MAGNETAR UDP800 Review
At the end of 2023, we introduced the Magnetar UDP900 as a worthy Oppo successor. Now it’s about the UDP800, which, as the little brother, also boasts qualities of the legendary universal disc players.
by Reinhard Paprotka
There was never a large supply of universal disc players. When market leader Oppo ceased production of its legendary devices, a vacuum initially arose. Players from Pioneer and Reavon followed, but it wasn’t until the Chinese manufacturer Magnetar came along that a real replacement for the high-quality Oppo players was created. However, the top model UDP900 costs about $3,960. But with the UDP800, there is now also a stripped-down alternative for about $2,090.
Av info
| Product | Ultra HD Blu-ray/SACD/DVD-A player |
| Position | Currently the only model from Magnetar |
| Peers | Reavon UBR-X200, Oppo UDP-205, Pioneer UDP-LX800 |
| Website | magnetar-audio.eu |
Solid Construction, Elegant Design
Its appearance alone reveals the close kinship of the UDP800 with its big brother: The massive front panel consists of black and anthracite-colored aluminum plates, which convey a dignified value through pronounced structural grinding and create the design typical for Magnetar players. Besides the front panel, the rest of the housing is also made of metal, namely steel sheet. Added to this is a thick steel plate as a housing base and encapsulations of the drive and power supply, which also consist of steel sheet. This leads to a weight of nearly seven kilograms, which is noticeable as soon as you lift the device. There are two reasons for this: On the one hand, the steel sheet shields not only prevent electrostatic but also electromagnetic interference. This can have a positive effect on the noiselessness of the audio signal. On the other hand, the large mass contributes to smooth running and the avoidance of vibrations.
All Optical Disc Formats
As the name suggests, the Universal Disc Player plays all current optical disc formats. This includes CD, DVD, and Blu-ray (BD), each including the recordable and erasable variants. Added to this are DVD-Audio (DVD-A), SACD, and BD-Audio (BD-A). These three formats are interesting for high-resolution audio, as many Hi-Res recordings were released on DVD-A and especially on SACD. The DVD-A is now history, but at least in the classical sector there are still occasional new releases on SACD. Only the BD-A has a certain future, especially as—unlike DVD-A and SACD—it runs on all BD players. Moreover, the UDP800 plays the flagship of optical discs, the 4K UHD-BD. Besides videos in 4K resolution, it offers the advantage under audio aspects of reproducing Super-HiRes sound.
Available Without Region Code
The UDP800 is available in two variants, namely without or with region code restriction. For the latter, the stated price of $2,090 is reduced by $110. In addition to the original discs, the UDP800 also plays rips of SACD, BD-A, and DVD-A, in both stereo and multichannel up to 7.1. Ultimately, such rips and streaming in general have put an end to optical discs.
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For universal disc players, a large housing mass is advantageous, as it minimizes vibrations caused by optical discs.
Large Mass – Top for Sound
In particular, the playback capability of the 4K UHD-BD also has a secondary effect on the quality of audio playback. While the CD spins at a maximum of 500 RPM, the DVD reaches 1,390 RPM. The UHD-BD is the fastest at up to 5,000 RPM, and this leads to significant vibrations. To counter this, such players should have the largest possible mass. This is not the case with cheap devices; accordingly, the operating noises are high. High-quality devices can score here, and this applies to the UDP800. In a stress test with muted sound and directly at the device, there were quiet noises with the 4K super discs, but no droning due to vibrations could be heard. BDs, DVDs including SACDs and DVD-As were only very quiet and CDs not at all. There were exceptions with some DVD-As—especially with older TACET productions—that ran louder or not at all. Overall, this is still a top result, although the big brother UDP900 performs slightly better in terms of noise development. The absence of vibrations leads to undisturbed audio signals, which particularly benefits the playback of the higher-spinning three Hi-Res audio discs SACD, DVD-A, and BD-A.
Technically, Magnetar achieves this result by installing the drive in a spring-mounted steel sheet housing. This decouples the vibrations of the drive from the housing—and thus from the circuit boards and components. The drive is the commonly used KEM481AAA from Sony, which performs its duties well but does not match the quality of drives from the heyday of optical disc players.
