I have an Esoteric Universal disc player that plays CD, SACD, DVD & DVD/A but no Blue Ray. I get what I think is a pretty good video image from it, but am wondering if adding a Blue Ray player will give me enough improvement to make that addition worthwhile?
I have an Esoteric UX-3 Universal Player but never tried DVD video with it. How does the Esoteric video compare to other more popular video players like an Oppo, etc?
Is OP priority here for playing Blu Ray movies or listening to Blue Ray Audio? Does the Esoteric have digital inputs? If it does tand if the Blue Ray Player has a non HDMI out, then the audio from the bdp can go to the Esoteric and the Video can go via the HDMI to the monitor. Is it worth it? Depends what you want to listen to. I use an Oppo 105 as a transport into a Bryston BDA-3 DAC which accepts HDMI. I use the HDMI primarily to output the DSD from my large SACD and DVD-Audio collection but I have a few Blu Ray Audio discs that sound amazing. The 1960s Karajan/ Berlin Phil Beethoven Symphony cycle is contained on one Bly Ray disc and sounds mighty fine. I don’t have many Blu Ray audio discs, however. If you can afford an Esoteric, it shouldn’t be much of a stretch to buy a BDP and experiment
Absolutely worth it, but I don't know if I would get a blu-ray player today... I would get a UHD player instead to be a bit more future proof. Unfortunately OPPO has decided to stop selling their blu-ray players, which is a crying shame, but it is what it is... if you can find a UHD-205, that sounds like it would be ideal for you.
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