Don't buy an expensive Blu-Ray player until you have read this months magazine

hammill:

Gerrardasnails:

hammill:

Reread the original, stand by my statement.

I've been lucky enough to attend a BQ. I therefore realise how the day maps out and that like myself, the other two attendees are amateur reviewers/not reviewers, and different opinions are inevitable. I have a budget to some, mid level to others system. One of the other guys had a decent style home cinema system and BigAir has a high end to some, crazy high end to most, set up. We disagreed on a few things, agreed on others. However, our testing was far from stringent. It was blind, yes, but a proper testing by the team would take about a week and we did about an hour or so. My point is to conclude, after reading the BQ in the mag, that a component is not that important, well, it's ridiculous. Lately, there seems to be a lot of baiting of the mag. So much so that I'm spending less time on the forum and can see me not bothering in the future. If you think that the mag is biased or not accurate, don't buy it or use the forum.

My original post was a bit tongue in cheek, just to get a discussion going, but this is the second time that What HiFi have bravely printed BQs which suggest that highly recommended expensive products are hard to differentiate from good quality cheaps ones by normal people.

My conclusion from reading the BQ is that three HfiFi/AV enthusiasts can scarcly tell the difference between a £100 blu-ray player and a £1000 blu-ray player althought they were really concentrating on the task in hand. This was with a top notch projector. What this shows me is that decent blu-ray players have become a cheap commodity product and unless you have special requirements such as SACD/DVD-A -(that is why I have an Oppo) or analog outs, you are probably wasting your money buying anything more expensive than the Sony and you should spend it elsewhere (the BQ suggests speakers, but red wine or more Blu-rays are also good options). The reviewers are amateurs, but guess what, so am I and they are more likely to reflect my views than the What HiFi staff who are experienced at finding the most subtle of differences.  I am sure there are many people with £1000 blu-ray players who feel a bit sick and would like to rubbish the BQ, but that has little to do with the facts.

That it is is possible to get a brilliant blu-ray player for £100 should surely be a matter for celebration.

I hear what you are saying. I have a BD player that I spent £300 on when it first came out and it was a bad choice really as I don't need analogue out and I paid the premium for it. I should have got the the S350 at the time but I preferred the look of the 550!

However, with a lot of kit, where differences are not night and day, the mag cannot possibly review them like, "Denon BD player, excellent. Sony BD player, the same. Pioneer BD player same picture, shinier machine". How boring would that be? They have to get anal!! They must look at every last nuance of detail during the review. During the BQ day, that is not possible. So, I agree that with BD players, PQ differences are very minimal to the amateur who won't stop a film half way through to check the colour of a wall and write down the frame time, to later come on here and moan about screen blur on a certain BD!! The team though would not be doing a proper job if they didn't try to describe what they found over a weeks testing.

hammill:

this is the second time that What HiFi have bravely printed BQs which suggest that highly recommended expensive products are hard to differentiate from good quality cheaps ones by normal people.

Not bravery, just our commitment to telling it like it is - whether it's our readers' opinions or those of our reviewers, whom -  as Gerrardasnails points out above - have much longer time to watch/listen to a wide range of source material in order to determine any differences.

But yes, there are some extreme bargains out there, but also some benefits - as the speaker side of the test showed - on upgrading where YOU feel it delivers the most uplift in performance.

Get auditioning, everyone!

I hear what you are saying. I have a BD player that I spent £300 on when it first came out and it was a bad choice really as I don't need analogue out and I paid the premium for it. I should have got the the S350 at the time but I preferred the look of the 550! However, with a lot of kit, where differences are not night and day, the mag cannot possibly review them like, "Denon BD player, excellent. Sony BD player, the same. Pioneer BD player same picture, shinier machine". How boring would that be? They have to get anal!! They must look at every last nuance of detail during the review. During the BQ day, that is not possible. So, I agree that with BD players, PQ differences are very minimal to the amateur who won't stop a film half way through to check the colour of a wall and write down the frame time, to later come on here and moan about screen blur on a certain BD!! The team though would not be doing a proper job if they didn't try to describe what they found over a weeks testing.

