“Just play your CDs in a Blu-ray player…”

i guess this is a retrotech episode now: https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1792667456

I'm not sure how interested you would be but have every read about the original Playstation (SCPH-1001)? It was supposed to have a really good DAC. I've always wanted to mess around with one, but a lot of the lasers are bad so they are little hard to come by in good shape. I'll get to it one day, but I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Ooh, what's the timer with the huge red button you used in the clip of the timing tests? Looks like a nice one.

I have the Blu Ray player, found it at a thrift store (the US equivalent), and its my bedroom player. The player has CD Text only on SACDs (through the TV) in my experience, but its my fav to have and play CDs while I do assignments.

There's only one thing for it: add the VT-M5 telly to the Hi-Fi and use it as a display for the DVD/Blu-Ray players! The fact that you'll have to adapt HDMI to RF, and probably chain a magnifying glass to the shelving unit if anyone's going to manage to make out the UI elements, only adds to the elegance and flawlessness of my idea.

The magic of old hi-fi boxes with massive VFD displays is well and truly buried in this day and age. How dull.

Well, I bought a harman kardon system ohh... 2014? It did sound great and I did use it with the TV. At some point I got into Techmoan and bough old shit that didn't work half of the time... But when it did. Goodness me. It is still there, under the awful Samsung TV. It can play blueray if you ask pretty please. It is starting to show signs of age. I do use a DVD Player for DVDs though

As a fun experiment, I put my ancient Apex AD-1500 DVD player up against the Techmoan CD Player Test. For context, this was the cheapest DVD player available back in 2003, and proudly boasts that it's a DVD/VCD/CD/MP3 player on the front. Scored 21/24, though it lost a couple of marks due to what I thought was the sparse nature of its front panel controls viz. play, pause, stop and eject. I'm glad I held onto it, it still works, and I haven't lost the remote!

Joe Collins just uploaded a video ranting about how Onkyo changed the chip used in their DX-C390 CD changer in recent years and it no longer supports gapless playback.

I put my Dad's Realistic CD player from 1986 through these tests and it came out pretty darn good. Without the remote (I last saw it in the 90s) I can't change the display to time remaining.

Hey Mat, great Video. 2:57 - 3:01 the cd-player is shaking, starting 4:01 again, in full screen that is, at least for me, distracting.

It seems strange to see you reviewing a new product that came out 11 years ago, it shows just how stagnant the market is for physical media playback. Imagine reviewing a brand new product in 1990 that was introduced in 1979! It could never have happened, technology and the aesthetics changed so much in that decade. Back in the glory days of hifi and home cinema, you'd be lucky if a product lasted more than a year before a new improved version came out (although by the late 90s the new versions were usually worse than the previous versions). I miss the past, but then I'm in my 50s, so I suppose that I'm meant to!

Systemic of modern day Sony. They really have given up. I believe there is a higher tier premium model in the Sony UBP-X800M2 (this also has no screen). I had the previous iteration but didn’t have Dolby vision and froze far too often for my liking so i went for the Panasonic. Sad to see this companies standards fall so low.

Have a great upcoming break. My imagination suggests a cruise on the river Seine, sipping refreshing non-alcoholic beverages and enjoying the ambiance. 🗼🚙

I like the idea of you taking a soldering iron to region-crack those boxes, Mat. Also - the idea of regional restrictions are so absurdly anachronistic that it fits nicely into your 'obsolete tech' purview.

Cannot think of anything worse than having to turn on my TV to play CDs; it’s just wrong imo. Same with the suggestion of listening to the radio through a tv attached to a freeview box. No thanks.

disagree about this video being a failed experiment, quite interesting to see how much these devices stack up to a standard CD player. to your point, people (like myself) mentioned these players could also play CDs, but in practice they pretty much suck at it. anyone considering this as an option, would need a TV to operate them properly given they don't even have screens anymore. glad you looked into this. good video.

