Panasonic DP-UB9000 UHD Player Review

[beefkabob]

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.

I've had plenty of DVDR and CDR die on me, let alone scratched up CDs. Plus they take up a lot of space. I can get a 16TB HD that takes up the volume of maybe 3 jewel cases. BD-R goes up to what, 100gb? So I can have a stack of BD-R that hopefully has longevity, or I can have triple parity RAID and ZFS. Three drives die at once, and I still have my data. Tape drive is fine if you can afford it for a massive data center, now up to 20TB a tape, but it's offline most of the time and costs an obscene amount per TB unless you're doing like 8000TB or something huge like that.

I figure, for now, hard drives, a rack mountable server chassis and hardware, and lots of redundancy is the way to go.

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.

Hmmm. I have the SHD Studio for my 2 channel streaming. I don't care for DSD. FLAC is what I have. If the disc supports Dolby Vision and the projector supports the other standard, does the Dolby Vision get converted or do I just get SDR?

 

[maverickronin]

I've had 30,000 hour LED light bulbs that didn't last a month

The LEDs are 30,000 hours. The tiny little integrated SMPS? Crib death for sure.

 

[GXAlan]

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.

True. I have BDXL write capability but admittedly, I keep most of my photos on a NAS.

Any filter measurements ?

No. The Panasonic doesn’t act as a USB DAC.

Thankfully, they are smart and let you choose between the AKM defaults:
- SharpRoll
- Slow
- ShortDelay
- SuperSlow

and for DSD there are 5 lpf’s but I don’t know the frequencies

 

[Beershaun]

@amirm would you be willing to test the hdmi audio output vs SPDIF output to an external DAC to see if they are able to create an HDMI audio transport connector that is equivalent in quality to their SPDIF? I think it's interesting they went to the trouble to specifically create an hdmi audio output.

For folks looking to archive their media on something other than a physical disk, I use AWS S3 glacier with a simple backup application on my old Macpro, ARQ. It's a super low cost cloud storage option that I backup my media server as well as all my other local hard drives to hourly. If you have a low upload speed that first backup could take a while, but you will never worry about a hard drive failure or losing your media of something happens to your house.

 

[Daaadou]

Hey guys,

Having a noob question about how to wire an UB9000 to a Rotel 1590 combo (meaning a RC-1590 and a RB-1590).
I listen to stereo only, cannot go surround where I live.

Anyways, how would you wire the UB9000 to the RC-1590?
Using the UB9000 DAC and wire them with the RCA or XLR cables? By the way, RCA would be nice enough? The two units are separated by 30cms top
Using an coax/optical connection and let the Rotel preamp handle the conversion?

I don't know what's the best option.

I have two typical ways of using the UB9000, BluRays and DVDs obviously and CD playback.
I was thinking it could be best to let the Panny do all the job since it will manage the downmix to 2.0 and the conversion to analog.

Thanks for reading.

 

[GXAlan]

Anyways, how would you wire the UB9000 to the RC-1590?.

Use analog and let the Panasonic do it all if you are just 2 channel. There isn’t a single AVR or processor tested to date that comes close to the Panasonic. Oppo 205 does.

 

[Daaadou]

Thanks for your reply, I'll use the analog output then, would you recommend XLR or RCA? Seems XLR does a better job in the first post, am I right?

 

[GXAlan]

Thanks for your reply, I'll use the analog output then, would you recommend XLR or RCA? Seems XLR does a better job in the first post, am I right?

Most likely. The XLR is just a little bit better than the RCA coming out of the Panasonic, although it would have been nice to see higher voltage. If you are running long cables, XLR for sure will help. If you are not, then it depends on how good the Rotel balanced inputs are. In some rare cases like the Accuphase E270, the balanced input is WORSE than the unbalanced input. This occurs when the unit itself is an unbalanced design and the balanced input adds an extra analog conversion step.