As another program source, a USB SSD/HDD with up to a maximum of 16 TB can be connected, which enables access to a locally stored media collection. A second, concealable port is located on the front panel. For networking, the UDP800 offers LAN, but not WLAN. Bluetooth is also absent. The UPnP protocol (DLNA) is supported, which allows media access from NAS or PC. In doing so, the UDP800 works as a UPnP player operated by the same. Magnetar does not offer its own app, but with UPnP apps like BubbleUPnP, the UDP800 also runs as a renderer. Additionally, such apps enable the integration of music services, although top comfort features like Tidal Connect are not available. While the player can be quite well controlled via app even without a TV screen, operating it with optical discs via the single-line display is rudimentary. The UDP800 can only fully unfold its qualities in connection with a TV monitor and make full use via an AV receiver including multichannel playback. On the monitor, great setting options for audio and video arise in addition to the disc menu access, creating the perfect playground for multimedia enthusiasts.
Diverse Format Support
As audio formats, the UDP800 accepts FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, and WAV up to 192 kHz/24-bit, DSD64/128, and common compressed formats. The D/A conversion is done via two PCM1795 chips from Burr-Brown with output via MUSE S8920 operational amplifiers. Unlike the UDP900 with 7.1 analog outputs, the UDP800 offers only stereo, plus multichannel for pure audio including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X as well as the top audio formats for video via HDMI.
In the video sector, the UDP800 masters all important formats with the exception of WMV and, like the UDP900, supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision with the color spaces BT.2020, .709, and .601. Magnetar achieves this through the use of the MT8581 processor from MediaTek, which is also in the UDP900 and in Oppo players. The image thus appears very sharp and pure; Magnetar avoids any filtering, doing nothing to make the image softer. This means the result corresponds pretty much exactly to that of the UDP900 and thus also to the Oppo line.
Thanks to its great features, the UDP800 becomes the most interesting universal disc player currently available.
Excellent Sound Result
As with the UDP900, we used the DVD-Audio “Like Minds” by Gary Burton & Friends for the listening test. “For A Thousand Years” came across fascinatingly, Burton’s vibraphone light and playful, just like in “Elucidation”, played quickly with downright darting double bass runs by Dave Holland. With the UDP800, the ensemble stood very stably in the room, never leaving any doubt about authenticity, all via the analog output—hard to draw a relation to the big brother.
Specs
3D: Yes ULTRA HD: Yes HDR: Yes. HDR10; Dolby Vision; HDR10+ UPSCALING: Yes. 2,160p MULTIREGION: No. Region B BD (but Region-free DVD) HDMI: Yes. 2 x outputs (one audio-only) MULTICHANNEL ANALOGUE OUTPUT: No DIGITAL AUDIO OUTPUT: Yes. 1 x optical digital audio; 1 x coaxial digital audio ETHERNET: Yes BUILT IN WI-FI: No SACD/DVD-A: Yes/Yes DIMENSIONS: 430(w) x 90(h) x 300(d)mm WEIGHT: 8kg
FEATURES: Balanced XLR and RCA stereo analogue outputs; 2 x USB ports; RS-232 control port; DLNA media playback; dedicated stereo DAC; audio decoding to 7.1 channel pCm, 5.1 channel DSD; HDR-to-SDR conversion; Pure Audio mode
CONCLUSION:
In the test, the UDP800 proved to be a quite serious competitor to its big brother UDP900. In the important areas of mass and vibrations, processing, and sound, it could keep up almost entirely, even in terms of picture quality. The 7.1 analog outputs of the UDP900 may be rather superfluous, but this does not apply to the missing headphone output. Undoubtedly, the UDP800 offers the better price-performance ratio and thus becomes the most interesting universal disc player currently available. In this respect: yet another new Oppo!
PRO & CONTRA:
Pros:
Playback of almost all disc formats
Supports many AV formats
High operational stability under almost all conditions
Cons:
No headphone output
No dedicated app, no WLAN
Overall Rating for Price/Performance: 171 points (Very Good)
10-point scale: 9/10 (Excellent value for the price)
Magnetar UDP800 Report
Perfectly straight audio frequency responses, even with CDs with pre-emphasis. From top: Dolby True HD 192/24; PCM 96/24; CD. Very good audio quality, signal-to-noise ratio with CD 107/109 dB (RCA/XLR), with PCM 96/24 114/134 dB. The output level is adjustable in 100 steps, maximum 2.0/4.1 V (0 dB FS). Below: The luma video frequency response shows how well or contrast-rich details are reproduced, with the structures becoming finer to the right. The image of the UDP800 is neither soft nor over-sharpened; the gentle drop above the Nyquist frequency f/2 is an ideal compromise between the highest possible fine detail and minimal aliasing. Power consumption (standby/operation): 0.4/16 W.
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Reinhard, I’m wondering if you had a chance to test the video quality of the UDP800 vs the UDP900 directly, maybe side-by-side, maybe blind testing? If so, what were the differences if any? I plan to use one or the other, and will only be going digital out of whichever one I pick, so video performance is my primary interest. Thanks in advance, Gary