Thanks! I loved this video. One additional thing I used to look for: being able to add songs while a program is playing. Even better if the device has a numeric keyboard. I am surprised these DVD players are able to play hapless.

If it's only around £40, I might actually get the Sony DVD player for the bedroom I stay in at my mother's house. I've a terrible Goodmans one from B&M Bargains in there at the moment which was only around a tenner less. Whilst it works, the pause button is very temperamental and the whole machine keeps switching back on as soon as you've turned it off. It does have a display, but it's set to return to 0.00 at each chapter point by default on each startup, which is equally annoying.

I've had the original version of that UHD player more or less since it came out, despite never owning a 4K set! The differences from what I can see is my remote has a Netflix button (a service I don't actually subscribe to, and keep pressing accidentally), and BBC iPlayer has recently been removed. For me, I did use that, as my bedroom TV it's plugged into isn't actually a smart one, but then I use the player mainly for DVD/Blu-ray use, or watching video files via external hard drives. It does cough up error messages for some AVI files though. Oh, and sometimes fails to recognise a disc at all and you need to keep reinserting and ejecting it! I've got used to the lack of display on the front now, but it was a pain to start with. So I knew where the video was going from the lack of display on the DVD player! Oh, and I don't think I've ever played a CD on it!

I've got the predecessor to that Sony.DVd player in service as a CD. Looks pretty much identical but with SCART instead of HDMI. It does the job but not my preference

If you fancied going down the rabbit hole of non-standard Hi-Fi components, I've always wanted to make a micro system from car stereos for the sake of it. A car CD player like the Sony CDX-4160 might score decently on your sheet as it has lots of buttons and RCA pre-outs.

I totally expected that at least the 4K Blu-ray player not doing anything without passing a lengthy setup process, including creating an store account, email verification and in some countries even an age/id verification.

I was not prepared for Techmoan looking forward to soldering. (DVD player multiregion mods)

Now that's funny. The ESPer CD player I've designed and yet considered a subpar player due to the slowness actually comes in on par with the TEAC timing wise. It loses a couple points on lacking program play as it's not something I use so I didn't even think of it. Perhaps time to try to turn it into a commercial product

Hey Mat, I know, this is not your goal in life, but you are really good at this. I really liked this video. Please more comparison videos. Maybe a video, to compare all the projection screens you own.

Interestingly, we still sell a fair few of the DVPSR760H DVD players, I have sold 2 this week from my very small AV shop. As you say, I am not sure how long it will hang on though. With the TCL deal still in the offing, I doubt any of these players will be around long, sadly.

Maybe cut / blur out the part starting at 9:01 where you open the dvd player box? AI programs can probably enhance and reveal your address on the label. Even my old eyes could make out Liverpool without pausing.

I think I have that 4K player, I will say it’s not bad but I definitely wish I knew about the freezing issue. It’s kind of developed it over the years and I was questioning the whole setup lol. The most annoying part is the hop skip and a jump every time you play a 4K bluest of figuring out if it HDR10 or DV because it’s not always printed on the box

I wonder if my 1985 TDK player still works (SLP 520), maybe I should try it (it definitely has a full display!)

Fortunately I still have some old gear that works together with my DCC recorders but if I'd be looking for a new optical drive, not only would I want to know whether it has gapless playback but also whether the digital outputs use 44.1 kHz stereo PCM by default for CD's (none of that Dolby Digital or DTS rubbish), whether it generates track markers (P+Q subband data), and whether it outputs CD-Text on the digital output(*). And I bet with people generally uninterested in making digital recordings anymore, those are already hard or impossible to find. (*) DCC recorders don't record CD-Text information but MD recorders might.

Heaping onto the pile of proof that Sony only keeps getting worse with time, I tested my 16 year old Sony BDP-BX37 Blu-Ray/DVD/SACD player to your scoring matrix and got 3 extra points over the DVD player you tested for a total of 12.5 due to the external display that shows the track number and track elapsed time as well as having an optical digital output. I was just as frustrated as you when I realized that it doesn't display CD text on playback despite the fact that it can read it. I have the SACD of DSOtM and it will display the album title and list the track titles from the main menu, but that information is not displayed during playback. Digging through the manual it seems that it will only display track information on playback if it has internet access to a service which no doubt doesn't exist anymore. At any rate this Blu-Ray player is spending the rest of its life air gapped from the Internet. I learned my lesson when Sony disabled some functionality on my PS3 15 years ago as part of an "update".

