Then two come along at once! Not only has the long awaited Panasonic DP-UB9000 arrived, but we also have the eagerly anticipated Pioneer UDP-LX500 too, and, the flagship UDP-LX800 is due in store any day now!

Both Panasonic and Pioneer disc players are beautifully built with elegant alloy front panels and a luxury feel befitting their price points.

Panasonic’s DP-UB9000 is the slimmer of the two but still weighs in at a reassuring 7.8kg. Equal attention has been paid to video and audio performance with exceptionally detailed images and fluid motion on all material. Upscaling of 1080P discs is handled impressively too.

Balanced outputs and separate analogue power supplies ensure that audio performance is up to the highest standards too. A mightily impressive machine easily justifying the asking price of £849.00.

And in the red corner… we have the Pioneer UDP-LX500. It’s more of a heavyweight, hitting the scales at 10.3kg and substantially chunkier than the Panasonic, albeit with an equally pretty face!

The capacious casework allows for a double layered chassis incorporating a 3mm steel plate which provides an inert and stable platform for the disc drive, thus minimising errors. Power supply, drive, digital processing and analogue audio sections are partitioned to further eliminate mechanical and electrical interference. Every effort has been made to maximise both audio and video performance from all types of media. It’s a tremendous universal disc player for £999.00!

So ladies and gentlemen, all is not lost now that Oppo are no longer in the ring. We present two strong contenders from Panasonic and Pioneer. You are welcome to come and judge the winner for yourselves, or maybe you would like to wait for Pioneer’s top of the range UDP-LX800?

Watch this space. It will soon be here!

Alan, John and Wayne - Audio T Southampton

Pioneer Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Preston, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon