| Re: What is the best Blu-ray player available now?
I've been doing a few blind tests between the sound from the PS3 and my older Denon DVD-5000. The DVD-5000 (at A$4999) was Denon's flagship DVD player a while ago, and has held up well against everything that's come out since.
To see if it's time to retire the Denon, I've compared the same DVDs across both, with two other people as blind testers (note that the PS3 is optical connection, while the DVD-5000 is coaxial).
All agreed the sound from the PS3 is immediate and accurate, but also quite sharp at times. The Denon in comparison feels quite lazy, but also much much warmer -- you can turn up the volume considerably higher with the Denon before you feel that "nails on a chalkboard" sound.
Steering to each channel is razor sharp from the PS3 -- things that drift around on the Denon are strongly localised on the PS3. We were watching a scene from "Apocalypto" with animals in the rear channels, and the PS3 made it sound as if there were individual bugs on the back wall -- whereas the Denon tended to mash the soundstage together.
For error correction (scratched discs etc) the Denon 5000 has always been a dog, so the PS3 is an improvement. Even so, if the PS3 does hit a scratch it will do something annoying: there'll be a pause, then it will actually jump ahead itself, sometimes to the next chapter, and you'll miss out on a chunk of the movie. You then need to rewind to see what you skipped.
For speed, the PS3 feels slightly quicker, but that's probably because the DVD-5000 uses relay switches (the "clicking" sound you get with each action). The PS3 remote (bought separately) is excellent, and actually matches our Sony PVR remote. I've no idea what all the buttons do though, so they seem a bit wasted.
In summary, I initially thought I liked the sound from the PS3 because it was so darned accurate. However, my ears have always preferred warm sounding equipment, so I'll now sacrifice that accuracy for a much more enjoyable listening experience. The PS3 is like the class nerd: is incredibly good at doing the technical stuff, but doesn't mix well in a social situation. I'll be keeping my DVD-5000 a bit longer.
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