What Bluray player to get?

K

Kyle Braunlich

Junior Audioholic
I currently own the Sony ubp x800 which does not have Dolby vision. I am simply looking for an upgrade that would have Dolby vision and Atmos. I don’t want the x800 m2 as I want more of an upgrade and don’t want the x700 as it is the lower end model. Would love to hear all suggestions.
 
John Parks

John Parks

Audioholic Samurai
What is your budget? The Panasonic DP-UB9000 is supposed to be one of the best out there and is $1K. I have the Pioneer Elite UDP-LX500 ($1099 MSRP) and love it as a universal player. Does the player itself have Atmos or is that up to the receiver?
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
Maybe Panasonic DP-UB820 is one that might work. I just did a search and found it, no first hand experience with it.

Do you have a TV with Dolby Vision?
 
K

Kyle Braunlich

Junior Audioholic
What is your budget? The Panasonic DP-UB9000 is supposed to be one of the best out there and is $1K. I have the Pioneer Elite UDP-LX500 ($1099 MSRP) and love it as a universal player. Does the player itself have Atmos or is that up to the receiver?
I was looking for more like $500. Would going up to $1k make that much of a difference. I have a receiver that has Dolby Atmos. I would need two hdmi, one for audio and one for video because the receiver does not support Dolby vision. I will also add I have a lg b8 oled tv.
 
M

Mpsafranski

Audioholic
FYI I was in the same position last year and I did go out and purchase the x-700. You can get em cheap which is nice. The only pain is you need to manually shut off DV when watching one that doesn’t have it. Such a dumb flaw. But for the life of me I cannot understand the stratospheric prices of some models. Sure the Sony looks cheap and likely won’t last forever compared to pricier models but paying 10x more for marginal and likely placebo performance improvements seems crazy. To me. I’d rather buy more speakers or a third sub hahaha.

EDIT: there are no noticeable differences to me between the 700 and 800 besides the DV as far as playback goes
 
K

Kyle Braunlich

Junior Audioholic
FYI I was in the same position last year and I did go out and purchase the x-700. You can get em cheap which is nice. The only pain is you need to manually shut off DV when watching one that doesn’t have it. Such a dumb flaw. But for the life of me I cannot understand the stratospheric prices of some models. Sure the Sony looks cheap and likely won’t last forever compared to pricier models but paying 10x more for marginal and likely placebo performance improvements seems crazy. To me. I’d rather buy more speakers or a third sub hahaha.

EDIT: there are no noticeable differences to me between the 700 and 800 besides the DV as far as playback goes
Thanks for the reply, love that you had the same situation. The x800 seems to run kinda slow and freezes a bit. Ever had that issue with the x700?
 
M

Mpsafranski

Audioholic
I had horrible handshake issues with the 800 going into my (at the time) Sony receiver and Sony tv. Movie playback was fine but the menu constantly flickered and forget about listening to an SACD, that would flicker too and the music would flicker with it. Since getting my Marantz and the 700 I’ve experienced no issues at all. Go figure, Sony. Perhaps there is a reason to drop a bunch of dough . But naw, no issues at all with the 700 thankfully.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
Thanks for the reply, love that you had the same situation. The x800 seems to run kinda slow and freezes a bit. Ever had that issue with the x700?
I have all 3 Sony models (different rooms)


The x800 freezes sometimes.

The x700 and x800m2 haven’t been freezing so far (only got them recently though)
 
G

Gmoney

Audioholic Ninja
So far my Sony UHB-700 has been really good, but I’ve only had it about two months. It Streams flawlessly, no Hiccups. I’ve watched GOT in 4K with no Problems. It does have a setting that you have to go into menu settings to turn on Dolby Vision. Also Blade Runner 2049 on 4K blu-ray Disc.
 
G

Gmoney

Audioholic Ninja
Also ADTG aka Andrew has the Sony UHB-700 he likes the unit also. And he is very hard to please!;)
He won’t Tolerate crappy gear.
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
I have a 700 too. It’s been a great player. Home screen loads really fast, streams great, plays Atmos from disk and thumb drive.
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
Piling on:
Very little my 700 does wrong.
Something in the programming causes it to not read the track programming of DTS 5.1 discs very well. Play back is fine, I just have to pay attention and make certain it moves to the next track instead of repeats.
A minor nuisance.
Other than that it works great!
 
