At a look
Knowledgeable’s Score
Professionals
- Spectacular visible playback from DVD, Blu-ray, USB storage as much as 16TB
- Beautiful audio high quality from CD, DVD-Audio, SACD, or community sources
- XLR balanced audio outputs
Cons
- Costly
- No assist for on-line streaming providers
Our Verdict
If you happen to’re into high-definition audio and video in equal measure, the Magnetar UDP800 is the uncommon unit that may ship beautiful experiences with each music and flicks.
The Magnetar UDP800 is a probably the most versatile playback units I’ve ever used, and it’s a godsend for anybody nonetheless dedicated to bodily media. It’s a fantastic possibility for cinephiles who nonetheless watch 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD discs, an extremely helpful instrument for music lovers dedicated to CD and the more and more uncommon SACD and DVD-Audio codecs, and a necessary instrument for everybody who’s occupied with each.
I arrange the unit in my audio element stack and used a protracted 8K HDMI cable to attach it to my tv system. That proved an ideal dwelling for the UDP800, because it allowed for me to simply swap between audio and video playbacks.
The Magnetar UDP800 gives a world-class expertise for individuals who nonetheless care about music and flicks on disc.
To be clear, whereas the UDP800 sits close to the highest of the marketplace for 4K UHD gamers, we’re not even near the excessive finish in relation to SACD and CD audio gamers. Audiophiles can spend $10,000 or extra on gamers that goal for the quietest doable mechanical parts and the very best digital-to-analog converters.
This assessment is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of one of the best Extremely HD Blu-ray gamers.
What the Magnetar UDP800 gives is a world-class all-around expertise for customers who care about each audio and video media, and the UDP800 begins to appear to be a fantastic funding once you add up what it might value to purchase an identical high quality 4K UHD participant and a flexible CD participant that helps all of the codecs on supply right here.
What can the Magnetar UDP800 do?
The Magnetar UDP800 4K Blu-ray participant can deal with nearly any bodily digital media you need to throw at it.
James Barber/Foundry
The Magnetar UDP800 will play 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD video discs, along with the AVCHD, Kodak Image CD, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DVD±R DL, and BD-R/RE media. You can even play media saved on USB arduous drives with as much as 16TB of capability, together with recordsdata encoded with the h.264 and h.265 requirements. The one factor you gained’t is HD DVD assist, the now-dead 1080p customary that misplaced out to Blu-ray within the early Twenty first-century format wars.
Music lovers and file collectors can play CD, SACD, and DVD-Audio audio discs in addition to audio recordsdata—DSD64/128, multi-channel DSD64, and as much as 24-bit/192kHz PCM codecs with AIFF, ALAC, APE, FLAC, and WAV—from DLNA or SMB media servers on a house community, or from USB arduous drives with as much as 16TB of capability. Audiophiles will notice the presence of twin Burr-Brown PCM 1795 DACs and each balanced XLR analog audio outputs and unbalanced RCA outputs.
The UDP800 makes use of the MediaTek MT8581 for processing and upscaling. Supported HDR (excessive dynamic vary) codecs embrace Dolby Imaginative and prescient, HDR10, and HDR 10+. The participant helps all of the vital audio codecs, together with Dolby Digital, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Grasp Audio, Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X.
The Magnetar UDP800’s on-screen menu isn’t fancy, however it’s straightforward to grasp and navigate.
James Barber/Foundry
The Magnetar UDP800 has a easy on-screen menu that evokes the fundamental interfaces of the Eighties or 90s. Not like a number of different gear that also evokes that primitive digital period, the UDP800 menu choices are remarkably clear, and also you by no means lose sight of the top-level settings menu whereas navigating to regulate particular person settings.
The included distant has dozens of buttons, however many of the motion takes place across the wheel management on the middle. The buttons are effectively backlit, and every is clearly labeled. Magnetar additionally features a detailed, well-illustrated guide that may make the particulars of how the whole lot works clear to anybody who takes the time to learn it.
What’s it like to look at motion pictures on the Magnetar HDP800?
The 2019 film John Wick: Chapter 3–Parabellum is among the most visually arresting modern Hollywood motion pictures in latest reminiscence, and the 4K UHD launch demonstrates the prevalence of bodily media over streaming. The blacks are blacker, and the photographs are constantly sharper when performed again from the bodily disc as a substitute of streaming a 4K model from iTunes.
All streaming providers should use some type of compression to ship video at an affordable value and preserve the payments below management at their information facilities. There is likely to be some level sooner or later when compression algorithms ship streaming video at high quality similar to bodily media, however we’re nonetheless at a degree the place true cinephiles will all the time be capable to see the distinction.
As Magnetar’s press launch factors out, streaming video is proscribed to a median bit price of between 10 and 26Mbps, with peaks of 41Mbps, whereas the 4K Extremely HD Blu-ray format streams at a median bit price of 60 to 80Mbps, peaking at 128Mbps. The large hole between the 2 sources’ bit charges will be attributed to the image-softening, artifact-inducing information compression streaming providers use.
The Magnetar UDP800 4K UHD participant is identical dimension as a standard element CD participant.
James Barber/Foundry
An everyday 1080p Blu-ray can even play again flawlessly by way of the UDP800. Watching the Blu-ray model of the Oscar-nominated film Ladies Speaking (2022), the picture was as detailed as what you’ll see with the 4K digital streaming model. The movie was not launched in 4K UHD, however I’d decide the uncompressed 1080p model on Blu-ray over the 4K streaming model any day of the week.
