Recommendation for a decent and not expensive 4K player

[ar surround]

Another vote for the UBP-X800M2. It’s the only player I use and it plays DVD-Audio, Blu-ray audio, SACD and ripped files perfectly. The Dolby Vision toggle is a little annoying and it also shuts off after 20 minutes of inactivity, something which you cannot change. Another inconvenience is there’s no gapless playback for ripped files and you can’t skip between chapters on .mkv files. But the pros far outweigh the cons!

Does the X800M2 play multi-channel via the USB port? I see that it will play FLAC, DSF, DFF, WAV etc.

(It annoys me that my Marantz AVR will play only 2-channel sources via the USB. At least that's what the manual says. I use my Oppo, so no big deal.)

 

[bookofsaturdays]

Does the X800M2 play multi-channel via the USB port? I see that it will play FLAC, DSF, DFF, WAV etc.

(It annoys me that my Marantz AVR will play only 2-channel sources via the USB. At least that's what the manual says. I use my Oppo, so no big deal.)

It absolutely does, I do it all the time. Mainly FLAC and DSF. As I said the gapless playback issue is a little annoying especially for songs that segue into each other, but other than that it’s a great all around player.

 

[ar surround]

It absolutely does, I do it all the time. Mainly FLAC and DSF. As I said the gapless playback issue is a little annoying especially for songs that segue into each other, but other than that it’s a great all around player.

Sounds like a great player especially for the money. Regarding the X800M2 gapless playback issue: Can it play CUE files? I know that my Oppo 205 won't play DSF files without gaps. I have to rip the SACD with a CUE file. The CUE file allows me to select tracks from giant DFF file of the whole album.

Also, the Oppo 205 won't play gaplessly with ALACs (and perhaps some other formats.) They have to be WAV or FLAC, otherwise there are gaps.

 

[bookofsaturdays]

Sounds like a great player especially for the money. Regarding the X800M2 gapless playback issue: Can it play CUE files? I know that my Oppo 205 won't play DSF files without gaps. I have to rip the SACD with a CUE file. The CUE file allows me to select tracks from giant DFF file of the whole album.

Also, the Oppo 205 won't play gaplessly with ALACs (and perhaps some other formats.) They have to be WAV or FLAC, otherwise there are gaps.

I’ve ripped some discs with CUE files and have kept them in the folder with the DSF/FLAC files on my hard drive but I’ve never used one and considering they don’t show up as a file on the Sony player, my guess is that it doesn’t recognize them. Not entirely sure though!

 

[kap'n krunch]

OK, guys, thank you so much for the feedback!!!

Seems I am getting the Sony UBP-X800M2 even though I am not a big fan of Sony hardware (sez the guy who has TWO Sony BluRay players)...and although I do not like giving the Bezos monster my dough, I always think that I am giving some money to the poor bastards who work there!

Cheers!

 

[bookofsaturdays]

OK, guys, thank you so much for the feedback!!!

Seems I am getting the Sony UBP-X800M2 even though I am not a big fan of Sony hardware (sez the guy who has TWO Sony BluRay players)...and although I do not like giving the Bezos monster my dough, I always think that I am giving some money to the poor bastards who work there!

Cheers!

Good choice, I think you’ll really love it. Another cool feature on it is that it’s got 2 HDMI outputs, 1 for audio/video and 1 for audio only, so if you’re like me and have an older receiver that doesn’t do 4K, you can still bitstream to your receiver and get 4K picture straight to your TV. The only thing I wish it had were stereo analog outputs, which are on the higher end model.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Sounds like a great player especially for the money. Regarding the X800M2 gapless playback issue: Can it play CUE files? I know that my Oppo 205 won't play DSF files without gaps. I have to rip the SACD with a CUE file. The CUE file allows me to select tracks from giant DFF file of the whole album.

I’ve ripped some discs with CUE files and have kept them in the folder with the DSF/FLAC files on my hard drive but I’ve never used one and considering they don’t show up as a file on the Sony player, my guess is that it doesn’t recognize them. Not entirely sure though!

