Panasonic DP-UB9000 UHD Player Review

[DonH56]

Interesting even OPPO?

Yes. Playing CDs, there is a ~0.5 ~ 1 s delay before the music starts whilst it figures out the format. A big problem if the music starts before that...

 

[MacCali]

Do you know if Panasonic HDMI Audio Jitter Reduction Circuit

I originally purchased the 9000 because it's supposed to have better jitter, im not sure if your question strictly pertains to just hdmi out and I would assume it does. However my original purpose of getting the 9000 and spending all that money was to get a decent cd player included vs paying for a separate cd player. I dont have a crazy cd collection but so far I have had numerous people tell me that cd players are better than streaming[subjectively].

Between the 820 and 9000 I heard no difference via coaxial and also the only benefit I perceived vs streaming with a dedicated streamer and virtually the only pro was it seemed that dynamic range was more palpable using cds. In comparison my Pi2AES provides an overall substantially better experience and much more of a wall of music, larger stage, and better instrument separation obviously. To me that's what I prefer and as previously stated the biggest noticeable difference I have ever had in my system was just simply adding the Pi2AES. *I have only used i2s, no clue if this has any impact

I still wont give up, just bought 3 SACD's even though I dont have a SACD player and all albums that I extremely familiar with and enjoy. I am going to give this another shot and see if this maybe is what all the hype is about. I would assume so since I believe an SACD is putting more data through and that was actually my biggest leap in performance from streaming movies to getting the actual player which drastically improved my movie listening experience.

 

[GXAlan]

I still wont give up, just bought 3 SACD's even though I dont have a SACD player and all albums that I extremely familiar with and enjoy. I am going to give this another shot and see if this maybe is what all the hype is about. I would assume so since I believe an SACD is putting more data through and that was actually my biggest leap in performance from streaming movies to getting the actual player which drastically improved my movie listening experience.

Biggest difference with SACDs is that the mastering can be different.

 

[The Guy who cares]

I have the Panasonic-dp-ub9000 and I hooked it up using the multi channel outputs (5.0 set up) It sounds excellent that way, Crystal Clean and deep bass when it's called for.

 

[Descartes]

Indeed, even Amir suggested the 820/420 over the 9000.

I bought the 9000 with the hope that I would not need a CD player also. I played a few CD’s I own and I was not impressed my streamer is far better.

So I ended up purchasing an open box 820 to test against the 9000 since the CD player no longer matters. And yes I do realize both the 8 and 4 can play cds as well but I was trying to get the most out of the playback. Going to try the 820 later today was hoping to have a chance to test both for the ht experience. No plans to test the 820 with cds since the 9000 isn’t what I expected.

Where did you reed that?

 

[MacCali]

Where did you reed that?

Amirs suggestion for the 820? It's like on the second or third page of this thread. It is one of his comments in regards to analog output use. If you are not going to use the internal dac there's not point to the 9000

Edit: if it’s not on this thread it’s on the 820 review. Don’t want to have you running in circles lol

 

[Andysu]

hdmi , optical and analogue Lt Rt are all connected , for all type Dolby Stereo , Dolby digital , dtshdma is hardly now used depending on disc encode

analogue connected to denon 8500h along with other Lt Rt inputs from other players and i use zone 2 output to send the signal output of zone 2 , when the video input mode is selected and zone 2 output goes to the Dolby CP750 , i i won't waste it with stormaudio elite mkIII 32 , rca 8 ch inputs that are connected differently as Dolby surround dsu upmixer is the worst i listened to in 36 years ! i never use it . i have to use proper Dolby Stereo for the proper playback standard requirements . most now are stuck with Dolby dsu lemon and sold the PL , PLIIx avr and stuck with one lemon format . me , i have to three to chose from and one is still the original when comes down to benchmark , star wars on laserdisc be it laserdisc or transferred to DVD-RW will be played on the panaosnic 9000 THX or raw on laserdisc

the only thing not connected is the xlr Lt Rt outputs only be same as the rca with little difference in output level , i may select for use one , no day

 

[Descartes]

Correct. This is for people who want to wire up an alternate analog path and get the best audio performance possible.

Unless you have a new JVC Projector.

JVC News Release --CES 2019: Choose Your Style – JVC/Panasonic collaboration for large sreen HDR performance

“Panasonic DP-UB9000 uses the company’s second generation Hollywood Cinema Experience (HCX) video processor”

Not sure if the 820 used the same?

“Also another feature missing on this cheaper deck is the ability to uncover Max Fall/ Max CLL playback info from 4K Blu-ray discs.”

 

[MacCali]

Unless you have a new JVC Projector.

