Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems HelpPlease - Looking to buy a new Blu-Ray player

I wonder whether the Dune SMART B1 might give you optionality that the Oppo is more limited in providing?

Just a random thought.

Can the Dune SMART be multi-regioned?

Thank you all for your kind comments and thoughts. It seems that the general theme to the responses I have seen is that the Oppo has been most peoples preferred blu-ray route when using a HD621 in combination with an 861.

Has anyone tried the Theta? It seems like it may be a happy middleground between the Oppo and the AYRE and it also has a rack mounting kit which I don't believe Oppo offer.

I have looked at he specs at the Oppo 93. it seems fairly compelling and ticks most of the boxes that i care about. It will convert DD THD and DTS MA internally and send out an LPCM signal to the HD621 and it has an RS232 (i control via Crestron). Will there be a multi-region "fix" for this unit or is it more likely to only play discs from the region you bought it in? My current BD player (Pioneer) will not play anything which is not region 2 (DVD or BD).

Many thanks in advance for your kind help + time.

I also noticed the Theta, and anecdotal reports so far (on AVS) are that audio over HDMI does sound different from it. If this means that they have improved the jitter on the HDMI that can only be a good thing.

If rack-mounting is a major issue, I would have thought Middle Atlantic could sort you out with a kit for any Oppo, without adding $2500 to the cost. (I read that the Theta has gone down from $5000 to $3000.)

The Ayre may be wonderful, but I suspect much of that $10000 would be wasted for someone using it as a digital transport...

Not sure. I did talk to JVB Digital about HD-SDI and they were certainly looking at this. I suspect that I will pass on this as HD-SDI doesn't take audio, so I would need to use SPDIF out from the SMART unit which would mean that I lost the benefit of HD-Audio into my HD621. I'm less worried about multi-region as my Oppo BDP-83 will do this for me.

What the Dune will do is play streamed high-rez files over my network, so the spinner-less D1 module is probably as much as I need to add. Given that I'm already up to 6.5TB on my NAS and still have some HD DVDs to rip I might keep the Oppo and not rip my BDs.

Regarding region free conversion kits for the BDP-93 I would ask CRT or bluraychip.dk

Thanks again. I'll check with CRT although their website says that they no longer deal with retail customers so I'm not sure if I'll get a reply.

MA rack mods never look as good as the OEM rack kits but I agree, it's gardly worth a couple of thousand bucks!

I have my Oppo DBP-83 rack mounted in a Middle Atlantic raack...Middle Atlantic makes a shelf and faceplate combination that works very very well and, as luck would have it, the 93 will fit in the same faceplate / shelf as the 83...

HTH...

Thanks a bunch, dBrowne. After you asked your question I went to find the answer...

...and went and bought one...

Joelc, thanks for letting me know about the MA rack combination. That's very helpful.

CRT now seem to be Oppo Europe i.e. the importers and no longer doing retail. UKHDMI, who are selling the BDP93, have said they hope to be able to sell (and also install) multi-region kits, though this would be after the first batch had been sold.

This business of drives going out of production and not being able to have players repaired is getting ridiculous