I completely agree that What HiFi should describe every difference they see and hear, that is what you pay for. Wiat it is sometimes difficult for the reader to understand is that these differences can be very subtle for certain product categories and that for the average punter they may not be visible at all. I also think that the ability to get a top notch picture from a cheap player is relatively new and players like the 370 have completely changed the ball game in a way that tests like the BQ are beginning to expose. It would be interesting if picture quality received an absolute mark, how big the difference between a 370 and 5000 is. All that means to me is that people should adjust their spending so that more goes into the components where there is the most difference.

hammill:

I hear what you are saying. I have a BD player that I spent £300 on when it first came out and it was a bad choice really as I don't need analogue out and I paid the premium for it. I should have got the the S350 at the time but I preferred the look of the 550! However, with a lot of kit, where differences are not night and day, the mag cannot possibly review them like, "Denon BD player, excellent. Sony BD player, the same. Pioneer BD player same picture, shinier machine". How boring would that be? They have to get anal!! They must look at every last nuance of detail during the review. During the BQ day, that is not possible. So, I agree that with BD players, PQ differences are very minimal to the amateur who won't stop a film half way through to check the colour of a wall and write down the frame time, to later come on here and moan about screen blur on a certain BD!! The team though would not be doing a proper job if they didn't try to describe what they found over a weeks testing.

I completely agree that What HiFi should describe every difference they see and hear, that is what you pay for. Wiat it is sometimes difficult for the reader to understand is that these differences can be very subtle for certain product categories and that for the average punter they may not be visible at all. I also think that the ability to get a top notch picture from a cheap player is relatively new and players like the 370 have completely changed the ball game in a way that tests like the BQ are beginning to expose. It would be interesting if picture quality received an absolute mark, how big the difference between a 370 and 5000 is. All that means to me is that people should adjust their spending so that more goes into the components where there is the most difference.

Or that people don't make a decision based upon the review but use it as a guide as to what to audition. A bit like what the WHF team harps on about quite a lot.

d4v3pum4:

Please tell me that there is at least a wee tweak of the video settings?  Surely if there are qualified staff on the payroll, they could calibrate the displays?  The audio side is fair enough, disconnect, connect, listen but for a test of video performance, at least give the gear a chance!

I would disagree with " The audio side is fair enough, disconnect, connect" it is just as important to level match and run EQ on any reciever as it is to calibrate a dusplay.

I would agree that I have found little diffrence in PQ between different Players I have demoed , but a big difference in SQ.

Also in general about kit and the argument about cheap and expensive could be compared to a car , a Lada or a Bentley will both get you from A & B pays your money take your choice

lesmor:

d4v3pum4:

Please tell me that there is at least a wee tweak of the video settings?  Surely if there are qualified staff on the payroll, they could calibrate the displays?  The audio side is fair enough, disconnect, connect, listen but for a test of video performance, at least give the gear a chance!

I would disagree with " The audio side is fair enough, disconnect, connect" it is just as important to level match and run EQ on any reciever as it is to calibrate a dusplay.

I'm not sure I'd agree with either, when you auto-calibrate a receiver it uses test tones, it doesn't know what player will be used subsequently. Similarly when you calibrate a display you do it with a known reference, regardless of what source you might use in future. Surely to accurately compare sources it's a requirement to leave the display the same for each source, otherwise by changing it you're going to mask the very differences you're trying to detect?

How would you know that a given bdp has weaker colours, for example, if you immediately bang the colour up to compensate?

hammill:

My original post was a bit tongue in cheek, just to get a discussion going, but this is the second time that What HiFi have bravely printed BQs which suggest that highly recommended expensive products are hard to differentiate from good quality cheaps ones by normal people.