I'm a bit of a .cue (track navigation) file fan. I back-up all my audio discs into one long continuous audio stream...

 

[jhw59]

I’ve had mine since December 2020 and there’s been two firmware updates since, i’d be lying if I said what they were though

Try searching for your model on the AVS forum, might be some info there. I've found it helpful in the past.

 

[madscot]

Try searching for your model on the AVS forum, might be some info there. I've found it helpful in the past.

To be honest i’m not that bothered as long as it works lol

 

[Tribby2001]

The only thing I wish it had were stereo analog outputs, which are on the higher end model.

To which model with analog out do you refer to, por favor?
...
BTW - you can also buy a region free X800M2.

 

[bookofsaturdays]

To which model with analog out do you refer to, por favor?
...
BTW - you can also buy a region free X800M2.

It’s the UBP-X1000ES which has unfortunately been discontinued but you might be able to find one on eBay?

 

[karlkastner]

Based on all the endorsements for the Sony UBPX-800M2, I just bought the region free version from Bombay Electronics for $375 out the door. It was on sale and there was a 5% promo code. (PROMO5)

I'm going to run the HDMI video straight to my Sony 4K projector, and the HDMI audio to my Oppo 105. My goal was to add 4K and multi-region capability, without hunting down a used Oppo 203/205 and modding it. Should I also use the Sony over the Oppo for spinning SACD and DVD-Audio, to reduce mileage on the Oppo transport?

In case anybody else was wondering, I asked Sony about upscaling heirarchy. I gave them my player and projector model numbers. It's better(at least in my case) to let the projector do the upscaling to 4K, rather than the player. But that may vary with different Player-TV/Projector combos, depending on relative sophistication?

Thanks, as always, for the great insights.

 

[peterzach]

Question, I bought a Sony UBP-X800M2 based on recommendations here and recommended it to my son-in law as well..

My player is still boxed up as I don't need it yet(have a Oppo 103 working)but my kids tried a movie on theirs(same Ubp-X800M2) and it's a MKV file played off of USB and video works but not the audio. Check to see what audio codec and it's dolby digitial plus. No problem playing same file on my Oppo 103 which is 10 year old model Mostly use my Oppo for flac's and playing files off of Usb hard drive.

Has anyone figured out how to play a MKV Movie file if the audio is encoded in Dolby Digital Plus?

 

[timothyemerson]

Question, I bought a Sony UBP-X800M2 based on recommendations here and recommended it to my son-in law as well..

My player is still boxed up as I don't need it yet(have a Oppo 103 working)but my kids tried a movie on theirs(same Ubp-X800M2) and it's a MKV file played off of USB and video works but not the audio. Check to see what audio codec and it's dolby digitial plus. No problem playing same file on my Oppo 103 which is 10 year old model Mostly use my Oppo for flac's and playing files off of Usb hard drive.

Has anyone figured out how to play a MKV Movie file if the audio is encoded in Dolby Digital Plus?

I've read that Sony players either just won't play anything Dolby from MKV or won't play anything better than Dolby Digital 5.1 (e.g., Dolby TrueHD). I've seen this behaviour myself.

Best bang for buck is this media player: https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC2+9KKmVViAFMcQ==.html

It plays everything I've thrown at it and also now serves as my main music player (the only thing it won't do is native DSD but converts it to PCM on the fly).

 

[ted_b]

Best bang for buck is this media player: https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC2+9KKmVViAFMcQ==.html

It plays everything I've thrown at it and also now serves as my main music player (the only thing it won't do is native DSD but converts it to PCM on the fly).

I've had the Z9X for months now and the only thing I can get it to play are BDMVs and MKVs (and flacs, but not Auro-3D embedded flacs). No M4A, No MKA. I must be doing something wrong. We can take this offline to PM if you want.

