Panasonic DP-UB9000 UHD Player Review

[zelig]

I look forward to my trip to Goodwill in 20 years time to pick up one of these for $10. "Why is it so heavy?" the smelly old dude will ask me as I pick it off the shelf. "It's full or rocks" I'll say. "They did that in the old days to fool Amir". " Who was Amir?" the old dude will ask. "Who was Amir?! Who was Amir??!!" I will exclaim with faux indignation. "Amir IS the guy who saved the world from mediocre audio electronic engineering practices - don't you know that, old man?". "Ah!" he will say, "THAT Amir! God bless him, God bless him!". And I will reply "I don't think you understand, old man. Amir IS God."

 

[Labjr]

What's inside?

No 8K?

 

[North_Sky]

Plenty, but no video measuring in house.

That's fine; this is more an Audio forum here...ASR.
For Video we get by ... using our eyes...for now.

I look forward to my trip to Goodwill in 20 years time to pick up one of these for $10. "Why is it so heavy?" the smelly old dude will ask me as I pick it off the shelf. "It's full or rocks" I'll say. "They did that in the old days to fool Amir". " Who was Amir?" the old dude will ask. "Who was Amir?! Who was Amir??!!" I will exclaim with faux indignation. "Amir IS the guy who saved the world from mediocre audio electronic engineering practices - don't you know that, old man?". "Ah!" he will say, "THAT Amir! God bless him, God bless him!". And I will reply "I don't think you understand, old man. Amir IS God."

And the smelly old dude would reply with the last line ... "May God rest in peace".

What's inside?

No 8K?

It's an older player, from Fall 2018...twenty months+ ago.
The first 8K player is coming up December 2020, the Sony PS5. ...For 8K gamers.

 

[Willem]

I still use a Panasonic Full HD plasma screen, and I do not plan to replace it before it dies. The picture quality is excellent, and we have no 4K television broadcasts. I use my pretty serious stereo system for the audio, and I am more than pleased witht that. Two large Quad electrostats (plus a small sub) is all that we want on our lounge. For that uadio, I use the optical output into an REM ADI-2, and if and when I finally move over to 4K or even 8K, I would still use the optical output. In short, my interest would be in UHD BD player with great picture quality, and an optical or coaxial stereo output. For me, and now that I have an excellent DAC/preamp, I do not need an internal DAC, let alone a good one. So I guess if I needed to buy a new disc player, it would be a cheaper Panasonic UHD with an optical/coxial output.

 

[ernestcarl]

So what is the intended market for these units, people with 5.1 setups wanting to connect these to external amps and thus bypassing the need for an AVR (while removing the ability to do crossovers and room EQ)?

As your measurements have shown, 80-90dB is around the SINAD of quality AVR amps, so bypassing their DACs isn’t going to do much.

EDIT: Or people with purely 2.0 systems that want to watch UHD Blu-rays?

The market is probably someone like me. I have currently no future plans of getting a receiver. But do see myself pairing something like a 10x10 HD miniDSP unit with a simple (but hopefully 'smart' enough to support streaming media sites) blu-ray player.

*my older Panasonic blu-ray player does support Netflix, but not Amazon Prime or Disney... so it's still cheaper to get (and replace regularly) those tiny HDMI dongle type devices and hook them into something like a receiver or separate decoder unit.

 

[Darren]

They should be renamed.
What is Hi-Fi?
It literally means high fidelity ffs. They don't seem to get that.

How don't they get that?

 

[Darren]

They should be sued.

Why? Do you believe they make things up? Tell lies?

 

[Labjr]

It's an older player, from Fall 2018...twenty months+ ago.
The first 8K player is coming up December 2020, the Sony PS5. ...For 8K gamers.

Far as I can tell there is no 8K disc format planned. Most articles say it's not very likely. But we'll see. That could change as manufacturers and movie studios get hungry for the revenue stream that newer formats bring. The gotta-have-its will spring for it.

 

[GXAlan]

Far as I can tell there is no 8K disc format planned. Most articles say it's not very likely. But we'll see. That could change as manufacturers and movie studios get hungry for the revenue stream that newer formats bring. The gotta-have-its will spring for it.

Studios have a revenue stream called subscriptions now.

It's hard because streaming 4k/8k is like MP3. The convenience factor is high and the masses are OK with the performance since streaming 4K is better than streaming 2K.