A couple of points that may come up when the video goes public: * On the Sony DVD player - does it play 8cm discs? Looks like you didn't actually try that. * For direct track access, some require two remote buttons to be pressed, e.g. "0" then "5" for track 5. Did you try that? But yeah, as we all knew, modern day Blu Ray players aren't an effective CD player substitute.

My Sony CDP-X222ES is rather embarrassed with its offspring

Ive never liked using a bluray or DVD player to play back CDs. They always should "thin" in comparison to a "real" CD player. Case in point. If i play back the same CD in my Oppo 203 bluray player compared to my Cyrus CDi CD player, its night and day difference. The Cyrus just sounds so good.

Is there anybody else who always watches the entire video and was a little disappointed that the electronic chirps and buzzes at the end of the outro music were cut off? Or is it just me? :)

Now I appreciate my Sony DVP-NS705V unit more than before. And by the way I can recommend that model or the DVP-NS905V as a CD/SACD component in case if any can be found somewhere. Mine was bought second hand six years ago, never tried SACD because don't have any, but plays mp3 discs, features gapless playback, has a display, optical output too, and that was enough for me.

Wouldnt mind a dvd player that plays sacds

I thought the idea worked well, isn't your fault modern media players have ditched screens! It proved the point nicely. Out of interest I use a NAD T550 DVD player as a CD player these days, it does have certain disadvantages (operation time is glacial and it won't play CD-Rs) but I think it would score quite highly on your system - has a screen, full suite of buttons and full featured remote, plays 8cm discs, supports gapless, has RCA and optical out - and it sounds excellent! I was gifted it for my 21st in 2001 so I like keeping it around for that reason too. Oh and also I like the sound of a video where you multi-region those players, it was actually your original video on doing that which introduced me to your channel - and also gave me the confidence to try soldering a Rattlebytes circuit board into a Sony blu-ray player! It worked :-D

My first CD player was a mid-1980s Hitachi. To put prices into perspective when I bought it used in 1989, the cheapest, most basic CD player was £100. Imagine paying the inflation adjusted price of £272 for a basic CD player today. Want a remote? That would push the price up to £350. At about ten years old the Hitachi started skipping so I swapped in a Philips CDi player I had bought. It wasn't connected to a TV as that was in a different place. It had similar disadvantages to the Sony DVD player you tested. What was a surprise was the big improvement in sound quality. I was hearing details in music like Hi-Hats I hadn't noticed before. I kept using the Philips CDi for several years until I moved in with a woman who had a Sony stack system complete with one of those five disc CD changers that let you choose the disc as well as the track.

The last Blu-ray player I bought was the Sony UHP-H1. It has a display, but then I noticed now that I bought it in 2016. :-)

While I agree I would really want a display on a CD player (even if as minimal as on your panasonic) I never ever use random or program on a player and could not care less. It's nice that responsiveness and start/stop times are not too bad! it's indeed sad no-one at SONY seems to care adding the little extra effort to make it an adequate CD player. CD sales seem to be up but it'll not be SONY numbers. Also: to some extent the HDMI out IS also digital audio out, there are many (surround) receivers that take HDMI in, and there are HDMI 'DACs'

By the way, I bought a new car and it doesn't have a 3.5mm aux jack like my old one. I used to keep a Discman in the car for those rare times I wanted to play a CD instead of use the radio or my phone. A portable CD player with Bluetooth is probably smart, then? I don't really feel like paying $100 for it, but the "Retradisc" looks pretty amazing, it's transparent (which I love) and has Bluetooth. AliExpress has knockoff versions for half the price.

