Sony BDP-S300 (incl. S1, S500 and more)

[snowbl1nd]

Hello Everyone,

Let me introduce a little overview and measurements of the Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray disc player which also reads CDs and DVDs.



The analog part is built on a DAC PCM1791 and the digital part is on the VNP2064-A board with SMP8634LF CPU, which can also be found in the models BDP-S500, BDP-S1 and Pioneer BDP-LX70.



I've often heard from audiophiles that clocking in media players, including DVD and BD players, is much more complex, as these devices use a 27 MHz oscillator, which isn't a multiple of a standard sampling rate (e.g., 44.1 MHz). The required frequencies are generated by a frequency synthesizer built into the processor, which also generates high jitter besides interference from the processor.
Let's check it out!

My setup: Sony BDP-S300 (Test CD) --> MiniDSP PocketADC (coax) --> DIR9001 (i2s) --> SA9227 (usb) --> MacOS --> REW

Measurements (Analog out)

999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without and with dither)
0dbfs / -1dbfs / -3dbfs (without dither)

0dbfs / -1dbfs (with dither)


Multitone


IMD AES Analog
18kHz and 20kHz, -3.02dB / 41Hz and 7993Hz, -1.68dB


Pitch error and jitter test
Some noise between 18 and 19kHz

Oversampling filter response test

Intersample over test
5512.5 Hz, +0.69dBFS / 7350 Hz, +1.25dBFS / 11025 Hz, +3.0dBFS

3DC measurement

Measurements (Digital coax out)
999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without and with dither)
0dbfs (without and with dither)


Well, here's the most interesting part
Pitch error and jitter test
Looks good!

3DC measurement


Conclusion
Judging by the measurements obtained, at least this player shows good results both in analog and digital.
However, it would be interesting to see the results of the Dune players and compare them. Most likely they need to be upgraded for good S/PDIF output.

Thank you for your attention!

 

[amirm]

Nice work. Promoted to home page. Please don't edit the post again or it will wait for my approval.

 

[snowbl1nd]

Nice work. Promoted to home page. Please don't edit the post again or it will wait for my approval.

I apologize for this, some of the formatting disappeared after publication, especially the line breaks.

 

[whell]

IMHO, those Burr Brown 179x series chips are/were great, and still.hold up extremely well against more recent designs from competitors. I've got a DAC.build around one of those chips. Still use it everyday, with no desire to replace it.

 

[Billy Budapest]

This is an 18 year old disc player. I suggest a more recent Sony player, more likely to exist “in the wild” (i.e., on eBay) be tested instead, like the UDP-x1000es or UDP-x1100es. Those are the last two Sony universal players with stereo analog outputs.

 

[GWolfman]

@snowbl1nd thanks for the post and welcome to the (contributors) scene!

 

[trevor_bartram]

I always recommended the Sony BDP-S1700/3700/6700, they are current reliable players but I have no idea regarding jitter performance?

 

[Putter]

I always recommended the Sony BDP-S1700/3700/6700, they are current reliable players but I have no idea regarding jitter performance?

From my experience, I would recommend only the 6700 because it has SACD playback and UHD upscaling capacity.

I wouldn't recommend the s300 for anything except CD and DVD playback. It doesn't have Dolby True HD or the DTS equivalent. It's main virtues are having a front display which many Blu-ray players don't and a 5.1 output which can be helpful for connection to AV receivers with no HDMI although it does have Optical and Coaxial outputs.

As for Jitter, while an audiophile bugaboo, I haven't seen any tests from Amir or anyone else that indicated that it rises to audible levels on any disc spinner tested..

 

[snowbl1nd]

This is an 18 year old disc player. I suggest a more recent Sony player, more likely to exist “in the wild” (i.e., on eBay) be tested instead, like the UDP-x1000es or UDP-x1100es. Those are the last two Sony universal players with stereo analog outputs.

Old Sony players are known for drive failures. I was mistaken in thinking I could replace it with any other IDE drive, but unfortunately there's protection there.

I always recommended the Sony BDP-S1700/3700/6700, they are current reliable players but I have no idea regarding jitter performance?

If Sony solved it in this player, then perhaps in newer ones too.

