Best Blu-Ray ANALOG Output - Under $1000?

Ive got the Pioneer bdp-05 and use the analogues out to CJ multi channel pre/amp.
It sounds awesome. Blurays in true dts-hd blow away my denon 5900 and it plays cds that sound almost as good as my primaluna8 tube cd player.
It can be had for 500$, mrp 899$

"Mwilliford (Mark)":

Or you could give the Pioneer BDP-51FD a try. I bought one almost three weeks ago. Superb picture and excellent sound. Load times could improve, but other than that, no complaints (so far). On the audio end, my player has Wolfson DAC's (which was one of the main reasons why I chose to get THIS particular player rather than get the newer equivalent...... the same DAC's that Arcam use in their TOL CD Players), which I feel contributes to the excellent sound quality.

It was a $600.00 player when it was released last year, but I got it for less than $300.00 on-line about three weeks ago (shipping included).

I will try playing CD's through mine as well just to see if it can play CD's as well as DVD's and Blu-Ray Discs. If that turns out to be the case, then all will be well. If not, then I will investigate on adding an inexpensive External DAC to supplement it (i.e. -- maybe a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic for around $400.00 or so).

Regards and Good Luck.....

--Charles--

both the oppo and pioneer sound great with 24/96 material through the audio outs (arcam avr350 - salk V3 speakers)

cds not as good as my Audio Research CD2 on my main system

I ordered a dac magic for that wadia ipod doc and may try running the blu ray through it if it can handle it (not sure)

the pioneer is a great player in audio and video but really is substandard in handling discs and load times

Oppo all the way!

Thanks to everyone for all the good feedback. I wish I were not tainted by the old days of Pioneer...looks like a nice option. I'll wait a bit longer and see if the Oppo comes out. Otherwise I need to get over the stale Pioneer stigmas of the past.

Mark

I got my oppo yesterday.
Letting it run in a bit. Will post thoughts.
Another feature that it offers is a pair of usb inputs. I can get uncompressed files from a flash drive into the oppo and out to my benchmark dac (I have the old one without usb input).
All in all, a pretty nift feature set but it will need to run a while. And I suspect that I will have to run in the stereo and multi ch analog outs seperatly.