Shane Buettner

Price: $1,999 At A Glance: Reference-quality picture and sound • Anchor Bay video processing • Slow disc access and load times

A Chip Off the Flagship’s Block?

Denon turned the Blu-ray world on end when it introduced the $4,500 DVD-A1UDCI universal Blu-ray player (HT, October 2009). At 41 pounds, that player is overbuilt for an A/V receiver. It played all past and current high-end audio and video formats and offered astonishing pure audio and video performance and the most impressive host of performance-enhancing features we’ve yet seen on a Blu-ray player. But ergonomically, it was sluggish loading and playing Blu-ray Discs. When you consider that, along with the hefty price tag and the superlative performance we’ve seen from lower-priced players, Denon’s flagship rated too low on the value scale to earn an unqualified Home Theater Top Pick. Now comes Denon’s DBP-4010UDCI, another universal Blu-ray Disc player. This player has an impressive number of performance-oriented features, and at $1,999, it’s less than half the flagship’s price. So, at this lower price point, is this Denon a solid choice in a high-end-priced player?

Price: $15,000 At A Glance: LEDs promise longevity, consistent performance • Excellent color • Good contrast mitigated by unrefined dynamic contrast performance

Get the LED In

The last few years have been a golden age for digital front projection in home theater applications. Today’s best projectors offer an absolutely stellar combination of price, convenience, essential features, and most importantly, performance. In virtually all of these respects, today’s digital projectors shatter any expectations we had a few years ago. But there is a rub. Digital projection as we’ve known it has been driven by analog lamps for illumination. These lamps, which generally cost $300 to $500 each, age and need to be replaced every couple of thousand hours. If you insist on the very best performanceyou may need to replace them even sooner. In addition to dropping light output, aging lamps also affect a projector’s color performance, gammaand gray-scale tracking. Inother words, the lamp-driven projector you buy today isn’t the same projector you’ll have after several hundred hours without a touch-up calibration.

Price: $899 At A Glance: Reference Blu-ray and DVD performance • Significant audio upgrade at a reasonable price • Excellent speed and ergonomics • Terrific disc compatibility

The Best Has Gotten Better

With all of the resources that are available to the Blu-ray Disc Association’s major manufacturers, it’s remarkable that the first company to cure the ills of standalone Blu-ray players was Oppo Digital with its $499 BDP-83 (HT, September 2009). Upon that player’s release, many enthusiasts were using the PlayStation 3 for its speed and reliability. Standalone players were too slow and prone to disc incompatibility issues. They also had a hodgepodge of hardware profiles and decoding and interactivity features that bewildered consumers. When Oppo’s BDP-83 came along, it did everything that a Blu-ray player should do, and it did it right and fast. In short, it was a next-gen Blu-ray player that acted like one. That player earned Home Theater’s Top Pick of the Year in Source Components and overall Product of the Year for 2009 (HT, November 2009). Plus, it earned a check from me to Oppo. The BDP-83 I bought last year as a reference has been bulletproof during the time I’ve owned it. Compatibility issues have been few and far between. But when they’ve come up, Oppo has acted swiftly with hassle-free firmware updates from the Internet. It has been so bulletproof that it’s difficult to imagine changing it out or upgrading it.

The group at Anthem/Paradigm now offers complete turnkey home theater solutions comprised of separate electronics, speakers, a Blu-ray player and a front projector and screen. The results almost shook the Venetian hotel to the ground. The Anthem line brought in Statement series electronics with the D2v processor, A5 power amp, three BLX-200 Blu-ray players (continuous demo, no disc swapping), and an LTX-500 LCOS projector driving an SI Black Diamond screen. Paradigm’s Signature S6 speakers held down left and right duty in this surround system, but my eyes and ears went immediately to the presence of two ginormous SUB 2 subwoofers at the front of the room. The $7499 SUB 2 uses six 10” woofers in its unusually shaped cabinet. And get this. Wiring 240v AC to the SUB 2 Paradigm claims 4,500 watts RMS sustained with its Class D amplification. If you can only wire for 120v, don’t’ feel too bad. Paradigm claims 3,000 watts RMS sustained over old-fashioned 120v lines, which isn’t exactly anemic either. The cabinet/driver configuration cancels cabinet vibration, and all that’s left is earthshaking bass. The versatility of this system was extraordinary, bringing me to my emotional knees with an evocative KD Lang concert performance before shattering that blissful calm with a bonecrusher (ok, hunter-killer) scene from Terminator Salvation (all the demo material was Blu-ray). Then Anthem/Paradigm’s Rob Sample played Nine Inch Nails Beside You in Time, and we were whisked off to the concert arena. I’ve never heard rock concert bass portrayed as convincingly in a home theater system. Not only was the bass pounding at startlingly high SPLs, the air in the room was fully charged. I saw NIN live in 2008, and this is as close as I’ll get to that energy until they come around again. This is powerful stuff. So powerful that I need to know more. Paradigm’s on the hook to send me a SUB 2 review sample. My neighbors have no idea what’s coming for them!