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98.148.220.179
PAINTING: American Zenith, 1958
Mates,
Sorry, that should read "$39.99".
Christmas is near and almost simultaneously my mum's CD changer** failed and the cheap and nasty Sony DVD/VHS player remote is lost and even a $25 universal remote would be a waste. The replacement remote for the $90 player costs $60!. I thought to try and find a Blu-ray/DVD player that can also do a respectable job with ordinary audio CD's. The budget is unfortunately only about $250.
**[The living room audio system is semi-moribund: a 1970's Sansui TT, Nakamichi CR3A cassette, 50W Sansui integrated, mid-60's Sherwood solid state tuner, and some kind of bookshelf speakers that she says are "tinny". I think they're Bose. She had some fairly nice, big KLH's but sold them for nothing at a garage sale as they "seemed too large"- after 30 years!]
The system: a 4 month-old Vizio 42" 1080p, 120Hz LCD, a late 80's Onkyo receiver 2X120W (I think), (2) Infinity Primus 362 speakers. There is a Roku box (wireless) for Netflix streaming.
There will be a lot of classic movies- DVD and Netflix streaming. Regardless of the player, I think there'll be great surprise at the video quality as my mum has never seen Blu-ray. Audio content is opera, lieder, chamber, and piano and often remastered older- 50-60's recordings- Beverly Sills, Leontyne Price**, and Joan Sutherland and for piano 50's Rubinstein and Horowitz.
**[She studied voice in the 60's with a Price student.]
Of course, I don't expect fantastic sound, but it would have to be better than the inexpensive 1986 Pioneer 5 disk changer it replaces.
A tall order probably, but it seems to me the prices are falling for designs with more capabilities. In fact the prices are dropping such that there seems to be a portion of people trying to get more for open box and used players on Ebay than they currently cost new from Amazon with free shipping,..
Thanks!
Cheers,
Bambi B
Follow Ups:
But if you can come up with an extra $50 the OPPO BDP-80 ($299) should fit the bill perfectly. Great picture, sound, and legendary OPPO support should make for a pretty happy mom. I haven't seen anyone here post negative about the BDP-83 (which I'm a happy owner of), its big brother.
Good luck.
"I'd like to own a squadron of tanks"
Road Warrior,
Yes, I'm glad you mention the OPPOes- OPPI?, as in my lurking time around the Asylum here, I've read a lot about the performance and value.
Would you say that the OPPO is reliable and lacking in finickiness enough for someone @84 already fed up with fussing with setting up and learning new technologies?
However, I visited the OPPO site on Monday and both the 80 and 83 were listed as "out of stock". Checking around- Amazon for example- there were only used offerings. I haven't checked back, but my thought was that the models must be about to change. Have you heard something?
Cheers,
Bambi B
check the link
I'll wait until its out to see how good it is, and especially how good of an upscaler it is. If you can't make it region free, its useless to me.
We'll see.
Jack
. . . is right on! I have a Sony BDP-S550 and am amazed at how good it sounds through the analogue outputs. The video upsampling of regular DVD's is also fantastic. I see some of the customer comments at Amazon seem to indicate that Sony is having quality control problems with some of their models. Mine has performed just fine for the last year and a half.
Chris from Lafayette,
About 4 months ago, I decided to cut most of my movie channels- containing only most atrocious junk- in favour of Netflix. I bought a Samsung BDP-1600 Blu-ray player off Ebay ($299 retail, new, open box $90) that is Netflix streaming capable ans plays every format except 3D. This required additionally a $50 USB Wi-Fi dongle. I'm having some issues with the Wi-fi quality, but it's a marvelous convenience - and amazingly inexpensive. Checking, I watched 55 movies last month- and all for $8.99. I watched (streaming) "32 Short Films about Glenn Gould" last evening- I had only seen it in the cinema when new- and recently, "The Making of Steinway L1037", which I'd recommend to all keyboard fans. There's a pile of operas too. I'm also gradually watching- 1/2 through- every Monty Python episode too -there's 45 and I only need to click them off my streaming queue one by one.
One of The best features of Netflix for me is the movies have no logos in the corner nor advertisements for other programmes!
The DVD playback is far superior to my 6 year-old Sony $100 DVD/VHS combination player. A CD-R of some organ playing was likewise impressive for such a multi-format device. DVD's on the old player now resemble worn VHS comparatively.
As for audio quality, when I first had the Samsung, I tried a CD (Mahler 5 by Solti/CSO) through my main system- Audio Research SP10 > D115 > Vandersteen 2C, and it rivaled the Cambridge Audio 640C. In fact, the Samsung was slightly liquid and consequently seemed less dry than the 640C! The detail and even imaging was just fine. In short, I was very impressed by the audio quality.
Yes, as I've been shopping around, I've noticed a number of comments about Sony Blu-ray player quality and that their designs are only now "catching up" to Panasonic, Samsung, and even LG. I noticed one fairly expensive Sony Blu ray player- over $400 retail- that did not have an eject button on the remote. I was also interested to learn in passing that Sony LCD panels are actually made by Samsung.
Interesting, but I can barely keep up with media technologies- I've never really even looked at an iPod and Bluetooth to me must be a serious gum disease,..
Cheers,
Bambi B
I think it's only a matter of time before it's in our house too. Thanks for the write up of your experiences!
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