The DVD format is proscribed to 720p decision and isn’t designed to work with the present era of 4K televisions. Blu-ray and 4K UHD gamers try to upscale the 720p picture to play again easily on high-quality televisions; sadly, most gamers in the marketplace can’t fairly easy all of the ensuing jagged edges.
If you happen to’re seeking to watch previous DVDs on a state-of-the-art large display screen TV, the Magnetar UDP800 does a surprisingly good job of presenting a watchable picture. A DVD of the 2011 movie The Mechanicstarring Jason Statham and Ben Foster, won’t look nearly as good because the model presently streaming on Paramount+, however the UDP800 makes a group of previous DVDs look about nearly as good as they’ll.
How does the Magnetar UDP800 sound with music?
The Magnetar UDP800 4K UHD participant options each balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA outputs for audio playback.
James Barber/Foundry
I connected the Magnetar UDP800 to my audio system, which features a NAD Stereo Preamplifier S100, a NAD Monitor Sequence Amplifier 2400, and a pair of classic Bowers & Wilkins P5 ground standing audio system to guage its audio efficiency.
I did A/B listening exams utilizing Björk’s 1997 album Homogenic on CD, evaluating the UDP800 to a NAD C545BEE CD participant. Tracks like “Joga” had a lot extra element performed via the UDP800 that it was straightforward to query whether or not I used to be enjoying the identical supply disc. That enchancment is a testomony to the standard of the DACs that Magnetar used for this unit. The UDP800 is a nice customary CD participant.
I subsequent performed an authentic CD urgent of Matthew Candy’s 1991 album Girlfriend with the UDP800 after which switched to the 2020 Intervention Information SACD reissue, one which incorporates a new remaster by engineer Ryan Okay. Smith from the unique analog grasp tapes. Intervention is among the few labels nonetheless dedicated to the SACD format, and its catalog options these discs alongside vinyl LP reissues which are remastered with the identical painstaking care.
Because the UDP800 is such a superb customary CD participant, the distinction between the usual and SACD won’t be as pronounced as you would possibly count on. I selected this album as a result of it’s one of many driest information made within the CD period, nearly utterly stripped of the reverb that might obscure the main points of the gamers and evoke one of the best qualities of the Beatles stereo recordings.
The Magnetar UDP800 4K UHD participant’s distant is backlit to be used in a darkish dwelling theater and permits the person to benefit from all its options with out navigating to the on-screen menu.
James Barber/Foundry
The brand new remasters dig extra particulars out of the long-lasting guitar components performed by Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd and provides extra perception into how Candy created the stacked harmonies that featured solely his voice tracked a number of occasions. The SACD grasp retains the combo glued collectively and it by no means collapses right into a stream of competing particular person voices and devices the best way some high-res digital recordsdata can.
Whereas the 2011 recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 by Markus Stenz conducting the Gürzenicih-Orchester Köln isn’t my favourite efficiency of the piece, the SACD launch by Oehms Classics is a spectacular feat of audio engineering that captures each the orchestra and vocalists with unparalleled readability. The album is streaming in lossless high quality on the Apple Music Classical app, and the streaming model doesn’t start to ship the affect I skilled when listening to the SACD model via the UDP800.
For my final comparability, I listened to the DVD-Audio (stereo and {surround}) Rhino-reissue of David Crosby’s 1971 album If I May Solely Keep in mind My Identifylaunched in 2006. The immersive expertise on tracks like “Tamalpais Excessive (At About 3)” and “Music With No Phrases (Tree With No Leaves)” was created by remix engineer Stephen Barncard; it’s one which’s superior to the algorithm-created {surround} mixes that trendy subscription providers are streaming. Collectors searching for titles like this one want a participant just like the UDP800 to get the entire expertise that format guarantees.
Do you have to purchase the Magnetar UDP800?
Customers occupied with all or any the codecs the Magnetar UDP800 helps will discover it to be an almost important buy. As film and music firms look to transition their prospects to streaming codecs, audio firms are much less invested in constructing gear that helps what some at the moment are calling legacy codecs. Sure, the Magnetar UDP800 is a distinct segment product—it’d even be a distinct segment inside a distinct segment—however it fills that area of interest nearly completely.
The Magnetar UDP800 4K UHD participant has devoted HDMI outputs for video/audio combo and audio-only indicators.
James Barber/Foundry
A part of the adverse popularity that CDs developed is extra concerning the poor audio replica typical of a budget gamers that flooded the market throughout that format’s peak than it’s concerning the format itself. The UDP800 delivers the complete promise of the 16-bit/44.1kHz compact disc format. Backyard-variety CDs sound spectacular, whereas SACD and DVD-Audio replica verges on mind-blowing. And there’s tons of content material accessible in these codecs for those who don’t thoughts doing somewhat digging.
There’s a fantastic analog with vinyl right here. File firms tried to kill the LP, however there’s simply one thing about information that listeners really feel they’ll’t get from digital. The market lastly needed to fulfill that demand by as soon as once more constructing high-quality turntables.
On the film facet, no streaming model of any movie can examine with 4K UHD disc playback in all its uncompressed glory. Critical film followers will need a participant that may maximize the expertise and match the capabilities of their tv and surround-sound setups.
I do know you’ll be enthralled with the standard the UDP800 delivers with 4K UHD video and SACD audio, however I’m much more impressed with the experiences it delivers with DVDs and customary CDs. This participant breathes new life into these growing older and lower-resolution codecs; it’s probably the most versatile investments you can also make in your house theater.
