BD/SACD player: Cambridge Audio AZUR 650BD - Page 7

I don't think we need a crystal ball to figure out how that comparison turns out.

Well, you might presume so but it ain't certain until you do the comparison.

Check this out. The Cambridge Audio is not an Oppo BDP 83, but an Oppo BDP 80! The weight, dimensions, and back panel bear this out. And the Cambridge uses Mediatek, and not Anchor Bay, just like the BDP80.
The back panel of the Cambridge is exactly the same as the cheaper Oppo. I guess they figure people will gladly pay an extra $310 for the Cambridge Audio name. Not me.
Sorry, I just realized I am a little late to the party. I am not the first one to realize this.

Things are a bit quite around here....

Are owners of this unit just happy and too busy watching movies?
Have any owners experienced difficulties playing any discs?
Have there been any firmware updates yet?

Also are there any owners who have had the chance to play "Saving Private Ryan" and seen if they suffer from the lip-sync issue? (some players do, others don't)

I have been able to use mine with several titles now. I love it. I haven't noticed any lip sync issues as of yet, but don't have the SPR blue ray.

I was previously at a resolution of 720p so the increase in resolution wasn't a huge change, but is definitely improved. The sound benefit is what I noticed most going from DVD to BR. The surrounds are used more effectively. The sound is more open with a bigger soundfield even on my same AVR/Speaker setup. Using an Integra 5.8 AVR and Paradigm speakers around for a 7.1 setup. The voice tracks seem to be a lot clearer too.

I have not noticed any significant artifacts on either DVD or BR discs thusfar. I have tried the following BR discs... The Matrix, Fight Club, Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, The Fifth Element, The Princess and the Frog and Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs. I have tried several DVDs also, but I must say the aural experience sounds a bit compressed in comparison. Especially on DVDs such as Iron Man and Black Night and the Transformer movies. Might need to upgrade to BR for my favorites.

Thanks for that wHaCkY.

What you are experiencing there is the benefit of lossess audio!

As for the lip-sync problem, it's a recognised issue with early release SPR Blu and some players suffer from it while others don't, not too much of an issue as they're replacing the discs anyway.

What Paradigms do you have?
I've got Sigs in my Media room and Monitors in the lounge setup.....

Yeah I don't have a lot of interest in buying older movies put out on BR just due to the limitations on the audio side. A few classics of course, but I won't be replacing my entire DVD collection.

I have a room downstairs which I call my high end TV room. I use Monitor 9's for right and left. A Monitor cc-390 for a center. Side surrounds and rear surrounds are AMS series in ceiling speakers. Room layout prohibited the use of Monitor on-wall surrounds. Due to ceiling height issues, no projector, but my 61" Samsung LED rear projection fits the bill nicely.

I let the AZUR send the bitstream to my AVR which does the sound processing, but the video is done by the AZUR which I have been very happy with so far.

Don't hold back for this reason, I've replaced a lot of my old DVD titles with Blu re-releases and the improvment on both the audio and video side has been outstanding!

The results will vary a lot from title to title but a good place to see how good the new release is http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reviews_alpha.html

I'm glad to hear you're happy with the CA so far, I'm looking at getting one of these to replace my aging Panasonic BD30. It would just be nice if there were some more independant reviews out there....

Here are some relevant reviews.

Haven't got my issue of Stereophile yet, but anyone who has- what's the good word on Kal Rubinson's review? Re-badged BDP-80, or something better? Andrew Everard reviewed it for Gramophone, and really seemed to like it.

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/produc...&Title=Reviews

I love it!

I've been very happy with the CA BR player! I will definitely be replacing a few of my favorites over time. Still need LOTR and Star Wars in BR!

I recently picked up Avatar, Twilight: New Moon, Young Victoria (for my wife) and Daybreakers, but have only watched Daybreakers so far. Interesting movie. Watched Legion a few weeks ago which was a great looking and sounding movie, but was not the best movie overall. Kind of like 2012, simple plot, but fun to watch.

One issue I have run into with the Azur BD is a workaround to get it to turn on with the rest of my system using my RTI remote. Before my Integra DVD player would power up when I pressed my "DVD" icon, but the Azur will not. My installer worked for a whole afternoon (at my expense) to find a fix, but couldn't. He said there are only two ways to remedy it. Put a separate power on/off button on my remote, which I did and it works fine that way or to link the power up sequence to the open/close tray button from the player. Unfortunately, that would open the tray which is usually not an issue, but I have my equipment in a wall rack with a plexiglass door covering it so I fear causing damage to the tray mechanism. My installer mentioned that most players have the remote sequence using the on/off button to power up the player (duh), but that the Azur BD did not allow that to be used during power up by a third party remote.

