Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Official Blue ray options - Denon, Arcam, Pioneer, etc.

I omitted that information so as not to complicate my answer to Jerry, but yes, the HDMI output from my CLUX is currently fed back to a spare input (sink) on the Radiance.

Suddenly the world all seems complicated again. Given that I listen to about 80% sonus, 10% CD and 10% DVD-A, perhaps the price of the Denon DVD A1UDCI becomes better when I factor in the sale of the G98.

While I am sure the G98 will be better at CD, given I am moving towards Sonus and one day perhaps to Sooloos if the price improves, maybe the convenience of one box wins the day. The question will be for each of CD and DVD-A, how close does the Denon get to the G98 if fed via the HD621, it is the flag ship model so should be good, it would also open up SACD. Hopefully on CD and DVD-A it would outscore the Oppo.

Suspect greater discounts are negotiable on Denon gear as well. Has anyone heard the current Denon flagship 3800BD in CD or DVD-A mode?

Denon do there own denon-link, does anyone know much about this,think it only works with Denon inputs, is it similar in any way to M's smart link, presumably no compatability.

Was also looking at the PS3 as a stop gap until the market matures but see that all the new versions have had SACD removed.

The other key question is whether BR music will ever take off and technically how will it sound versus DVD-A and SACD?

If M hadn't produced the HD621 I could live in peace and ignorance!

thanks


David

Another option is the Pioneer LX91 BD 2.0 Player. Also supposed to have stellar picture and good sound.

I'm still undecided but I will probably continue the NAS BD Backup Player/Client path. It's just too convenient to ignore. HDI Dune BD Prime might be an option, I will preorder it and try it out.

I think where the Denon units will outperform the Oppo BD-83 and other Blu-ray units is on upscaling SD-DVDs and analog audio, given its use of the HQV Realta video processor rather that the ABT solution, and its more robust analog section. However, for Blu-ray, DVD-A and SACD over HDMI, I suspect it will be very close if not identical. The HD621 is ostensibly designed to improve both audio and video, so in a sense it may level the field among the Denon and other universal players for audio/video over HDMI. We won't know until someone has some actual hands-on experience.

Arcam seem to be touting their new "super" upcoming player - as seen via avforums:

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/blogs/team_hcc/arcam+blu-ray+player

"All we know at the moment is that the FMJ-something-something-something will be the first serious high-end Blu-ray player from a major hi-fi company, and Arcam's boffins claim it will 'leave Japanese high-end players in the dust'. Styled to match the AVR600 receiver, this will be a fully-fledged player rather than just a transport. It's been designed from the ground up and required 20 man-years of development time.

Our mole tells us that Arcam's Blu-ray player will be seen first in the UK at the Bristol Hi-Fi show in February. More news as we have it."

Since this thread already has momentum let's keep the "which BD player" discussion to this thread.

I updates the subject.

My opinion here is known via other discussions we've had - I believe all correctly engineered digital players should output the same quality audio/video unless they deliberately choose not to. With that in mind I see absolutely no point in going down the expensive route for the BR player (same dead-end route many of us went down with the 800). All you need is a player that decodes all codecs internally and IMO has DVD-like fast response startup/response times and that has no issues that compromise audio/video.

These pages list various players and their abilities:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=980672
http://www.idoblu.co.uk/page2%20Blu-ray%20Players.html

My current choice is the Sony BDP-S550, which also seems to be the one Meridian were seen using at CES. It's cheap, it does all the internal decoding, and response time is fast.

[edit]If you want universal BR players you currently need to go down the hacked route?[/edit]

Mark

Ditto +1

Before the introduction of the Oppo BD-83 (due out in February or March), I was looking at the Sony S550 and the Panasonic BD55K. I recall reading that one of the advantages of the BD55K over the S550 was that the BD55K had frame by frame and slow fast forward and rewind. I may be mistaken about that but if that's an important consideration for you, you might want to do a little research on the issue. My reason for holding out for the BD-83 is that I want to have only one player in my system and my Toshiba XA2 has exceptionally good upscaling with it HQV Reon processor (I don't own any HD-DVDs). The Oppo will use the ABT chipset which is almost as good, and it plays DVD-As and SACDs as well, something the Sony and Panasonic do not. I don't have any DVD-As or SACDs, but I thought I might want to explore multi-channel recordings.

With the advent of the HD621, the Panasonic BD35K, which does not have analog outputs but is the same in all other respects as the BD55K, may be the ticket. The Sony S350 doesn't decode DTS-MA so I think it is out of the running. The Denon DVD-2500BDCI (no analog outputs) and the DVD-3800BDCI (with audio outputs and HQV Realta video processing for SD-DVDs) have gotten good reviews, but are only Blu-ray 1.1 compliant (i.e., no BD-Live) which may actually be a plus for some.

I don't know very much about the other Blu-ray players, as the ones mentioned above were the ones I focused on. I'm sure each has its advantages and disadvantages. The HD621 opens up lots of possibilities; the analog capabilities of Blu-ray players has become no longer an issue.

This is just a minor nit. In that I would look for a player that does not have analog outputs (that might be hard to find that decodes all codecs). If it does not have analog output then it will likely not have bass management either. I rather have the raw "nominal" data than have to second guess what the bass management settings need to be, to be 100% neutral since the Merdian processor will do all that again. It's a very minor nit but I don't trust some of these companies from being error free and the less they do the better. And the less I have to guess the better too. If a player does not have analog outputs it does not guarantee a player will not have bass management for HDMI. A good example will be how it handles -10db on LFE. That is the sort crap I want to minimize. It's just one more set of knobs that can be set wrong is the way I look at it. PS3 does not have any knobs for example in this context, this was purely luck and I never planned for it.

It's not. I screen films, not frames But others may need this.

People need to ensure all their requirements are covered, but my main point is that you don't need to spend a lot to achieve it. I don't see any compelling reason to spend mid-end, and certainly not high-end amounts, on any digital spinner these days.

Cheers,

Mark

Good point on the bass management quagmire. The only two countervailing advantages I see to a player with analog outputs are 1) you can use the multi-channel analog inputs on your G68 or 861 for lossless audio while you're saving up for your HD621 or Shawn modded alternative, and 2) when the next greatest thing comes along you can move it to another room where you might not have HDMI audio/video inputs on your display or legacy Meridian processor.