4K Blu-ray and Stereo and...

The Rega Apollo CD player release has caused me to rethink my own "player" purchase. I got one of the new Oppo's last year when they came out. Thrilled! I love it. There was a rough go of it with my one SACD I owned at the time but a firmware update fixed it, and it plays fine now. For myself the questions have become:

Do I need 4K capability in a player? My TV is 1080p. My Preamp is 1080p. I watch very little TV (Nothing live, Netflix/Hulu only) and get only one or two Blu-Ray rentals a month. I watch about four, maybe six DVD's a year from my own collection of a couple dozen DVD's.  

Do I even now need SACD capability? If it were not for the Sabre DAC in my 205 I might have been better off with say, an Apollo and a cheap Blu-Ray player because I am not very video oriented. SACD's are still being released. I have yet to do a serious evaluation of whether SACD is "better" than CD but at nearly twice the cost of a CD, the difference would have to be noticeable enough to get me dedicated.

Do I need 5.1 surround sound? For reasons now unknown to me I had thought that 5.1 might become a standard for the recording industry the way it became standard for the film industry. We all know that did not materialize, so now the rear speakers are primarily used to provide ambiance. I have three DTS 5.1 audio discs, and just recently upped my SACD's to a total of three.  So as the industry heads towards 11 channels I find myself reverting back to only 2. (Digress. I am surprised at how many vintage receivers and amplifiers provide a center channel. What's old is new again.) When done right 5.1 is impressive as hell! I watched a Transformers movie on recommendation for its 5.1 surround sound and the sound was fantastic! The movies I do enjoy make very little use of 5.1 surround sound so I am now questioning my own personal need for that as well.

Streaming & downloading music will be inevitable for all of us, as will MQA whether we want it or not. The music industry most likely sees it (downloads) as a means of cutting production costs thereby raising profits. While I still love the CD format; cover art and liner notes got a lot smaller and harder to read even when I was young, and now when done for digital downloads they need to be downloaded and viewed on a screen.

How do other VTA owners feel about 5.1 surround?,  4K video?,  CD/SACD?,  Digital downloads?

Asking the wrong guy here about 4K - I gotta say, I do have 1080P but only use that for sports and stuff where the detail is handy. Movies and TV are still mostly SD - gives me more of a theater effect, and it's not like I need to count an aging actor's warts and ear hairs ... (shudder)

Got a lot of the classic SACDs here, and am quite happy with an older Oppo 980H as I don't really need or want all the new fangled features. I only use it for audio playback, and it handles that gracefully. SACDs also tend to sell out pretty quick, and people seem to hang onto them, so a lot of the golden rock is gone, or expensive if you're buying. I DO have a blueray player on the video system, but that's in another room and doesn't tie into the stereo. That system also has 7.1 surround in most any flavor I've got in the collection.

So - time for you to do a personal audit and see what you can get away with and still be happy I guess.

PS - I live in a cottage style home with small rooms - tv is only 8 feet in front of me, so I get all the screen I need with a 46" set. That would factor into whatever resolution you decide on.

I think 4k is headed for the same sink-hole as those warped screens, or 8-tracks for that matter.
Skiz, like you we live in a cottage-sized house and a 55-inch flat-screen so the video's covered.
We are in the midst of an evolving technology. Not a 6.1 freak, or anything else with Dolby or Bose attached to it.
I think HQ stereo covers all the bases. We only have two ears after all. We're all getting a bit dodgy and unable to absorb sound at 100,000,000 CPS. Think the same thing applies to eyeballs.

I just got a new LG UHD 4K 55 inch TV that I have connected to a Sony HT receiver and only two speakers because of the room layout. I watch Netflix quite a bit and rarely watch a DVD. To me the sound is fine.

My stereo tube system and McIntosh system are dedicated for music only. When I win the lottery I put together a system with 5 mono amps (tube or otherwise) but for now I'm happy with what I have.

There are better and far cheaper ways to make good sound come out of the TV than those $300 soundbars. For about $20 you can get a litlle Lepwai Class D amp (20 WPC) and another $60 for a decent pair of small Daytons. I rarely use the tubes for TV unless the sound--track warrants it. You can hook everything up in such a way that there's no wiring change when you go from one to the other.