Blu-ray Audio

I'm more interested in the rock orientated stuff. As far as I can tell, most of the material is already available in HiRes from other sources. But it will be interesting to see how the catalogue develops. I'm certainly looking for an excuse to try one, although not looking for an excuse to waste money.

I've tried Grrr Rolling Stones in spite of already owning most of the music on vinyl and CD. There is definitely a distinct improvement over 16 bit CD- improved sound staging, stereo imaging, the presence of Jagger's voice etc. The improvement is I think less pronounced in the over-produced, congested tracks  of the middle years e.g. Gimme Shelter. The earliest and latest tracks benefit most. I think the Diana Krall disc should be good. Naxos have a small classical catalogue - Ravel and Gershwin look attractive as do the prices. I connected my blu-ray player to Naimuniti2 optical digital input, so I think the DAC function is down to the Naim rather than the blu ray player. My blu ray player read the disc as having 50 "chapters" of 3 or 4 minutes each, so I could not call up a track by number but had to skip through the preceding chapters - if that makes sense. Perhaps other players perform better. If buying a dedicated blu ray player for the hi fi  rack then this is something to watch out for.

Thanks for the replies. I originally posted this in the Hi-Fi Corner as I was interested in the sound quality of the format.

I have the cd version of the Kaufmann Wagner, so could buy the Blu-ray version to compare, but the discs are not cheap & as my blu-ray is plugged into the RCA phono input of my NAC 112x, I would be relying on dac in the blu-ray player, would I be getting the best out of the disc.

Hi Morton, I don't know the 112x , and I'm not the most technical of people, but I see from the manual that it has DIN inputs and presumably has no DAC, so you can only use the RCA. I dare say the DAC in the average blu ray player can't be any great shakes but then again it can produce 5:1 sound and those pin sharp images on HD TV. Maybe you wont get all that the discs can offer but the owners of £100,000 plus systems would tell us that about all  the other formats. If you cant borrow a disc then look at the Naxos which are under £9. I would definitely give it a try at that price and decide for myself.