Makes me sad that you think Sony won't offer the Blu-ray/4K players in 5 years - it's THEIR format, and movies on physical media are better than streaming. I'm probably the opposite of you, I don't collect CDs or really care about physical music much since I can rip FLAC files from the disc and play them back anywhere, but I DO collect movies on Blu-ray and UHD. I also never got why Sony keeps selling that "upscaling DVD player"... just sell the Blu-ray player, they play DVDs, there's literally no reason to buy a DVD-only-but-not-Bluray player unless you're that eager to save $20 and don't think you'll ever buy movies on a format that's been around for 20 years. I guess it makes them more profit since red lasers are cheaper than blue lasers or something? (Speaking about US prices - the DVD player was $40 at Walmart and the Blu-ray was $60. I got my sister the Blu-ray player for her DVDs, because there's literally no downside) Regarding physical buttons - I get why you want them, but also who stands in front of their hi-fi and changes tracks with the buttons? Having an included remote is a huge benefit and I hated my childhood boomboxes for NOT having a remote. I never understood the point of having buttons on the front of DVD players anyway, since you need arrow keys and an enter key to navigate the menus of a DVD, just mashing play a bunch of times won't do anything.

This video is giving me Liam Neson vibes. You have a specific set of requirements. You will find the proper device and you will use it.

Pretty sad to see how far Sony has fallen, they used to be my only choice for Hi-Fi. Not for many years.

A worthy video! I would have put money on the bluray and Ultrabluray having some kind of display hidden behind the front. Bit of a shock to see how poor quality the build appears.

Just Another Excellent Video, Mat.

I know that this will sound as corny as Kansas in August, but anytime I see the notification of a new Techmoan video on Patreon, I feel like a winner.

The downside to finally getting a full-time job is that I can't watch the video until well after you're fast asleep. I look forward to enjoying this video later. Take care 🤍

Interesting. I recently bought a Majority (budget brand sold on Amazon) DVD player because my Panasonic Blu Ray player keeps glitching and I don't own many Blu Ray discs anyway. It looks and feels every bit as nasty as its sub-£25 price label would suggest. HOWEVER, your video made me curious and after a few minutes with a CD, I can report that this would do better in your scoring system. It has an orange display that shows elapsed or remaining time but I couldn't find a way to make it show the track number. The numbered buttons do let me access tracks directly. Pressing the program button brings up a table on the TV screen, into which I can insert track numbers. It sounds surprisingly good via my Bose soundbar. Obviously that requires me to leave my TV on and the display is even duller than on the various Sony models. Other minuses: there's no digital audio output (it has analogue RCA) and I've just noticed that it's not gapless - this matters on classical CDs. The buttons on the player are as limited as on yours but you wouldn't want to use them because it's so light that it'll slide off the shelf.

I had one of those UHD players and I didn't like it at all. Felt a bit cheap despite the high price and the firmware was buggy and would often crash mid-playback. It was one of very few that had dual hdmi output which I needed at the time, although can't quite remember why now.

TV trailers are great... they warn me about all the programmes I definitely don't want to watch.

Ooh -- multi-region would be nice to see!

Dumb idea/question... Would an older Sony dvd remote with more function buttons work with that player? An older unit's remote might have the extra buttons to activate the functions via remote. It is a snowball's chance in hell, but it might work? hmmm.

This video finds me at a serendipitous time, as I have just picked up a vintage CD player and a vintage DVD player because of my desire for certain features that are no longer available or often missing on modern units (CD text for the CD player and optical digital audio out for the DVD player). I have two modern Sanyo units, a DVD player and a UHD Blu-ray player. and they are identical in form and equally joyless to use. They have no displays on the units, just red power LEDs, and offer the bare minimum in functionality. They have their place, just not in my hi-fi or vintage AV stack, which exist for enjoyment and not for perfunctory function. I look forward to the modding video mentioned at the end of the video, if it should come to pass. Cheers.

Don't think I've ever won anything, but I don't mind, that's undoubtedly my problem.

