I broke down & bought the Blu-ray for the (SUPPOSED) hi-res audio. While I still think this is the album of the year musically, the sound of the actual concert sounds like a lossy (Dolby, DTS) DVD. Very disappointing sound, I suggest saving your money & avoiding the blu edition. Here's some more that I wrote in another thread when all I had played was the unplugged segment (which sounds better than the concert), & the first song from the concert. From a sound quality pov, the more I listen, the more disappointed I've gotten. Getting the bonus tracks in SUPPOSED HDMA is the only reason I can give to buy the blu; the concert sounds about the same on the cd edition as on the blu. I have a strong suspicion that this is lossy 16/48 DTS, NOT DTS HDMA.
Note that when I say below it sounds better than the cd, I had mostly only listened to the unplugged segment, which is only on the dvd (definitely lossy) & the blu; that segment is not on the cd.
Me wrote:
I finally broke down & spent $'s I didn't have on the Blu-ray edition of Bush Live At Roseland for the high res audio. So far, this is my album of the year. I previously owned the concert in cd form, & the unplugged "bonus tracks" only as mp3's.
I just went upstairs & played the unplugged session & the 1st song of the concert (had to come back to the pc & go to work).
I still think it's the album of the year, & the sound is an improvement over the cd, but............ it's only 48k! HUH??????
As it's 2.0 only, you'd think there would be room on the disc for 192/24 LPCM. One of the Oppo's 2 weaknesses is it doesn't report the true audio playback rate (as my Pioneer Universal DVD player does); it simply shows whatever written information the disc manufacturer embedded in the disc, where as the Pioneer actually queries it's output circuits & reports what it's REALLY outputting. Reason I bring this up, is the Oppo reports the Bush as "DTS HD MA 2.0 48K". I ASSUME that's likely 48/24 DTS, & it does sound better than the cd; but it actually could be as low as 16/48! And with a 2.0 48k sampling rate as the only audio option, why mess with DTS when PCM is sonically superior?? It isn't like there isn't enough room on a Blu-ray disc for a larger audio file..............
I'm a bit pissed at the Blu manufacturer, & also at Oppo. This usually isn't an issue, as I can check the true sampling & bit rates of a DVD-A on either my PC or the Pioneer, & I can check any files on my pc; but I currently don't have a br player installed on any of my pc's. I actually bought one for a whopping $1 at a garage sale awhile back. I am a hardware weenie (especially when it comes to my Dells which are a royal pain to open up) so I've been procrastinating about installing the player. It's also untested (i.e. I have no clue if it works), & I've read that this particular player (Sony BDU-X10S) doesn't tend to get along well with XP. I need to install it one of these days, though.