M

Movie2099

Audioholic General
I currently own the Sony ubp x800 which does not have Dolby vision. I am simply looking for an upgrade that would have Dolby vision and Atmos. I don’t want the x800 m2 as I want more of an upgrade and don’t want the x700 as it is the lower end model. Would love to hear all suggestions.
I too have the x800 and have been very unhappy with it. I have movies that freeze and the player itself is very slow to load. I was lucky to have purchased it on sale when it dropped to $180 during the holidays a couple of years ago.

I'm really sold on the Panasonic UB-820. I've seen and read many reviews on it and they say it's one of the best on the market. It's $500 but I've seen it marked down to $399 during the holidays. A good amount of the reviews I've read were from people who owned the x800 and upgraded to the UB820 and all said it was worth the upgrade.

UB820 has all the nice features, beautiful picture and has both Dolby Vision and HDR10+.
 
M

Mpsafranski

Audioholic
Yeah, I think what it comes down to for OP is, Sony has left a bad taste in your mouth, understandably so. And the thought of the solution being to drop down a model in their lineup seems crazy. Also understandable.
but, plenty of 700 owners, including me who made that step down, happy with the performance of the 700. So the question is, is that badexperience with the 800 bad enough to spend the extra $350 on a different brand, or go against instinct and save some money.
Personally, I would 100% understand the logic for either move. (Im the one sitting here wondering if I should get external amplification to drive my front 3 even though my receiver seems to be powering them just fine )
 
M

Movie2099

Audioholic General
Yeah, I think what it comes down to for OP is, Sony has left a bad taste in your mouth, understandably so. And the thought of the solution being to drop down a model in their lineup seems crazy. Also understandable.
but, plenty of 700 owners, including me who made that step down, happy with the performance of the 700. So the question is, is that badexperience with the 800 bad enough to spend the extra $350 on a different brand, or go against instinct and save some money.
Personally, I would 100% understand the logic for either move. (Im the one sitting here wondering if I should get external amplification to drive my front 3 even though my receiver seems to be powering them just fine )
Not sure what your budget is, but if you can find a good deal on a 5 channel amp, I'd say go get it. I was able to get my hands on the Outlaw 5000 for $450 with free shipping. Has been a wonderful addition to my setup and has really made my new in-walls reach their full potential.

What do you have for speakers? In-walls? Towers? Bookshelf?
 
M

Mpsafranski

Audioholic
I’ve got the Ascend Sierra towers, and Horizon center should be arriving any day. Horizon definitely 4ohms nominal and towers from the impedance chart hang out in the 4ohm area though phase angles not very steep, plus they’re pretty high sensitivity. Surrounds are Elac in walls so 6ohms and low sensitivity.
if I make a move it’s going to be the Monolithx3 or 5, or outlaw monoblocks x3. I’ll be waiting for the Horizon to arrive and checking to see how hot my receiver gets. I expect it’ll be more than capable but it would be more neat to have external power;)
 
M

Movie2099

Audioholic General
I’ve got the Ascend Sierra towers, and Horizon center should be arriving any day. Horizon definitely 4ohms nominal and towers from the impedance chart hang out in the 4ohm area though phase angles not very steep, plus they’re pretty high sensitivity. Surrounds are Elac in walls so 6ohms and low sensitivity.
if I make a move it’s going to be the Monolithx3 or 5, or outlaw monoblocks x3. I’ll be waiting for the Horizon to arrive and checking to see how hot my receiver gets. I expect it’ll be more than capable but it would be more neat to have external power;)
Sounds nice. Never heard of Ascend Sierra before.

What AVR do you have? My in-walls are Bower and Wilkins CWM7.3's. They are 4ohm speakers. I'm only using 3 of the 5 channels from my Outlaw and that is giving them around 200 watts/channel. I've left my 2 surrounds in my Pioneer Elite SC-LX701 which gives 135 watts for 2 channel. The Outlaw never breaks a sweat no matter how high I crank it.

I think the Monolith Amps or the Outlaw Mono's would be great to have. I really wanted the Monolith 5 channel, but didn't want to spend that type of money at the time.

Good luck with your setup! Hope it all works out for you.
 

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