Is there a consensus as to blu ray sound quality?

Your point about digital tape masters leads me back to the original query here...what is it about the 'read' of CD's, or vibrations, or reflections, or poor pressings, or whatever, that makes the 'mechanical act of a cd', less desirable, to me at least than digital tapes?
I completely understand the theology behind 16 bit limited, but somehow that isn't the whole issue with CD's.
Why are 'gifted and talented' producers like Winston Ma using gold and silver, I believe CD's? What difference would that make??? What difference SHOULD that make, and why.
Why, if we're reading all the data with a laser, would cleaning the disc, have such a profound effect on the sound? I know it does, I've done blindfold listening sessions with friends who are music lovers and they correctly identify a 'cleaned' disc versus a not cleaned disc.
Before we get too basic with the answers, think about the implication of 'we're reading all the data', when Digital Tapes sound, (to me) different, and sometimes completely, than the mechanical CD or DVD players.


"All disc's are created equal, some are just more equal than others." paraphrase from G. O. 1984
Sorry, I couldn't help myself

Lrsky - I suspect that better reflection from CD translates somehow to a little lower jitter which is irrelevant if you have jitter suppressing DAC. There might be some improvements with cleaning, balancing, painting edges with green ink etc but I don't want to play this game. I want better technology. I would be willing to compromise with SACD but I can see what happened with HDCD and DVD-Audio. Many Blue Ray don't support SACD and one of the latest editorials in Stereophile claim that format is dead.

As for all discs created equal - I hope you're not saying that he wrote it in 1984? (that would be spooky - he died 1950)

The original quote about equality with some being more equal than others is actually from the book "Animal Farm". The original was referring to pigs. I believe it was the character Napoleon (the pig) who said it in the book.

Markphd - I just expressed doubts about book (Animal Farm) being witten in 1984 since author died in 1950 (book was written in 1945). I might not remember it correctly but Napoleon did not say that - it was written on the barn.

....Kr4

sorry Kal, my fingers got ahead of my brain… and thanks for the input. The singular interest I would have in BR is the audio side of things.

...others

I thought to interject this item or two as I've not seen it addressed.

if the intent here is to acquire better audible performance with formats that aren't the focus of Blue Ray players, eg., CD, SACD, DVD, etc, (given any are multi format players in the first playce) .... I'm wondering if the 'Focus' or prime intent of the player then wouldn’t over shadow any other of its format capacities?

it would seem to follow then that ANY possible gains by way of these secondary formats would then be merely, "oh, by the way..." gains.... IF at all… and dubious at best.

What I'm thinking is regardless the abilities of the wavelength of the laser reading the disc, the span of the conversion chips, damping, etc., if the initial aim is to envelope all the formats then unless the player were a no holds barred, price no object one box solution, some compromises have been surely made with regard to these ancilliary disc attributes.

If indeed greater abilities are inplace do to physical materials being used in the topology, yet aren't taken advantage of and set to task with 'as great a care' as the prime mover (BR) it seems doubtful one should expect much from these arbitrary, oh, by the way, possibilities.

... especially in mass fi and low end price points... $100 - $400.

of course one can try out a few and see if any audible day & night diffs are indeed endemic to BR players spinning 'other than' formats....

I'd not go into such a prospect of obtaining a Blue Ray unit with the hopes of also getting a better SACD, CD or DVD player in the bargain.... and certainly not for two or three hundred dollars.

I’d sure like to. That would be great! I’ll not hold my breath

I’m pretty sure the aim with these players is set to versatility and convenience over performance.

I once saw a post here, a long time back, which said the poster had plugged his CDP into the DVD digital input of his receiver to take advantage of the greater decoding range of the DVD DACs… I thought that was funny. Only if the Red Book signal was being upconverted or upsampled to the 24/96 region, would there be any reason for that move…. Otherwise it’s still like using the CD digital input.

I do hope whomever or those who do delve into this prospect by actually buying or auditioning some BR players with secondary disc playback, come back and let us know what is up with that.