JVC News Release --CES 2019: Choose Your Style – JVC/Panasonic collaboration for large sreen HDR performance

“Panasonic DP-UB9000 uses the company’s second generation Hollywood Cinema Experience (HCX) video processor”

Not sure if the 820 used the same?

“Also another feature missing on this cheaper deck is the ability to uncover Max Fall/ Max CLL playback info from 4K Blu-ray discs.”

Hmmmm I’ll be brutally honest and it is a subjective situation. Not all are cons but things to point out.

Video was indistinguishable, and sadly on the 9000 while watching dune a few scenes had ghosting. I believe that’s what they call it, where the image is clear and then gets ethereal and then back to normal. Not sure if that’s my unit or not but that was a huge upset as I would expect the 820 to do this, not vice versa.

For some odd reason, I was not getting Dolby truhd on the 9000 but the 820 did it right away. Checked settings and everything was the same. Mind you I set up the 9000 first, and followed Shane lee’s setup video on YT.

I mean the unit itself may have been a bad one who knows.

Also CD player wise as mentioned no difference.

We will see shortly, as I just bought a Sony 9000es as a CD player to figure if any of this is similar with the 9000/820. I am aware this unit is s DVD player however it seems audiophile centric and let’s hope it provides me with what I am expecting. As a player and transport

Edit: Also in no way I am trying to defame the product. Just my experience, and like always my point is to help people save money. Minus my comments, besides cd playback and not maximizing the utilities of the unit, at best this is just a phenomenal bdp.

 

[Descartes]

Hmmmm I’ll be brutally honest and it is a subjective situation. Not all are cons but things to point out.

Video was indistinguishable, and sadly on the 9000 while watching dune a few scenes had ghosting. I believe that’s what they call it, where the image is clear and then gets ethereal and then back to normal. Not sure if that’s my unit or not but that was a huge upset as I would expect the 820 to do this, not vice versa.

For some odd reason, I was not getting Dolby truhd on the 9000 but the 820 did it right away. Checked settings and everything was the same. Mind you I set up the 9000 first, and followed Shane lee’s setup video on YT.

I mean the unit itself may have been a bad one who knows.

Also CD player wise as mentioned no difference.

We will see shortly, as I just bought a Sony 9000es as a CD player to figure if any of this is similar with the 9000/820. I am aware this unit is s DVD player however it seems audiophile centric and let’s hope it provides me with what I am expecting. As a player and transport

Edit: Also in no way I am trying to defame the product. Just my experience, and like always my point is to help people save money. Minus my comments, besides cd playback and not maximizing the utilities of the unit, at best this is just a phenomenal bdp.

Thank you, not sure if the 9000 is worth it considering that it has the same video processing power as the 820 both of them are now three years old!
I am wondering and hoping the Panasonic will release new models this year but I am not too optimistic since even Netflix dropped digital media!

 

[GXAlan]

Thank you, not sure if the 9000 is worth it considering that it has the same video processing power as the 820 both of them are now three years old!
I am wondering and hoping the Panasonic will release new models this year but I am not too optimistic since even Netflix dropped digital media!

There’s no reason to get the UB9000 unless you are using the analog DACs.

The UB9000 has a tone mapping mode for 350 nits, but everyone has HDR now.

The UB9000 is slightly quieter for its drive, but it’s not a big difference.

 

[MacCali]

There’s no reason to get the UB9000 unless you are using the analog DACs.

The UB9000 has a tone mapping mode for 350 nits, but everyone has HDR now.

The UB9000 is slightly quieter for its drive, but it’s not a big difference.

Yes, those are definitely things to consider as well. Been a while since I was looking into this product, but all those things are definitely pros for use case scenario, especially if you have an older projector.

 

[MacCali]

Magnatar just dropped a higher end version of the previous one I had posted. I believe it's a 1000 dollars more[$2600] than the "800", so guessing that must be a combined amount into video and audio upgrades; since I mentioned the video output on the 800 is not as good as the panasonic.

Also has SACD functionality. Hopefully this will be the one to replace the oppo

If the price drops black friday I will probably purchase it, but honestly I am very pleased with the 820, it would merely be for the community as I will send it in to Amir. The 800 claims 120 SNR.

 

[Bob from Florida]

This is a review and detailed audio measurements of the Panasonic DP-UB9000 UHD streaming 4K disc player. It was kindly purchased by a member from my friend @Robert Zohn of Value Electronics. The DP-UB9000 costs US $1,000.

The moment you grab the DP-UB9000 and feel its incredible heft you forget about all the bargain UHD players:

View attachment 70669​

The weight is evenly distributed telling me it is the chassis that is heavy and not just one single transformer in a corner. The back panel is where the difference becomes clear between this unit and mass market players:

View attachment 70670​

We have dedicated balanced and RCA outputs for left and right channels!

