Redefining "Universal Player"

I've also never owned a player with a digital input and don't understand the expectation for one. They are certainly the exception rather than the rule, and I can only think of a few off the top of my head that actually offer that option. If you are looking for the ultimate conversion the obvious solution is to get an external DAC with its own power supply, rather than a DAC sharing the box and power supply with the transport. In doing this you can simply plug in the next latest greatest format when it comes out. The newer DACs like the Berkley Alpha are sure to keep up with anything you're likely to find to feed to it. The only reason I could see for wanting to use the internal DAC of a player (assuming you like it of course) is the convenience of using a single box for memory-based playback and disk-based playback. I suppose it's one less set of IC's (or digital cord) and one less PC to purchase and deal with as well.

I would like to keep box count as low as possible, sound quality as high as possible, cost as low as possible, and flexibility as high as possible. Okay, I want it all :-)

My Oppo 983H is a universal player of sorts and has USB 2.0 input for PC based digital media. CD, DVD-V, DVD-A, SACD, CDR...probably missing something else too. Oppo should be coming out with their BD-83 pretty soon, though its release has been pushed ahead several times at this point. That player is supposed to add BluRay capabilities to the foundation of the 983H (which is also a superb DVD video player which rivals, though falls just short of, BluRay when upsampled via HDMI to 1080). I cannot comment on the actual analog audio output of the player, but others seem to like it. I use it only as a transport and run the digital out to an external DAC. Oppo prices relative to the Billet'N'BlueLED crowd are relatively affordable.