it offers SACD playback. I don't know if there is a reason DVD-A playback can't be included with the cheaply made players and maintain a low price point, obviously some incremental cost would be necessary but it wouldn't be much. With razor slim profit margins on Blu-ray players and only a tiny niche market for universal players, maybe even small incremental cost increases can't be justified.
Good thread that I’ve learned several things on. Bought a UBP-X800 last year around Christmas for $150. At that price I thought it was a no brainer as I just needed it to complement the Marantz CD player that I use for 90% of my listening to redbook CD. The Sony X-800 plays my blu rays as well as the relatively small number of SACDs and DVD-As that I own. Didn’t care about 4k or analog outs. I just bought an integrated amp so as soon as my coaxial cable arrives, I’ll report back if the sound quality is better than running it through an AVR on hdmi. No complaints coming up on a year, realizing its a cheap but effective universal player.
I use mine in quite a high end system as my main transport. It cost approx 2/3 % of my entire rig and does a fine job.
Nothing I can find anywhere regarding all-region hack for this player. There are companies that will modify the hardware for all-region but nothing else.
Pair it with Bda-3, only complain is I don’t know which song it’s playing without checking TV. Quite annoying
And now they're discontinuing more stuff. From a thread here about their older universal player: Note this impacts the UBP-X800 as well...
Just got this player last week and have a few questions.. Can any other apps, like Tidal be side loaded into this player?? if so, how? What sort of media player are you successfully using on your PC so that the Sony sees and is able to play audio files in Hirez?? The player supposedly upscales mp3 files to Hirez....does it do it internally and then output the 'Reworked" output via HDMI and the digital out cable??? I have a non-HDMI B&K AVR 507 that seems to be doing the analog conversion.
I don't think there's any way to side load apps like Tidal. The Sony should be able to browse a network share and see the files on it. If you run a DLNA server of some sort it should be able to hook into that as well.
I bought one of these players from Amazon for £239. It arrived on Friday and so far I am very impressed. For the last few months I have been listening to music exclusively via my laptop - either FLAC files on my laptop itself or lossless streams via Tidal, however the sound of FLAC files, CDs, DVD-A and Blu Rays via the UBP-X800 via the same DAC as my PC is slightly superior. The sound is generally richer, transients crisper, and overall slightly clearer. The picture quality from Blu Rays is also outstanding. One query I do have is with regards to the audio settings menu. I am only interested in outputting stereo audio via the coaxial output of the player to my Arcam irDAC II for playback via my hi-fi. In the audio settings menu you can select the sampling rate of the digital output. I have set this to 192khz, as my DAC supports this sampling rate. Unfortunately my DAC doesn't have a display identifying the incoming sampling rate, so I am not sure whether by setting the output of the Sony to 192khz this means everything is resampled to 192khz before being output to the DAC. Or does this setting instead alter the maximum sample rate which will be output, meaning if your DAC is not 192 capable, the Sony will downsample 192 content to a frequency which your DAC can convert. If anyone can clarify this for me, I would be grateful. Also, what are people's thoughts on the DSEE HX upsampling? I tried it briefly and thought it sounded a bit artificial and removed a lot of the attack of transients. Is it worth persevering with?
I left all the processing off, but then I connected it to my receiver via HDMI, and it passes DSD directly to my receiver. I don't use it to play music though - I have a laptop connected via HDMI which uses MediaMonkey for that.
There's no way to tell but believe,if the file you're playing is 192/24 it will output 192/24 via digital coaxial, I know as I use my X-800 with a Topping D30 D/A converter that has no sampling rate indicator, but I only use the Topping for music listening, the rest is done by a Pioneer SC LX-76 A/V receiver, it also has a couple of digital coaxial inputs so I checked the info provided by the receiver, it outputs the native resolution of the files up to 192/24. What DSEE HX does is to upsample 44.1-48/16 to 88.2-96/24, using it or not is a matter of taste.
It’ll be the native sample rate of the file up to 192K. If the player is connected to the DAC via coaxial or optical, if the DAC cannot play at the sample rate output by the player there will be no audio output. Note that audio from Blu Ray or DVD Audio should be converted to maximum 48K/16 bit at the coaxial : optical outputs of a player due to licensing restrictions. Some players are not fully compliant with these restrictions.
Sony now offers higher-end 4K player with Dolby Vision at CES 2019 Sony says its update to the X800 4K Blu-ray player, the M2, will now include support for the Dolby Vision HDR standard. Sony's refreshed UBP-X800M2 UHD Blu-ray player has Dolby Vision - FlatpanelsHD The company has no plans to bring Dolby Vision to its previous players. Instead, Sony will release a refreshed UBD-X800M2 that will support HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HLG. It also handles Hi-Res Audio, which is not supported on the current X700. Sony UBP-X800M2 4K UHD Blu-ray Player With HDR