There is also an "audio-only" HDMI output which is a misnomer as you cannot have audio without video with HDMI. You have to at least send a black video signal for it to carry the audio samples (in the "invisible" parts of the image data). The main purpose is to send the video to a projector and then have another output to go to your AVR or processor if it can't handle 4K/UHD (which they all do today anyway).

There is USB input to play files but not for it to act as a DAC. The former is how I tested it which limited me to static test signals (i.e. no sweeps).

UHD Player Audio Measurements
I put my reference 24-bit 1 kHz tone on the USB drive and played it while capturing the output from XLR connections:

View attachment 70671

I was disappointed that the output was just 2.1 volts and not the nominal 4 volts. That likely hurt it a bit, reducing its otherwise very nice SINAD (sum of noise and distortion) to 112 dB. This puts the DP-UB9000 squarely in the excellent section of all devices with DACs in them tested so far:

View attachment 70672

Zooming in for better clarity (click for larger image):

View attachment 70674

As you see, the now discontinued but beloved Oppo UDP-205 does a bit better with its 4 volt output. Still, there is a ton to celebrate as other AV products have done nothing but disappoint us when it comes to noise and distortion of their DACs.

Here is the same test but with RCA unbalanced outputs:

View attachment 70675

At first I thought the left and right in the multi-channel output section would be the same. But then puzzled why you can turn them on and off independently. So I turned them on and was disappointed to see this:

View attachment 70676

This is the type of performance we typically see in AVRs/AV Processors. Likely an 8-channel DAC was used to produce this showing the stark difference in distortion and noise compared to much better implementation for stereo connectors.

Going back to the first graph, I forgot to note that turning off video and front panel in the so called "High Clarity" modes made no difference. So might as well leave the displays on so you know what the unit is doing.

Next I ran my dynamic range test:

View attachment 70677

Not state of the art but within the performance envelop already established.

32-tone test signal to resemble "music" shows very good performance:

View attachment 70678

Finally we have the jitter test:
View attachment 70679

Yes you can have "jitter" even though I am using a USB connection. Most noise and unwanted signals in DACs is generated internally by noise and interference than anything coming over the wire. We see that here with a sequence pulses in low frequencies. Fortunatley they are below -130 dB or way under threshold of detection by any human being so not a problem.

Conclusions
Panasonic DP-UB9000 shows that when AV companies put their mind to it, they can produce excellently performing and engineered products when it comes to audio performance. Despite having HDMI in there whaling away and the rest of the streaming bits, we have high performance desktop class DAC results.

Performance is almost the same as Oppo UDP-205 so for people mourning the loss of that unit, be sad no more. No, you don't get that units HDMI input and "mini AVR in a box" features but you do get a very performant and supported UHD player.

I am happy to recommend the Panasonic DP-UB9000 to my recommended list.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

I make this short. Donations are welcome using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I just bought one of these based in part on this review. The only difference as I understand it is the DAC has changed from AKM to an ESS 9038 for 2 channel audio. I also bought a new 4K QLED Vizio 65” TV to take advantage of the video upsampling. Transport is silent at all times, video playback is stunning, and CD audio playback superb. Rediscovering my movie collection one by one.

 

[BlackSpider777]

Does anyone know if the power supply in the UB9000 is multi voltage? can a US player work in Europe or vice versa?


Thanks.

 

[MacCali]

I just bought one of these based in part on this review. The only difference as I understand it is the DAC has changed from AKM to an ESS 9038 for 2 channel audio. I also bought a new 4K QLED Vizio 65” TV to take advantage of the video upsampling. Transport is silent at all times, video playback is stunning, and CD audio playback superb. Rediscovering my movie collection one by one.

Correct, but this also means the measurements are completely different. Not sure what ESS chip spec is but definitely probably a worse sinad than the AKM. But at the same time if you don’t plan on using the analog outputs there’s no point of having that in my non blind test the digital output via coax made no difference in cd playback vs the 820. Video wise I can hardly see any difference as well.

 

[MacCali]

Does anyone know if the power supply in the UB9000 is multi voltage? can a US player work in Europe or vice versa?


Thanks.

I would contact Panasonic. They are clearly different and worst yet you may get region locking on certain media.

 

[Tremolo]

The one in the picture seems to be fixed voltage from the label near the AC socket

Does anyone know if the power supply in the UB9000 is multi voltage? can a US player work in Europe or vice versa?


Thanks.

 

[Andysu]

i think these are set to country voltages as i see on 9000 THX 240v

 

[Oski1928]

When using analog outputs and setting the speakers to small, does anyone know what the crossover is set to?