i don't have any bluray audio bds or even any dvd-audio dvds. i do have a couple of hdcds and a couple of can sacds my dad gave me that don't play in the panasonic. they do play in a sony dvp ns-325 in the kitchen, and in some of the drives in some of the pcs i have (i think it's more to do with windows 7 v windows xp because it only works on the win 7 pcs). i believe they were regifted because he didn't like them (ege bamyasi and tago mago).
(update: i actually just checked the disc and it plays now. i don't know why i had problems with it before. however, it's a hybrid disc that has sacd and cd layers not a sole sacd disc. maybe something got stuck or maybe i had a wrong setting on or something.)
the raspberry pi dac that handles digital audio in this system is technically better than the panasonic and was very cheap. that's the difference in 20 years of manufacturing.
Tones up to 24 bit/384kHz
Built-in transducer for high sound quality TI Burr Brown (TI PCM5122)
112db SNR dynamic range and -93db THD distortion factor
Available with RCA and Jack 3.5mm output connectors
the pi eliminates the motors and fans. it's super quiet.
i don't exactly know why dedicated digital audio players (wav, flac, mp3, alac) never hit the audiophile market. people got used to hooking their pcs up, or plugging in their ipods through the headphone out. there's not a lot of point in paying for a good playback audio system if the sound source sucks but there have been few solutions. a modern netbook is pretty quiet, but i've never seen a netbook with an rca out or even a digital out. you'd have to take it out through the headphones, or via usb card, which is largely just visual theatre (they connect to the digital headphone out). the pi with the audio hat was my solution for that and it sounds great, you just need to plug your 5 tb hd into it and it sends flacs out to your stereo in high quality, without fan noise.