I still have my Xbox One S from 2016... doesn't do well on your scorecard, but it plays cd, dvd and bluray. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose. edit: Had to check since I haven't used it in ages. After a firmware update (took forever..spinning rust drive remember) and an update to windows media player on it (yes, windows media player..ugh).. it works, and I can play Dark Side properly. I guess this is why I've been using Plex and Plexamp for years.. the latter also plays Dark Side properly lol

I'm saving up to buy the teac myself, but I think (to be fair) Sony is also just rubbish now.

I guess you're making a fair point here. I've never been really into CDs, in my childhood, I used my computer (an extra reason to get CD-ROM drive on my Amiga 1200 😅), in my later student years a DVD player, but that one still had a reasonable display. I left the DVD player in the Netherlands (gave it to a roommate) when I moved to Switzerland and then I just ripped all my CDs to iTunes, and then soon I got also my first iPhone. HiFi has always been about vinyl records and tapes to me. I have a bluray player from LG, but that one was very cheap, I think I payed around CHF 50 new. The drive is a bit noisy, but it does the job. It has a display, but only very bare basic, just a couple of segment characters. Otherwise I still have the Samsung DVD-burner that I bought about 20 years ago for ripping CDs on a modern discless computer, and this micro hifi from Panasonic, that I only just connected a few weeks ago. Maybe I should try to play more CDs on that one.

It’s funny - I’m with you, Mat - I have 3 devices that can play CD’s in my Hifi; A Sony UBP-X800Mk2 UHD Blu Ray player A Sony CDP-CX350 300-Disc Jukebox A Technics SL-P550 CD Player Most of the time if the disc is in the jukebox, clearly, that will be my preference. If I just want to listen to a new CD, I’ll use the Technics. Has all the things you mention such as display etc. I have never used the Sony UHD BD to listen to a CD as it means I have to turn on the TV to act as a massive display, and the controls are crap - as you have quite rightly pointed out. One benefit, however, of the Sony UHD BD is that it does play almost every UK mainstream pre-recorded CD sized disc known to man. I have some DTS-CD’s - which it plays perfectly, same as SACD’s (in 2.0 and 5.1), DVD-Audio (likewise in 2.0 and 5.1) and now Atmos Blu Ray Audio discs (alongside CD’s, DVD’s, Blu Rays and UHD BD’s). (Won’t play HD-DVD or VCD but that’s par for the course and probably the limitation of the firmware and the drive they use). As you point out, though, it all needs the TV on which if I’m just listening to a CD is a bit of a limitation tbh.

This proves how moribund Sony have become rather than anything else - I haven't tested it, but apparently the PlayStation 5 won't play audio CDs, but will play DVDs and BD 4K Fortunately, there's a wealth of CD players out there from other manufacturers.

The thing that really surprised me a few years back is that the PS5, despite being able to play DVDs, Blu-Rays, and 4K Blu-Rays, can't play CDs at all. I suspect that's the main remaining disc player for a fair segment of the market, so it was surprising that Sony orphaned the music format it pioneered on what I'm guessing is it's most popular disc-playing device.

I think getting the latest firmware easily on a device is almost the only use of having WiFi on it.

I have an LG UHD Blu-ray player, the UBK90 from about 2018. It also doesn't have a display, although I never tried to play audio CDs in it. I will try it though just for fun, with the TV on.

What did you think of Cabin in the Sky? I really enjoyed it, in fact, there's been lots of great CD hip-hop releases over the past year. Geto Boys re-issued their classic album for the anniversary last month too!

I swear I saw a shuffle button on the DVD remote 🤔😅 edit: oh no it was subtitle 😁

Is CD-R playback a given these days? I recently bought a Sony DVP-S335 DVD/CD Player off eBay to be a CD player for £28 and I'm pretty sure it passes every test on your list, apart from the CD-R playback! (The manual explicitly calls out no CD-R playback is allowed)

I win very little, if that's any consolation?

Movies on a disc?