The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as Hi-Res Surround Music Players

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, covered before on Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection, are mostly geared towards video gamers. The PlayStation 3 had an ability of being an all-in-one media centre that replaces your existing stand-alone Blu-ray player with added support for music files (not FLAC), video files (not MKV), and photos (JPEG). The PlayStation 3 can also play back PSOne games, 8cm discs, Audio CD’s, DVD Video Discs, Blu-ray’s, and Data discs burned from a computer, including some pre-recorded stock library CD-ROMs originally for Windows such as Corel Gallery. The Launch (Fat) PS3 supports SACD’s and PlayStation 2 games, but later dropped support.

The Xbox 360, however, appears to be limited in features. Whilst it can play Audio CD’s and DVD Video Discs, there’s no support for Blu-ray. Other problems include only playing the DVD-Video layer on DVD-Audio discs and DualDiscs, forcing you to build your music library by only ripping Audio CD’s, and there’s no way to copy common file formats from a Flash Drive or optical disc to the hard drive aside from proprietary game data and selecting a photo as your wallpaper; it just stays on the original media.

This time, I’m going to take these mid-2000s video game consoles to a whole new level: Hi-Res Surround Music on DVD and Blu-ray!

PLAYSTATION 3

I have four Blu-ray audio discs in the collection that I’ve tested on my PlayStation 3 connected through HDMI of my VIZIO 5.1 Sound Bar.

You don’t need extra equipment to play back the Blu-ray Audio discs. They behave just like a standard Blu-ray Disc!

The first one that I tried is Supertramp’s Crime of the Century (2014 reissue of the 1974 album). It was digitally remastered at 192 kHz 24-bit stereo sound from the original analog master tapes. My Dad has a Vinyl LP record copy of that album, and we did compare the differences between the two releases, and the vinyl sounded crisper than the Blu-ray. No Surround Sound unfortunately, but there are three stereo options: Uncompressed LPCM, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio.

The second one is a sampler from 2L The Nordic Sound, which is a classical music label from Norway targeted towards digital audiophiles. These recordings were done at 352 kHz 24-bit DXD, and also contains a bonus SACD, which I played on my Sony BDP-S370 and Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray players, although the SACD is also compatible with the launch (Fat) PS3. There are two surround options on the Blu-ray, which are encoded at DTS-HD Master Audio and Uncompressed LPCM, and a backup stereo track, all in a 192 kHz 24-bit container.

The third one is an interpretation of Maurice Ravel’s Bolero from the German TACET classical record label. This would appear to be a test of dynamic range from quiet to loud. The disc has two uncompressed LPCM surround and stereo tracks at 96 kHz 24-bit. Packaged in a CD jewel case.

The last one in the collection is TIESTO’s Elements of Life. TIESTO is a trance music producer from the Netherlands. One of the rare Blu-ray Audio discs that I have that contains an AURO3D mix in 9.1, and also contains a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix as well as a backup LPCM stereo track.

People who owned a PlayStation 3 and a surround sound system like myself would benefit playing music in the highest quality. Blu-ray Audio is the most compatible music format which fits the need.

I’ve also tried a DualDisc of Rob Thomas’ Something to Be (I have two copies, and I also have Bon Jovi’s Have a Nice Day on DualDisc), and the PlayStation 3 reads both the CD layer and the DVD layer just fine! You can rip the CD layer of a DualDisc on the PlayStation 3 as compressed audio files to your music library as well! The DVD layer, when played on the PlayStation 3, uses the DVD-Video layer with the backup Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack. Chesky Records’ Ultimate DVD Audio Surround Sampler from the early 2000s has the same compatibility check when played on the PS3 too! Unfortunately, It cannot play pure DVD-Audio discs.

XBOX 360

OK, so it doesn’t support Blu-ray’s, but I’ve tried the same DualDiscs and DVD-Audio discs mentioned above, and got the same result on the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 only detects the DVD-Video layer of a DVD-Audio disc even though the DVD-Audio feature was a mistake in Microsoft’s marketing of the Xbox 360 back in 2005 (again, cannot play pure DVD-Audio discs. Comes up with a black screen without any interactivity.). Both the Rob Thomas DualDisc and the Chesky Records sampler always defaults to the DVD-Video layer with the backup Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack, but the CD layer of the Rob Thomas DualDisc can be imported to the music library of the Xbox 360 no problem.

Sorry, there’s no FLAC support on the Xbox 360 either.

CONCLUSION

Seventh generation consoles, especially the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, can do more than just gaming. Eight generation consoles and up have recently omitted a red laser for Compact Discs (that includes the PlayStation 4 and 5 models). If you just want to take a break from video games and want to listen to music in the highest possibly quality on your seventh generation console that you are still hanging on to, go for the DVD, DualDisc, and Blu-ray Audio formats!

Starting in the early 1950’s, Vinyl LP’s offered the best sound quality of recorded music, being an analog format. In the early 1980’s, Compact disc made the scene, but was limited to 44 kHz 16-bit stereo sound quality. In the 2000’s, we now have SACD, DSD, FLAC, DVD-Audio, and Blu-ray Audio, so that we can listen to music in the highest quality possible and in surround sound that is a digital replica of Vinyl LP’s!

I recommend you get a PlayStation 3 and some Blu-ray Audio discs and SACD’s second-hand and on Amazon if you are interested in that sort of thing, and don’t forget to check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! For now, take care!