£600-£800 Blu Ray player help??????

Hi 1st post went wrong somewhere sorry.

I have £600-£800 to spend on a Blu ray player.

Been looking at Cambridge audio 650 and 751, Marantz 7006, Oppo 93.

My system is Panasonic 50" GT30 with a Yamaha YP2200 sound bar.

Would I notice any difference between the 650 and 751 also same for the 95 and 93 Oppo?

regards Steve.

Cambridge Audio 751BD...

Aha, there's an actual question now.  I have a 751BD in the house and, whilst you should take your own view of BD image quality over lesser players, it has great upscaling and sounds very good indeed as a music player, if that matters to you.  Pricey though.

The thing I was concerned about was would I be wasting money by going for the 751 over the 650 as I have been told the the main difference between the two is the audio out but as I just have a soundbar which is HDMI in I wouldnt be using the audio outs on the Cambridge 751 or the Oppo 95??

In which case you may have a point - i think the 751 is being touted as majoring on audio quality over analogue, though i can't comment as don't have an hdmi receiver.

Note that the 650 is as good as unavailable now and i hear the 651's not in the shops yet.

What's the rest of your setup? EDIT - sorry, seen it. Is this just for bluray or lots of DVDs as well? If the latter the upscaling may be the key.

Its just a 50" Panasonic GT30, Sky HD and the Yamaha YSP2200 soundbar, all I want now is a good Bluray player with excellent picture??

Its going to be for Blu Ray discs only.

I would strongly recommend you to audition a few players before buying one. Based on your requirements, you may find that a cheaper player is just as good as an expensive one. I didn't find any difference in blu-ray picture quality between PS3, Panasonic BD60 & Denon 2500BT, although some members have claimed to find differences.

Anyway, for your budget, look at the Oppo 93 & Denon's 1611UD & 2012UD Even Marantz UD5005 & 7006 are worth auditioning.

Is there an overall opinion on what player does give the best picture?

Would I notice the difference on my 50" Panasonic GT30 or do you only start to see these differences on projectors?

If there is no difference in picture quality in between expensive Blu ray players and a PS3 whats the point in getting one???

There's a greater difference in DVD upscaling & audio performance between players at different price points as compared to blu-ray picture performance. Based on your requirements, DVD & audio performance doesn't appear to be that important to you. Audition the players yourself & see what you think. Especially check fast motion & dark scenes.

I agree with bigboss. Unless you plan to upgrade to a full surround set up to take advantage of lossless audio, and to use this set up for music as well as movies, players at the price point you mention might be overkill.

Audition a range of players at different price points (I'd even look at budget decks). You might save yourself a lot of money!

Indeed, the other UK mag high on globes said they couldn't find a significant improvement in picture quality of the 751 over the 650, apart from motion handling - which is what you noticed as well.

That said, picture quality is high on my agenda, and if I'm not suitably impressed here for Blu-rays I may well swap it for the Marantz - not as versatile but hell does thing look fab - seen one in black.

But I hope it doesn't come to that, as the CA's so damn versatile - I can hide the USB drive at the back for my music, and heck the thing plays HDCDs as well. Also, in a youtube promo video CA hinted that they'll release an iOS app to control it, so you don't have to switch the telly on to play music off USB, network etc.

So I'm holding thumbs, cos this has got to be the last source av component I buy for the next 5 years at least if not more.

PS. The globular mag didn't rate the CA as a great CD player - but hell I do not want to pop them in anymore.

Neither do I, but if anybody needs a player that does it all (including UPnP, if slightly dodgily on my first attempt), this is it.

The CA 751 BD is a marvellous machine. And it can play the Star Wars Blu-rays as well, which seems to be an issue for some machines. If  you want an investment in the future...

Even my Panasonic BD60 plays Star Wars well. It really depends on the frequency of firmware updates the manufacturer issues (although my Pana did not require any update to play Star Wars).