is a SACD+CD player better than a universal player

Yeah, if you're like me, being more of an audiophile than a videophile then I would imagine that you would probably get better audio performance out of a SACD/CD player than a universal.

Because of the extra circuitry needed to process the picture in DVD players the sound would probably get degraded a bit. Although, there are some players where you can bypass the video circuitry if you are playing an audio only disc such as CD or SACD. You may want to check if your Bel Canto has this feature.

If not, I am sure you already know this, but Musical Fidelity makes some great SACD/CD players along with dCS, and if you can afford it, unlike me, you should probably get some very much improved sound. Then, if you want, you can maybe sell your Bel Canto PL-1A to get a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player for better picture.

This is the way I would go, if I had the money of course.

Anyway, you should probably take these words with a pound of salt as I am just a crazy audio obsessed novice who doesn't know half as much that the he thinks he does, and even less about what he talks about.

Well, until you decide what to do, just relax and enjoy the music.

Take it easy,

I think a dedicated unit for music only in most cases would be better because of the lack of extra electronics in signal path as noted above. My father has an Esoteric unit that you can bypass video for such things as DVD-A where you dont care to watch any video. Both my father and I use Universal units his I mentioned, mine is a Lexicon, I used to use lower quality seperate players with DAC for music but I just wanted to cut down on gear and wires, to my ears the Lexicon is pretty good...no it isnt perfect but I didnt spend a pile of cash either. Both Esoteric and Ayre make very good music-only units for the purist's in audio.
How the new Hidef disc war will end up is anyones guess but if you dont have a large display (I have a 30in hidef) it really isnt as big of issue, larger the unit the more it makes sense. If it were me I would get a player that can handle both formats, it looks like HDDVD will likely loose the battle but you never know, cost and selection of movies is still an issue aswell. To me it just isnt worth it, and I am one of those "first on the block to own it" guys, I did that with Laser Disc, DVD, games systems when I was younger, HiDef TV, DVR....but this isnt something I want to get mixed up with just yet.

Chadnliz --

Interesting! I had a Lexicon RT-20 before the Bel Canto. The Lexicon was a bit better than the BC on video for sure. The Bel Canto was substantially superior on audio (as it should be given the difference in price). So I went with the BC given my preferences. It does have a video circuitry defeat. In fact it has a dedicated button on the front of the unit for this purpose.

The question is, does the Esoteric SACD/CD unit beat out universal players (including Esoteric's own UDPs and my Bel Canto)? Or the Ayre unit (although I think that may be 2-channel only, and I have a lot of multi-channel SACDs).

Maybe I should post a more specific thread aimed at owners of those units.

I am not qualified or experienced enough to add anything more, maybe another thread would get more takers.

My only input is this: yes, the Ayre is two-channel only, and for that it misses my mark (I have hundreds of mch hirez discs). My Modwright 3910, like most universals, has a video and digital out defeat mechanism called "all off" that likely gives you some large percentage of isolation that a gutted audio-only player would give. It is very difficult on 10% of my DVD-A's to live without ANY video, however, as they are authored so poorly (not sonically, just navigation) that finding the right layer or group is nearly impossible without a video feed.

The Esoteric line is a bit confusing but the SA-60 and DV-60 offer the mch universal player as audio-only or with video, and I haven't heard anyone say the SA-60 blows the DV version away or anything. My $.02 is that the video circuitry is easy to bypass, and that the differences in DACs and analog sections is a lot more evident sonically and a lot more worthy of evaluation than audio-only vs video-included (i realize you first asked about SACD/CD vs universal but assume you are mainly asking to discern whther onboard video is a large gremlin or not).