 

[Daaadou]

Hello,

I see here http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?43084-RC-RB-1590-review that the preamp doesn't have a fully balanced topology so maybe it's better to use the RCAs for the same reason you previously stated.
Though, I'm not sure, I'll admit it's a bit technical for me

 

[m8o]

*performative ... performant ain't a word. (nor is ain't )

 

[DL325]

I have both the Panasonic UB-9000 and the Sony X800. Under full specs for the Sony it lists DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and BD-ROM. In the downloadable owner's manual for the UB-9000 on page 6 it lists under Playable media only BD-Video [and not BD-Audio]. At the top of page
7 it states under Types of discs that cannot be played: "DVD-Audio", "any other disc that is not specifically supported or previously described".
I assumed after reading this that BD-Audio will not play with full resolution. I have Led Zeppelin's Celebration Day on BD-Audio. In Amazon's
table of the various versions, it says the BD-Audio features high-resolution 48K 24 bit PCM Stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound -
Audio Only (no video), whereas the regular blu-ray features both audio and video of the concert. Is it confirmed that the UB-9000 can play BD-Audio? It would make sense not to since as stated in a previous post that this unit is geared for playing movies with a projector tv. Thanks.

 

[GXAlan]

Is it confirmed that the UB-9000 can play BD-Audio?

BD Audio should be identical in structure to BD Video; it's thought that disc had static pictures for each song instead of actual video. The encoding for BD-Audio is the same as video. The 2L Blu-ray discs are another example of a "audio disc" that's really a video disc.

That's in contrast to DVD Audio. DVD-Video only supports DTS, PCM, Dolby Digital. DVD-Audio has MLP.

 

[MZKM]

Putting it out there that this guy is offering a $400 fee to “upgrade” both the audio & video capabilities of this player:
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/l...er-modification-blu-ray-dvd-universal-players

The Panasonic obtained a smoother, more analog sound and an even much lower bass floor with improved bass texture. It was more detailed with more solid location and was richer with better bloom. The instruments and soundstage were also much bigger. The artificial, processed sound that we heard prior to modification was gone after the piece was modified. The piece sounded much more natural...the black levels and contrast of the video also improved, making it much less flat. Colors were richer and more correct, and popped more. After modification, the clarity improved along with being more three dimensional. We did notice various skin imperfections and blemishes being much noticeable. Texture and patterns on clothing was also more noticeable.

 

[amirm]

*performative ... performant ain't a word. (nor is ain't )

It is a technical term: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/performant

 

[North_Sky]

"Performant" is also French ... Un système très performant.

 

[amirm]

Putting it out there that this guy is offering a $400 fee to “upgrade” both the audio & video capabilities of this player:
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/l...er-modification-blu-ray-dvd-universal-players

It is one thing to make claims about audio, it is another for video:

Video can be frozen and black levels, colors, etc. can be measured. They should do this to prove the thing does anything.

As it is, they show their imagination not only about audio but also video.

 

[amirm]

"Performant" is also French ... Un système très performant.

Ah, I knew I had some French in me! Merci Bob!

 

[MZKM]

It is one thing to make claims about audio, it is another for video:

View attachment 73514

Video can be frozen and black levels, colors, etc. can be measured. They should do this to prove the thing does anything.

As it is, they show their imagination not only about audio but also video.

Who needs measurements when you have satisfied customers:
“We have never had a modified piece returned from an unsatisfied customer.”

I love how in one of the reviews they give, instead of the old wife trope, one stated:

The vocals sound great as well. Even my 14 year old commented on how the voices sounded smoother and more natural. He even mentioned that it sounded like there was a center channel speaker hidden somewhere for the voices to come out of and “float in the air”.

 

[DonH56]

Ah, I knew I had some French in me! Merci Bob!

Don't get us started on what you, Sir Thomas, and that horse of his have been up to...

 

[North_Sky]

Ah, I knew I had some French in me! Merci Bob!

I could be a French teacher here @ ASR. That would be an appropriate banner.
▪ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/performant

* That would be cool to review (measure) the audio and video portion of say a modified Oppo 105/105D in comparison to its original. I would need to contact someone who has one done by Coris (modifier from Norway). Coris is on Steve Hoffman Forum.

Anyway, the Panny 9000 is a nice machine, highly performant, in both sections.