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Cheap thrills - just bought me a new universal player

I just got a cheapo (well, cheapo for the audiophile world!) universal disc player (CD, SACD, DVD-A, blu-ray) yesterday to replace the Marantz unit I'd had for years. The Marantz player was fine, although I could hear the fan noise a bit too much, the remote control no longer worked (one too many times dropped on the floor!), and, among the many blu-ray discs I played in it, there were 4 or 5 which, for whatever reason, made it choke: one had a "stuck track", and the others had this very loud distortion when they played (kind of like a severe overload distortion). So I did some tests with the new player (a Sony UBP X1100ES - $499 new in box at my local Best Buy - such a deal, although I've seen Best Buy and others offering open box players of this model for as little as $299!) - they all have played perfectly. I was thinking that I might get lucky and it would play one or two of them, but actually, it has played all of them. A pleasant surprise. Another surprise is that Sony, of all companies, now supports DVD-Audio with this player. Say it ain't so! ;-)


The face is utilitarian in the extreme

The player also apparently supports Dolby Atmos (haven't tried it yet), but I'll still need a Dolby Atmos capable pre/pro). (And while I'm wishing for things, I'd like a 4K or 8K TV too!) That still might not be in the cards for another year - we'll see. It kind cramps our style that we're in the fourth year (with six more to go) of spending $25,000/year (one big lump sum payment each year - ouch!) on long-term-care insurance.

In the meantime, I've been happily listening to the following discs which the Marantz player used to choke on:

None of these discs would play on the Marantz player without horrendous overload-like distortion. Strange, because I had almost all of the Naxos blu-ray audio releases, and all the rest of them played fine on the Marantz. As for the Tacet release of the Haydn Op. 64 quartets, I'm particularly excited that that disc now plays without any problems, because the Auryn Quartet has recorded all of the Haydn Quartets, and I'm missing a few opuses (or is it opera?) and now I'm confident enough in the playback that I can fill in the gaps! Very nice performances BTW - with each speaker devoted mainly to a single instrument, so, if you really want to get to know a particular part, you can balance things accordingly!

The problem with this blu-ray video was a bit different on the Marantz: it had a "stuck groove" - it couldn't get past a certain point without some manual intervention from the remote control. No problems at all with the new Sony player. As for the disc itself, although it's a slightly anachronistic production, it (and of course Janacek's music) still pack an incredible emotional wallop - I'd forgotten how affecting this work can be.



Edits: 01/11/20

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Topic - Cheap thrills - just bought me a new universal player - Chris from Lafayette 16:00:30 01/11/20 (20)

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