I always disagree when people claim that you have to be an audiophile or superhuman to see and hear differences. You don't. We may be able to tell the differences a little bit easier than some as we tend to hear more kit than other people and possibly know what we're listening/looking for, but that doesn't mean we hear any better. It's all personal preference.

 

FrankHarveyHiFi:

hammill:

My original post was a bit tongue in cheek, just to get a discussion going, but this is the second time that What HiFi have bravely printed BQs which suggest that highly recommended expensive products are hard to differentiate from good quality cheaps ones by normal people.

I always disagree when people claim that you have to be an audiophile or superhuman to see and hear differences. You don't. We may be able to tell the differences a little bit easier than some as we tend to hear more kit than other people and possibly know what we're listening/looking for, but that doesn't mean we hear any better. It's all personal preference.

 

In general, I would not claim that either and had long arguments with my partner until we bought our first hifi together and she realised that differences between speakers (in particular) are huge to anyone who likes music.

But you seem to have missed the point or have not read the BQ. The guys in the test could hardly tell any difference between one very cheap and one very expensive blu-ray player and this should be a reality check for anyone wanting to spend a lot of money on a blu-ray player ( I do not suggest this applies to all other products apart from HDMI cables). I accept that may not be good for your business, but you can always sell some more expensive speakers as the test also showed that this difference was very clear.

Having now read the mag and the BQ feature, I did find it somewhat unrealistic in terms of getting something out of it.  Mainly because of the BIG difference in the gear that was swapped out (the Lada / Bentley reference made in an earlier post). I say this as I can't imagine many readers who are in the markey for a £450 amp to look at one costing £4900, or speakers that are around £550 considering a jump to speakers that cost £15000!

Surely it would have been more useful to the average reader to have equipment that is considered low-end compared that considered as mid-range?  Or comparing mid-range to high-end?

Pauled.

chudleighpaul:

Knocking the size of the sample is unrealistic. Providing those taking part had no idea of the changes being made then the opinions are valid.

 

Well im sorry, but the placebo effect is well documented. As are blind test statistics

Sorry don't agree, My job is surveys and statistics. The weak point of the test is, are the participants a REPRESENTATIVE sample.

What this BQ has shown is

1. If the speakers are the problem then no amount of expensive amplification or expensive source can cure the problem.

2. Bluray players have advanced so much that it is near impossible to tell the difference between the budget and high end models. The pics played through the Sim2 projector were stunning.

As I have said time and again, the beauty of HD technology is that, for pure 1080/24p video playback, you will struggle to notice a difference between blu-ray players. This is on the basis of my own comparison between Denon 2500BT, Panasonic BD60 & PS3. It's nothing to do with with advancement of blu-ray players. I know many won't agree with me. This month's Big Question only testifies my findings.

what i found interesting was that even with the uber yamaha amp hooked up , there was little perceived difference in sound , i wonder if pairing £700-£800 or more  amps up with the likes of the q acoustics is worth it ? are the £400 denon and amps of that ilk as good as such a system needs ? many spend more ..

aliEnRIK:

Well im sorry, but the placebo effect is well documented.

50p in the objectivist cliche tin, please.

aliEnRIK:

As are blind test statistics

Actually, make that a quid.

The never ending debate -in my opinion it,s just a matter of Preference Vs Reference, and just because some one can see/hear a difference between two system it dosn,t neccesarly mean that one system is better than other, they just simply look/sound differenet from each other.

A good healthy fair test would be only to run a Reference test and dissmiss all kind of preferences.

 I have two different blu-ray player's in my system 1. Pioneer LX71 price: 500£.  and Samsung bdp1400 price: 200£. out of curiosity i have compared the two player side by side many time , sometimes even with the present of some freind's, 
i have made all the test on a projector and a 92" screen, and to be
honest niether i or any of my freind can see any different's what so
ever!!!!

Personaly -i think spending morethan 300-500£ on a blu-ray player it,s going to be a big waste of money UNLESS u going to use the onboard decoding.