Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems G98 vs. BDP-LX52

I am running a G98 into a G68J and recently purchased a HD621 and Pioneer BDP-LX52. It goes without saying that visually Blu-ray is a significant improvement on DVD. This is a difficult admission as I have so many DVDs and hardly any Blu-ray disks at the moment. However, there really is no disputing this - even my wife could tell the difference.

On the audio side though, things are not so clear cut. Whilst Stealth on Blu-ray comfortably out performed DVD (recorded in LPCM on Blu-ray and the DVD sound track could have been a lot better) the same cannot be said of The Matrix. In fact, the audio on the DVD seems slightly better than the Blu-ray when comparing the many action sequences. This is slightly disconcerting to say the least!

I am beginning to wonder if my system has been set up properly. The installer did make a complete mess of this and was unable to get any sound out of the Pioneer at all. He eventually gave up and said that he would come back another day. In the meantime, I found the setting he had missed and made the necessary changes. My old laptop does come in handy every so often. There a lots of other settings though and I don't know what they are all for. This means that the HD621 and / or G68J might not be set up properly. Either that or the G98 does a better job of compressed 5.1 audio compared to the Pioneer BDP-LX52 in HD audio as far as The Matrix is concerned. Before you ask, I have selected HD audio rather than the compressed option on the Blu-ray player and I have checked this by keeping an eye on the on-screen bit-counter available on the player.

Could it be that the Pioneer is just not as good as some of the other Blu-ray players out there? Beginning to think that I should have gone for the Oppo.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

David