Audio Video News

Lexicon did a bad thing. According to Audioholics, the company's $3,500 BD-30 is little more than a rebadged $500 Oppo BD-83. The site says that Lexicon's Blu-ray player is literally just an Oppo BD-83 in an aluminum Lexicon wrapper.

This isn't just a case of similar or even identical hardware. Audioholics noted that the Lexicon chassis had the exact same Blu-ray player inside it as the BD-83; they simply cut ventilation holes in the bottom of their own chassis to fit the Oppo hardware and added a slightly darker filter to the player's front display. The BD-30 even performed identically to the BD-83 in Audioholics' frequency response tests. Both players displayed identical response curves, which is virtually impossible to produce without using completely identical components.

Using similar parts and taking on a little extra to the price of your product isn't uncommon, but this is the first time I've seen a 700% markup for the exact same hardware.

— Will Greenwald

[Source: Audioholics via Gizmodo]