Marantz launches its flagship UD9004 Blu-ray player

Posted by David Walker on Thu 2 Jul 2009

Upscales your video, enhances your audio

Marantz is offering you something special with its flagship UD9004 Blu-ray player - but you just might need a chat with the bank manager before you invest in one.

Yes, £5,500 is required to get one of these beauties in your living room, the kind of money that buys you a decent secondhand car, the holiday of your dreams or 55 budget Blu-ray players from your local supermarket. So why should you spend all that cash on just one Blu-ray player? Read on.

Essentially, it's because this isn't just any old Blu-ray player. Indeed, it's not just a Blu-ray player, the UD9004 also spins audiophile-friendly SACD discs, using much of the technology found in the company's high-end SA-7S1 player. Sold yet?

Well, if not, let's also mention the on-board Silicon Optix Realta processor, offering professional broadcast quality video processing, including pixel-by-pixel conversion, 1080p upscaling by a full 10bit process for standard definition images, detail enhancement, digital noise reduction and high-end analogue video output. If you love your movies, this is the daddy. You can even separate audio and video via separate HDMI connections for even better output to your TV and speakers.

In terms of audio, the UD9004 offers the lot, including 32-bit floating point type Analog Devices DSP for high-def audio, four separate circuit boards to avoid 'cross talk' and a Pure Direct Mode that shuts down the video sections, throwing everything at improving the audio output.

Ok, we're preaching to the converted here and we're pretty sure you made your mind up whether the UD9004 was for you as soon as the price was mentioned. But if you want the best, you have to pay for it and if you spend most evenings in front of the box watching movies, that £5,500 might not be such an extreme price to pay. But for the rest of us, it might be better spent on that secondhand car.

Link: Marantz