Anyone using a Blu-Ray player as a transport?

Almarg, That is very helpful. Though I still wander if due to the potential faster read of the data that there would be less potential for read error.
Is anyone currently using a Blu-Ray as a transport that would like to offer an opinion on the sound vs. their old transport?

Jane -- I did some further checking, which seems to confirm my earlier post.

On page 17 (pdf page 20) of the manual for Marantz' $6000 UD9004 Blu-Ray/SACD player: "SACD's DSD signal cannot be output. Also, during CD layer playback, 44.1kHz/16-bit Linear PCM is output."

On page 57 (pdf page 63) of the manual for the Oppo BDP-83: "The player does not up-sample audio to higher sample rates."

This manual for a Philips player mentions down-sampling on page 36, but there is no mention anywhere of upsampling.

Re faster reading of cd's in Blu-Ray players, even if the disks were read faster internally, I don't think that would be advantageous in any way if the output data rate is the same. And if the implementation is not good, faster reading could conceivably increase the rate of uncorrectable errors.

Hope that helps,
-- Al

Knownothing, I don't think it really matters in that system if you know what I mean.

It would be a downgrade.

Cmalak, I am under the impression that the Blu-Ray will
upsample to essentially SACD with Redbook CD's and that it will provide upsampled data at the digital audio outputs. I could be wrong on this, hense the questions. Also I am under the impression that the Blu-Ray drive is able to read the data at a quicker rate than my Wadia. Again, not sure if this is correct but one of my audio friends is of the impression that a DVD drive operates at a higher read rate than his CD dedicated transport and that a Blu-Ray will operate at a higher rate still.
I am contemplating adding the Blu-Ray player as a front end to my Boulder to replace the Wadia.
However, I'm not sure if this would be a downgrade or not.

I could easily be wrong about this, but I am not aware of any Blu-Ray players that will provide upsampled data at their digital audio outputs.

They typically do have downsampling capability, to provide compatibility with dacs that cannot handle 96 or 192kHz sample rates.

Regards,
-- Al

Why do you want use a Bluray player simply as a CD transport? Makes no sense. Especially since you supposedly have a $12500 dedicated Wadia transport driving a $32K Boulder DAC? Please enlighten us.

Sidssp is correct.

Of the five or so DACs I've owned, I preferred the non-oversampling DACs because they sounded fuller, more natural and conveyed a larger sense of scale than the over-samplers. While upsampling resulted in more audible detail they sounded phoney to me. All except the tube DAC. Mind you, these were not expensive DACs either, and you may come away with an entirely different viewpoint.

In my line of work, it's kind of like a Photoshop file where someone went bonkers with the unsharpen mask. There's more detail, but it doesn't necessarily make for a better image.

Sidssp, I am referring to the upsampling of the CD.
I wouldn't be using the Blu-Ray transport for video at all,
instead simply as a CD transport.
Why do you say that the upsampling of CD will not necessarily sound better?

If you are talking about up-sampling of video to 1080p than it has absolutely nothing to do with CD playback.

Also, up-sampling of redbook CD will sound different but not necessary better. It depends on how it is done and your personal taste. It is like two cars of the same model, one with manual transmission, one with automatic. They will drive differently for sure but which one is better?