Redefining "Universal Player"

Hmmm. I've had much more than a dozen players, including universals and BluRay players, none have had a digital input and I never even noticed.

And today, there's even a decreasing need for it as more and more players are simply transports which output digital signals to an AVR or prepro. So, we can just us another input on said AVR or prepro. No problem.

Kal

I was under the impression that the term universal player described a unit that played all sliver disc formats, i.e. CD, SACD, DVD-A, CD-R (etc.), and now Blu-Ray.

I never thought it had anything to do with having a digital input.

Why would a source component have a digital input? I can understand a digital output, but the digital input requirement has me puzzled.

Tvad, you look at a digital output as understandable, because it is a transport which could use an external DAC. To others, a multi-silver-disc-playing box with an excellent DAC can be used as an external DAC when the next new silver disc or "transport" technology comes along (like BlueRayII or a HDD- or memory-based server).

T-Bone, is there any commercially made universal player produced in the past five years that has a digital input? I'm thinking specifically about the players from the major companies: Sony, Panasonic, Marantz, Denon, etc.?

Do the universal players from Ayre or Esoteric have digital inputs?

My universal player has a digital input, but only because it's a modded player that has an optional digital input available as part of the modification.

I agree it's handy.

I've also never owned a player with a digital input and don't understand the expectation for one. They are certainly the exception rather than the rule, and I can only think of a few off the top of my head that actually offer that option. If you are looking for the ultimate conversion the obvious solution is to get an external DAC with its own power supply, rather than a DAC sharing the box and power supply with the transport. In doing this you can simply plug in the next latest greatest format when it comes out. The newer DACs like the Berkley Alpha are sure to keep up with anything you're likely to find to feed to it. The only reason I could see for wanting to use the internal DAC of a player (assuming you like it of course) is the convenience of using a single box for memory-based playback and disk-based playback. I suppose it's one less set of IC's (or digital cord) and one less PC to purchase and deal with as well.