I don't know either but I have compared photos of the main boards and the similarities are tremendous I don't know why they just didn't just put the same board in the 700. As I've mentioned earlier I suspect the mechanism to be the same too but I've never have disassembled a 700, only the 800 and 800m2. The inability to play DVD audio in the 700 is baffling I don't think it was Sony's attempt to push people to spend more on the 800m2 to get that functionality. I would have thought otherwise if the 700 would have lacked Dolby vision which is much more desirable to a lot of people.
Far from an expert on DVD-Audio discs. But as far as I know you need a DVD-A capable player to play the higher resolution audio on the disc. On a regular DVD-V player you can only play the lossy audio.
If the DVD-V had 2 channel 24/96 LPCM then that’s the same as 24/96 LPCM or 24/96 PPCM on a DVD-A. If I recall the PackedPCM allows full hi resolution in multi Channel and more video content.
Right, but what portion of the player makes it DVD-Audio capable? Is it the drive mechanism that needs some special mojo? Seems unlikely, since as far as I know the discs are physically identical. Or is it software that's part of the drive's firmware that allows it to detect the drive is seeing a DVD-Audio disc and decode the program appropriately? I suspect it's the latter, which means the same drive mechanism could be used in a player that can decode DVD-Audio and in a player that can't.
I don't think DVD video standards support high-res multi-channel audio. It's limited to Linear PCM up to 6,144 kbits a second. It can support up to 96kHz at 16 or 24 bit for stereo, although I don't know if I've ever encountered a video disc that used that. It also supports multiple lossy audio standards like AC-3. Most of those are capped at 48kHz except DTS, which supports 96kHz. DVD-Audio uses lossless compression (like FLAC) to support up to 192kHz 24-bit stereo or 96kHz 5.1 surround. It can also be stored as linear PCM. Maximum rate is 9.6 megabits / second, far higher than the audio stream on a DVD Video disc, especially since lossless compression means that's the equivalent of about 18 megabits a second uncompressed.
MQA licensing. You can *ahem* extract a DVD-Audio disc on any PC/Mac DVD drive to create a back up. No special optics required.
Yeah, that's why I assume the drive hardware is identical, and it's the player's firmware - which includes MLP (not MQA), Meridian Lossless Packing - that allows the player to decode DVD-Audio.
I want to get one for DVD-A and SACD but don’t have a TV. Do I need a TV hooked up to access a menu in order to select any audio functions?
Older DVD-As don't, but I think anything released even semi-recently would have some kind of visual aspect, which would most likely require some kind of monitor to navigate.
The only DVD-A I own is the Talking Heads dual brick set. I bought it new and never played the DVD-A sides. Same with the smatterings of Hybrid SACDs I own. I figured what the heck the player is cheap enough. I suppose the brick will play since it’s pretty old. Thanks.
Sometimes I get to play CD's without having the TV on but it certainly helps. When it comes to special formats at least the first time you plug the player you might want to use a TV as there special settings that will affect how special audio formats are handled. It might work straight away, I don't remember what the default settings are but I would not recommend the player unless you have some way to check what it is doing.
I added a small monitor to my sound system solely to be able to navigate the menus on DVD-A, SACD and BluRay.
You will need a TV/monitor to do the initial setup. You have to choose between playing dvd-a's as dvd's or as dvd-a's and to choose which layer of an sacd to play, as well as multichannel vs. stereo and output DSD or PCM. I use a discarded computer monitor with an hdmi input on an Oppo 103 I have devoted to dvd-a's and sacd's and music BD's, just so I don't have to turn on my TV for surround music. I bought the 800X as a backup for my Oppo for multi-channel music- the UHD function was just a bonus, though that's all it gets used for now.
IIRC the Brick box had some complaints about compression. Haven't played mine in a long time, I'll have to check (after I can find them...if I can.)
Short of a full factory reset I can't see how they'd change. While the first two aren't as fantastic as the rest- mainly due to the more straight-ahead material- the brick is some of my favorite surround music. RIL is reference quality imo. And I'm pretty sure once they've loaded all the way, just hit enter and the 5.1 mix plays by default.
I have also found that most dvd-audios will play the 5.1 mix by default if you hit play/enter once or sometimes a couple of times after the disc loads. Of course, SACDs don't even have menus, so after the player is set up you will be playing whatever layer (cd or SACD) is set under the player's preferences. It really is possible to use a player like the Sony x800 without a monitor on, after it's been set up to play either SACD or CD when a hybrid disc is loaded, and set up for dvd-audio versus dvd-video playback for dvd-audio discs.
I've found trying to use a universal player without a display to be a real PITA. There are times when I like to double check a setting or toggle between DSD and PCM with my Oppo players. It's not possible to do this without a display connected to the player. In my bedroom system I'd have to take my kitchen small display upstairs and connect it to make any setup changes. I recently bought a Vizio 27" display for the bedroom system to make things easier. With the cost of small displays these days it's well worth having. It's also great for navigating music files of a connected WD 5tb hard drive to my Oppo 105.
The Sony has two HDMI outputs, one audio-only, so you could just plug a monitor into the audio/video HDMI output and use that to setup the player or when a DVD-A disc requires a monitor, and plug the other audio-only HDMI output into your receiver or whatever (or plug the analog stereo outputs into your amp - note the player does not have multichannel analog outputs). And then you could leave the video HDMI cable plugged into the player but tuck it away and put the monitor away until it's needed again. Cheap small portable monitors with HDMI can be had now for under $150 now and might be useful for other things, like adding a second screen to a laptop when you're traveling and need to do some work.
I'm getting a Sony X800M2 and will be using it with a 4K TV and Yamaha S-501 for audio. As for audio output, the Yamaha has only Coax and Optical - no HDMI inputs. Does this mean I won't get any benefit from playing SACD or hi-rez blu-ray audio?
You can play the SACD layer through coax provided you dive into the settings and allow it but it will be converted and there would be a sampling limitation vs the original however I do find at least on the few SACD I have that it still sound much nicer than the CD layer. I am not 100% sure whether you can do the same through the optical out.