 

[dobyblue]

Very few BD/UHD players will play anything Dolby above DD 5.1 using MKV. Panasonic is even worse, at least if your MKV has Atmos as track 1 and dts-MA as track 2 the Sony will let you change audio, the Panny will not.

I eventually got the NVidia Shield Pro 4K, it plays all Atmos perfectly as well as DD+ and has enough RAM to support playback of full bit for bit 4K Ultra HD rips > MKV which the 2GM Ram Shield tube cannot (constant freezing and stuttering)

I use Kodi on the Shield for audio playback of all my MCH flacs and Plex for movie playback. On the PC as the server, Plex.

You could bypass the issue by using MakeMKV’s audio>FLAC when creating your MKV files but that won’t retain Atmos metadata, so it would be perfect for up to 7.1

 

[timothyemerson]

I've had the Z9X for months now and the only thing I can get it to play are BDMVs and MKVs (and flacs, but not Auro-3D embedded flacs). No M4A, No MKA. I must be doing something wrong. We can take this offline to PM if you want.

I don't have any Auro-3D embedded FLACs to try and haven't tried M4As or MKAs either so won't be much help there sorry. My surround setup is 5.1 and for the few Atmos audio discs I have that I've wanted to preserve for whatever reason, I've just MKV'd them. More HDD space required but thems the brakes.

You may have done this already but I frequently check these 2 forums (I hope these links work):

http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?find-new/56922046/posts
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/zidoo-z9x-rtd1619-thread.3140924/page-228#post-62220506

The first one is probably your best bet. There's a Super Admin on there called Markswift2003 who knows the machine very well and may be able to help if nothing useful shows up in your searches. Hope this helps!

Note: There are also the usual crybaby whining 20-something nerds on both of these forums who won't hesitate to let you know that what you're asking is stupid, so there's that to look forward to!

 

[ted_b]

I don't have any Auro-3D embedded FLACs to try and haven't tried M4As or MKAs either so won't be much help there sorry. My surround setup is 5.1 and for the few Atmos audio discs I have that I've wanted to preserve for whatever reason, I've just MKV'd them. More HDD space required but thems the brakes.

You may have done this already but I frequently check these 2 forums (I hope these links work):

http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?find-new/56922046/posts
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/zidoo-z9x-rtd1619-thread.3140924/page-228#post-62220506

The first one is probably your best bet. There's a Super Admin on there called Markswift2003 who knows the machine very well and may be able to help if nothing useful shows up in your searches. Hope this helps!

Note: There are also the usual crybaby whining 20-something nerds on both of these forums who won't hesitate to let you know that what you're asking is stupid, so there's that to look forward to!

Yes, I am a long time AVS Forum veteran (your link takes you to my latest post, in fact ) and have several Z9X posts there. Thanks. And I have chatted back and forth with Mark, but a good idea maybe to PM him. Thx

 

[timothyemerson]

Yes, I am a long time AVS Forum veteran (your link takes you to my latest post, in fact ) and have several Z9X posts there. Thanks. And I have chatted back and forth with Mark, but a good idea maybe to PM him. Thx

Whoops, I linked directly to your post - duh! I'll blame the COVID I got for Christmas.

Hope you get a solution!

 

[bluelightning]

I've read that Sony players either just won't play anything Dolby from MKV or won't play anything better than Dolby Digital 5.1 (e.g., Dolby TrueHD). I've seen this behaviour myself.

Best bang for buck is this media player: https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC2+9KKmVViAFMcQ==.html

It plays everything I've thrown at it and also now serves as my main music player (the only thing it won't do is native DSD but converts it to PCM on the fly).

I have a few questions for you, if you please answer them.
1) Does it play the multichannel portion of SACD ISOs or only Stereo?
2) What rate does it convert SACD output to ? Similarly forl CDs does it convert 44.1KHz based material to 48KHz rates like most Android based systems?
3) is the system stable or does it have to be frequently rebooted etc.
4) Have you tried any 4k movies with Dolby Vision ? Do you know if the Dolby Vison actually works ?