is a SACD+CD player better than a universal player

Hey I'm just glad someone responded. Not sure why people aren't weighing in on this. Your question isn't too different than mine.

I have a fairly high end universal player (Bel Canto PL-1A) that I am very happy with. It's video performance is perhaps marginally less good than it's audio performance, and I've trialed in my home a couple of UDP's with video that seemed to be slightly better (but based on memory only, it wasn't a head-to-head shoot out) but I'm okay with that since I'm more of an audiophile than a videophile.

As far as audio, the PL-1A is among the very best I have heard on both CD and SACD. I don't listen to enough DVD-Audio to be able to speak to that.

But that is the motivation for my question -- since I don't listen to very much DVD-Audio and wouldn't miss it if I lost it AND since Blu-Ray/HD-DVD are making the debut, I'm wondering if switching out the PL-1A for a high end SACD/CD player and having a separate high definition video disc player isn't the way to go.

If so, then the SACD/CD player would have to beat the SACD/CD performance of my PL-1A....

By the way, apologies to all for the spelling errors -- I'm typing too fast!

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.

Yeah Ted, you pretty much nailed it, and your answer is very helpful to me. That has been my thinking as well. I was wondering if anyone had a good case to be made for the alternative.