Would someone like to describe a set of technical reasons as to why a universal player necessarily implies a sacrifice? Its true that a number of designers have said this, but most have vested interests in one hi-rez format over the other.
Specifically, the loaders (== disc drive hardware) can be built to handle all 3 formats and can certainly be custom-built to high tolerances if required by a high-end manufacturer. The processing software is just a matter of chips and memory so no real problem (except for the need for dual SACD/DVD-A copy protection, but that can be handled also). Clocking has necessarily been addressed already in SACD players that handle DVD video and CD. High quality D/A conversion may be an issue, but there are more and more chips available that do both single bit and pcm processing, and in a high end player, it may be cost effective to have 2 separate d/a chips, or 2 discrete processors, if the designer prefers. Once in the analog domain, quality issues for all 3 formats are identical. Your thoughts?
Specifically, the loaders (== disc drive hardware) can be built to handle all 3 formats and can certainly be custom-built to high tolerances if required by a high-end manufacturer. The processing software is just a matter of chips and memory so no real problem (except for the need for dual SACD/DVD-A copy protection, but that can be handled also). Clocking has necessarily been addressed already in SACD players that handle DVD video and CD. High quality D/A conversion may be an issue, but there are more and more chips available that do both single bit and pcm processing, and in a high end player, it may be cost effective to have 2 separate d/a chips, or 2 discrete processors, if the designer prefers. Once in the analog domain, quality issues for all 3 formats are identical. Your thoughts?