I wouldn't recommend the s300 for anything except CD and DVD playback

As I mentioned above, the drives in them are unreliable and the loading speed is very slow (the player doesn't have a standby mode) . Mine starts reading discs after about 10 attempts, and even that's not guaranteed, but it reads perfectly after that. Although it's not hard to find KES-400A (the same one in the PS3) for replacing.

 

[EERecordist]

Thank you for a detailed study. I wonder what the noise and harmonic distortion floor specs are for movie sound tracks, in production and mastering, for release to DVD and Blu-ray and Ultra Blu-ray? One would imagine they would have the best compressor-limiters money can buy.

From memory, correct me if I'm wrong, DVD audio is compressed and Blu-ray is lossless. I shudder to think what the end to end result is in video streaming.

 

[snowbl1nd]

From memory, correct me if I'm wrong, DVD audio is compressed and Blu-ray is lossless.

I rarely listened to music on DVD, but it seems to me that the PСM tracks had no more than two channels due to disk space limitations.
Although a DVD-Audio disc may contain a 5.1-channel audio track up to 24-bit/96 kHz as well as a 24-bit/192 kHz in stereo.

 

[aagstn]

I'm still a fan of these players that can play multiple formats despite some of the limitations they have. I still use a Sony BDP-S790 for the occasional CD, SACD, and Blu-ray Audio and it does the job just fine. Multi-channel audio is my main use though with SACDs and Blu-ray Audio. It also allowed me to liberate my SACDs to my server so I don't have to worry about a new disc player down the line.

 

[Mookalafalas]

Great serendipity for me. I was just trying to find a way to ask (on this site) if a test of a Sony BluRay player could be done! I have thousands of ripped CDs on hard disks and have been burning them (as Flac files) to DVDs and BluRay disks. I can fit 100 Cds on one bluRay and about 20 on a DVD, so it saves lots of switching-out time while still giving me the psychological satisfaction of playing music from physical media rathere than streaming from my PC hard disk. I have a Sony BDP-S1100 in my office and an S1500 in my house (both purchased for about $50 second hand). For casual listening they sound fine, but I'm very curious about how they'd fare in a data-driven critical review. Perhaps not to badly?

​

 

[Audioagnostic]

I always recommended the Sony BDP-S1700/3700/6700, they are current reliable players but I have no idea regarding jitter performance?

I have both the 1700 and 6700. The 6700 being used in my surround system, it is I think the cheapest player able to do SACD.
Both are very robust and sound fine...

Only complaint would be that they are a bit noisy, there is some mechanical rumble.

Would love to see any of these tested!

 

[snowbl1nd]

Perhaps not to badly?

I think the entire model range is based on the same board, but never had any dealings with it.

 

[beefkabob]

So much of what audiophiles complain about just doesn't matter.

 

[snowbl1nd]

So much of what audiophiles complain about just doesn't matter.

I had one of the Dune HD players with a similar processor but a different motherboard. Its audio path was really designed just to make it work, so there's nothing to say about the quality)

 

[xlinknz]

From my experience, I would recommend only the 6700 because it has SACD playback and UHD upscaling capacity.

I wouldn't recommend the s300 for anything except CD and DVD playback. It doesn't have Dolby True HD or the DTS equivalent. It's main virtues are having a front display which many Blu-ray players don't and a 5.1 output which can be helpful for connection to AV receivers with no HDMI although it does have Optical and Coaxial outputs.

As for Jitter, while an audiophile bugaboo, I haven't seen any tests from Amir or anyone else that indicated that it rises to audible levels on any disc spinner tested..

@Putter likewise I use a Sony S5100 as it has SACD support (but no DAC) but now I connect it via coax to a Fiio DAC and it sounds very good. Those Sony BR payers are good value as transports

 

[Sokel]

Really good review, nice to see a 2-decade-old piece of gear delivering the goods as it should.

Thanks snowbl1nd!

 

[trevor_bartram]

I have both the 1700 and 6700. The 6700 being used in my surround system, it is I think the cheapest player able to do SACD.
Both are very robust and sound fine...

Only complaint would be that they are a bit noisy, there is some mechanical rumble.

Would love to see any of these tested!

My S1700 started to vibrate & get noisy on Blu-ray after many years of use. It's fine on DVD & CD with lower spin speeds. It's now used as my secondary CD player for SACD, MP3, CDR & flash drives that my main CD player doesn't play. I added a Rasp Pi 7" HDMI LCD display because that series of Sony players have no display. Cheers!