Not sure if anyone has had any issues with this too or have had any workarounds that have helped. It's not a big deal but is kind of annoying when everything worked smoothly before and now it is not so smooth.

For those who are Stereophile subscribers, it may have been in your mailbox yesterday.

Kal, it didn't sound like you found subjective differences to be great enough that it warranted much more than a sentence or two, mostly about the Azur not having the detail or smoothness of the Oppo SE. I guess I didn't read much that made me want the Azur over the Oppo 83/83SE, even if it does have some nice visual attributes and is reasonably priced.

I've been thinking about a 2-channel universal player upgrade and, outside of my ability to audition the alternatives side by side, the 83SE still sounds like the way to go.

Regards,
Keith

Well, it does come down to your particular application.

So Kal- were the Rice Crispies ever fixed on this player, or is it still a problem?

Dunno. I sent the player back after the review.

Can somebody test the following WMVHD movie file whether it is playable on the Azur 650 BD:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-...dTest.wmv.html
Thanks for testing!

Not playing, not visible, very limited support for different formats.
Limited support for usb-sticks, picky on formatting for FAT, I use the cd/dvd.
But everything else is great

Thanks for testing :-)
Did you test the movie file from USB or CD/DVD? There might be a difference.

I borrowed a 650BD for the weekend and gave it a thorough test-drive and compare to my Panasonic DMR-BW500 BD Recorder/PVR; both units connected to my LX90 receiver and KRP-600M - same HDMI cables, same conditions. My conclusions;

a) Picture quality - almost the same as my Panny; very slightly sharper and a touch richer colour but not much in it. As an odd anomaly, Avatar looked better on the Panny

b) Excellent sound from the 650DB; more involving, detailed and open; as you'd expect from CA.

c) Quicker loading: Alice in Wonderland on Panny: 2'38 - 650BD: 1'36

d) SACD - fantastic - none on my Panny to compare to.

e) 2ch CD audio over analogue - no comparison to my CA-CD740C but hardly surprising. The 740C runs twin upsampling Wolfson WM8740 DACs

So, I think I'll stick with what I have for now and perhaps audition some other players later in the year when some new stuff comes out or if I get chance to borrow an Oppo 83, see if thats any better.

Huh?!

I just read in a British magazine (Hi-Fi Choice or something) about a shootout of this player with other players around the same price range. This player was the cheapest. The shootout included the oppo 83 SE Nuforce edition. The test used blind testers. This Player won the shootout. They said it had the best sound of all the players including the Oppo. I am surprised there hasn't been more chatter about this.

Yea it is a shame Oppo discontinued the BDP-80. I love mine and am still hoping I can pick up a 650BD in silver for a cheaper price. $700 is just too much when I use a Denon DBP-4010UDCI for my analog and use an Oppo BDP-80 as my digital transport. I would probably be replacing the BDP-80 so the audio upgrades on the 650BD are not really of consequence to me. I doubt the 650BD could beat out my Denon 4010 for purely analog audio. I also find it a bit difficult to believe it beat the 83 SE. I would need more details on this test including other equipment used how it was connected and set up.

OK,
I've had this player for just about 2 years now. It has worked flawlessly the entire time. I was watching Smallville season 10 EP1 and it was still flawless.
Yesterday I tried to watch EP2 and nothing. It loads the movie like it's going to play and then just goes blank. I took Smallville out and put Star Wars EP2 in in Blu ray and it did the same thing. Then I put a DVD movie in and it played it fine.
Looks like I have to get this repaired now , kinda sucks. I'm also now thinking of getting the Oppo

Sorry to hear that.

Question: does the 650BD support 1080p24 upconversion of DVD or is the Oppo BDP-83 the only Blu-ray player that does it?

Update,
I talked to Tech Support and found that the new Firmware version crashed Blu ray performance. I was instructed to Load the firmware that comes with the player and it will fix the holes in the new firmware patch.
They have to send me a disc as you can't download it from their site. I'll post results after the firmware is reinstalled.