Just as audiophiles have become a niche market, videophiles may fall into the same category. Kaleidescape supposedly uses full bitrate digital distribution, but it's pretty expensive. COVID-19 has rekindled interests in home cinema somewhat, which is a good thing.

The other advantage of physical media is if you have movies that may have culturally outdated depictions, or movies (like Star Wars) which keep getting revised/re-edited and you want to preserve something.

8K may not be that popular in cinema since to date, nothing is mastered in 8K. Even today, a 2K digital intermediate is widely used for many blockbusters. While 1080p Blu-ray doesn't capture the full data of a 2K DI, a UHD disc will. A 4K DI has more data than a UHD disc does, so that is potentially where 8K distribution helps.

8K will help with gaming and photo slideshows.

 

[Labjr]

Studios have a revenue stream called subscriptions now.

It's hard because streaming 4k/8k is like MP3. The convenience factor is high and the masses are OK with the performance since streaming 4K is better than streaming 2K.

Just as audiophiles have become a niche market, videophiles may fall into the same category. Kaleidescape supposedly uses full bitrate digital distribution, but it's pretty expensive. COVID-19 has rekindled interests in home cinema somewhat, which is a good thing.

The other advantage of physical media is if you have movies that may have culturally outdated depictions, or movies (like Star Wars) which keep getting revised/re-edited and you want to preserve something.

8K may not be that popular in cinema since to date, nothing is mastered in 8K. Even today, a 2K digital intermediate is widely used for many blockbusters. While 1080p Blu-ray doesn't capture the full data of a 2K DI, a UHD disc will. A 4K DI has more data than a UHD disc does, so that is potentially where 8K distribution helps.

8K will help with gaming and photo slideshows.

I've always thought that discs are worth more than downloads because you have a physical, tangible item. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I enjoy collecting as well as watching and listening. I hope an 8K physical format will happen. It will also lower the cost of larger capacity discs for archiving data ect.

 

[pozz]

Why? Do you believe they make things up? Tell lies?

Short answer is yes. Compare their comments about this Panasonic player and the their review of the Technics SB-C700, for example, with the measured performance, which is excellent.

Longer answer is that it's a popular site that works as a buyer's guide for many people. This is not like a niche publication with a niche audience where the outlook tends to be the same on each side. Their reach does much more to influence the industry and the public through reviews which seem informed, which attempt a technical perspective, but fall short and end up indulging in the reviewer's impressions.

I should have written all this out instead saying "they should be sued"; what I had in mind was their mischaracterization of performance. The best thing that could happen is if they'd acknowledge that they did not understand how to assess audio and wrote those reviews out of ignorance, and changed their approach going forward. I doubt they would do that given how much is at stake, all the cashflow and relationships and so on. This is an industry problem.

 

[North_Sky]

99.999% if not 100% of people buying this player is for the picture, not the audio.
To have good stereo audio measurements on top of first rated picture quality is a bonus.

As for 8K, no rush ... you need a very big screen anyway to take best advantage.
8K front projectors would suit perfectly that segment. ...In about couple years or so less more ...

As for 8K content, compressed 8K streaming, 8K pictures from 8K cameras, 8K moving pictures from 8K moving cameras, 8K games, 8K YouTube, ...

As for 8K Blu-ray movies, documentaries on physical medium, not in the cards right now but the crystal ball says that during a pandemic this could wake up the dead, sort of a cure. Of course it's all marketing when they'll start shooting the stars above the skies behind the dark side of the moon ...

Enjoy the music, spin a CD of Jethro Tull ('Stand Up' - 1969) in the Panasonic 9000 player.
From the audio measurements it should sound . . . marvelous.

 

[tecnogadget]

Studios have a revenue stream called subscriptions now.

It's hard because streaming 4k/8k is like MP3. The convenience factor is high and the masses are OK with the performance since streaming 4K is better than streaming 2K.

Just as audiophiles have become a niche market, videophiles may fall into the same category. Kaleidescape supposedly uses full bitrate digital distribution, but it's pretty expensive. COVID-19 has rekindled interests in home cinema somewhat, which is a good thing.

The other advantage of physical media is if you have movies that may have culturally outdated depictions, or movies (like Star Wars) which keep getting revised/re-edited and you want to preserve something.

8K may not be that popular in cinema since to date, nothing is mastered in 8K. Even today, a 2K digital intermediate is widely used for many blockbusters. While 1080p Blu-ray doesn't capture the full data of a 2K DI, a UHD disc will. A 4K DI has more data than a UHD disc does, so that is potentially where 8K distribution helps.

8K will help with gaming and photo slideshows.

I hate streaming as an audiophile and videophile. I understand all average joe needs and care is convenience, but really why does mp3 still exists ?
Gigabytes nowadays are not a concern, and I have 600Mbps Internet connection, is it really that hard to provide “uncompressed” (aka Blu-Ray) vídeo trough streaming ?

On the audio side thing are getting solved, Amazon has started streaming lossless audio in the US and a few countries.

I would not complain if both paths peacefully coexisted. But the conformity of the most has f@ck3d the few who actually cares.
Streaming at less than 320kbps killed CD sales. Now I fear Blu Ray discs disappear and all we get is lossy video streaming with lossy audio tracks.

Apologies in advanced if my rant hurts sensibilities.

 

[3125b]

How don't they get that?

"Definition of high fidelity: the reproduction of an effect (such as sound or an image) that is very faithful to the original"
In that sense.
Did they do any measurements? No.
What do they do instead? Wrote a bunch of nonsense and called it a review.

 

[anmpr1]

I remember when I demo'd all the fancy features and multiple voices (a big thing at the time) that my little synth had some felt it was too "electronic" and needed a computer; no real musician would touch a computer and such things would never replace analog synths with all of their patch cables.

One of the oddest 'synth' machines was the Mellotron, that used magnetic tape loops to process a sound. It was quite popular in the 'progressive' rock scene. Could only play each note for a few seconds, and each play sounded a bit different due to the mechanics of the tape against the head. I liked the sound as it possessed a distinct character. I understand they were unreliable, broke often and were a pain to repair. I've come across some VST plug-ins that are supposed to reproduce the Mellotron sound but have no personal experience with them.

 

[beefkabob]

Is there a competing player with 5.1 balanced out at 4v?
Will this do chroma upsampling and HDR tone mapping better than the built in electronics on an Optoma CinemaX P1?
Will it do the upsampling and HDR tone mapping on streamed files? Netflix? MKV from a server?
How is the audio quality on the surround channels? If the measurements drop much on surround, why bother? I think those need measuring. @amirm.

 

[beefkabob]

What's inside?

No 8K?

8k doesn't make sense. The difference vs 4k is only if you're up close, way to close for movie viewing. 8k does make sense for screens where you're sitting close and looking left and right, which you might do in an immersive game or with computing tasks. For actual movie watching, 4k is the realistic limit of current formats.

 

[GXAlan]

I've alway thought that discs are worth more than downloads because you have a physical, tangible item.
.

I agree. But archival data is easiest with offline HDDs now.

I hate streaming as an audiophile and videophile. I understand all average joe needs and care is convenience, but really why does mp3 still exists ?
Gigabytes nowadays are not a concern, and I have 600Mbps Internet connection, is it really that hard to provide “uncompressed” (aka Blu-Ray) vídeo trough streaming ?

Kaleidescape provides exactly that. Full bit rate digital distribution. Sadly, it’s not part of MoviesAnywhere even though it was part of Ultraviolet and the player is very expensive.

If the measurements drop much on surround, why bother? I think those need measuring.

Amir already shipped the unit back to the owner. In my opinion, for surround you may be better off with Atmos or DTS:X. In that case the UB420 (no Dolby Vision) and UB820 (has Dolby Vision) are better buys at $250 and $500.

Buy the extra $500 for the UB9000 makes it like a mini Linn DS or Auralic Vega, with high end 2 ch DLNA streaming. With my Synology NAS, I have no problems with streaming DSD or Flac. It is missing digital volume control and the Oppo-205 at the original MSRP would have been a better buy (minus the UHD picture quality) but at available pricing, the Panasonic UHD players are a good option.

It is also worth noting that this is the highest performance product available at Best Buy that has been tested here.

 

[Labjr]

I agree. But archival data is easiest with offline HDDs now.

Hard drive storage is one of the least reliable formats for archiving data. I've had a few clients with catastrophic failures. I'd rather burn it to a medium that can't be accidentally overwritten or deleted. 5D optical technology looks promising. They're talking about storing hundreds of terabytes of data for billions of years. I wonder if they verified that? I've had 30,000 hour LED light bulbs that didn't last a month.

 

[Tks]

Any filter measurements ?