Magnetar UDP800

Verdict

This superb 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player offers universal disc playback, sleek styling and solid build quality. There’s no wireless connectivity or 7.1-channel analogue outputs, but otherwise this flawless operator delivers peerless upscaling, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support, and an excellent audio performance. The UDP800 isn’t cheap, but it’s all the player you’ll ever need.

Introduction

The Magnetar UDP800 is a new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player from a China-based manufacturer that clearly wants to make an impression on fans of physical media.

In addition to this player, the brand offers the UDP900, but unless you need multichannel analogue outputs and the kind of build quality normally reserved for a nuclear reactor, its less expensive sibling is probably the more sensible option.

The UDP800 is equally solid in terms of its construction, with an elegant design, dual HDMI outputs, and a backlit remote control. It’s a universal disc spinner that includes HDR10+ and Dolby Vision playback, good media file support, superb 4K upscaling, plus it has two-channel analogue outputs. There’s no wireless connectivity, but otherwise the UDP800 is hard to fault.

Availability

The Magnetar UDP800 is available from reputable audio and video retailers in the US, UK, Europe and Australia, and costs £1499 / $1599 / €1599 / AU$2599 depending on where you live. For a small additional fee, you can also buy a version that’s multi-region and multi-zone, which is handy if you buy a lot of discs from abroad. It’s not cheap, but when you consider all that you get it starts to make sense, especially compared to the competition.

As far as competition is concerned, there’s the excellent Panasonic UB9000 which includes HDR10+ and has analogue outputs, but doesn’t support DVD-Audio and SACD. This player costs £999 / $1099 / €1045 / AU$1670. There’s also the more affordable Reavon UBR-X110, which is a universal disc player with extensive multimedia file support. It doesn’t include HDR10+ and analogue outputs, but is cheaper and retails for £899 / $999 / €999 / AU$1795.

Design

• Elegant and solid construction
• Twin HDMI outputs
• Backlit remote control

The Magnetar UDP800 looks elegant and feels very solid, with a thick aluminium front plate and two-tone black brushed metal finish. The 1.6mm chassis base is reinforced by a 3mm steel plate to reduce mechanical vibrations, while large feet provide further support and isolation.

At the front there’s a centrally mounted disc tray, with an informative display above it. There’s also a power button on the left, and some basic controls on the right, along with a USB 2.0 port. The UDP800 measures 430 x 90 x 300mm (WxHxD), and weighs in at 8kg.

At the rear there are twin HDMI outputs, with picture and sound from one, and audio only from the other for those who need to connect to a sound system that can’t pass features like 4K and HDR.

In terms of other connections there are coaxial and optical digital audio outputs, an Ethernet port, a USB 3.0 port, and an RS232 connector for serial control. There’s also stereo analogue outputs with gold-plated balanced XLR and RCA connectors. However, there is no wireless connectivity available.

The provided remote is large and includes a backlight, but the available buttons border on the ridiculous. The entire zapper is a mass of tiny and nearly identical buttons, so even with the backlight it’s nearly impossible to use in a darkened home cinema. It’s a rare misstep for this player.

Features

• CD/DVD/DVD-Audio/SACD/Blu-ray (Full HD/3D/UHD) playback
• HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision playback
• Excellent image processing and upscaling

The Magnetar UDP800 is a universal disc player, which means it supports CD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, and UHD Blu-ray. This basically means that no matter what type of disc you put in this player it can handle it, making it an ideal choice for any physical media fans out there.

The UDP800 also supports every version of HDR on disc: HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. The latter two mean you can enjoy the benefits of dynamic metadata, and this model and the UDP900 are currently the only universal disc players that support the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision formats.

The UDP800 uses the quad-core system Media Tek MT8581 chipset, and as a result this player includes excellent 4K upscaling that can get the most of out lower resolution disc formats. There are also a number of picture processing features, although these are best avoided for accuracy.

The UDP800 offers two-channel analogue outputs where each channel utilises independent Burr-Brown PCM 1795 digital-to-analogue converters. These are used for the two-channel digital-to-analogue decoding, with one of each handling the left and right channels respectively.

Magnetar selected a custom 60W high-power low noise transformer for the UDP800, with a two-stage filter design along with Japanese Rubycon electrolytic capacitors to meet the high transient response required by surround sound systems and high-resolution audio. 

The UDP800 can decode DSD64/128, multichannel DSD64, and 192kHz/24-bit PCM formats, and also supports a wide range of media formats including MKV, AVI, MP4, WAV, FLAC, and APE. Users can easily play and manage media files via a USB hard drive or LAN storage devices.

Setup and Operation

• Simple to setup and operate
• Quiet disc tray and playback
• Fast boot-up and load times
• Media and output information

The Magnetar UDP800 benefits from its heavy chassis and solid build quality, resulting in a disc tray that slides smoothly in and out. It’s also quiet in operation, and you can barely hear the disc spinning during playback. This is definitely one of the benefits of buying a more expensive player like this.

The boot-up and loading times are also fast, which means you’ll be at the disc’s menu page in seconds, and the player is equally responsive when navigating around a disc or its menu features. The UDP800 correctly identified CD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray discs, and played back everything I tested without issues.

As is always the case with the Mediatek chipset, the home page offers options for discs, video files, music files, photos and setup. The latter is where you’ll find sub-menus for Display, Audio, HDMI, Network, Language, Playback, and Options. The player is very easy to set-up, with the default settings generally being the best option.

The settings menus can be accessed directly by pressing the Setup button on the remote, and if you press this button while a disc is playing you can also bring up the Video Parameters picture controls. These include brightness, contrast, colour, hue, sharpness, and noise reduction, but are best left alone because these settings should only be adjusted on the display.

The final main feature is the Info button, which provides playback information when pressed once, although holding it down also shows you what metadata the player is reading off the disc, and what it is outputting to the display.

If you decide to choose for the multi-region/multi-zone version the player, it comes with a sheet explaining how to change regions/zones. It’s relatively straightforward but be aware that if you have a lot of discs from different regions or zones there are a number of button presses required to switch between them.

Video Performance

• Impressive 4K upscaling
• Excellent Blu-ray, 3D and 4K playback
• HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision decoding

The Magnetar UDP800 is genuinely impressive when it comes to 4K upscaling, so if you have a lot of standard definition DVDs this player will bring out all the available detail in the lower resolution format. The conversion of DVD’s interlaced signal into a progressive one is also flawless, resulting in surprisingly watchable images.

The higher resolution of Blu-ray means that when upscaled to 4K by the player’s Mediatek chipset it can look amazing, and were it not for the lack of HDR you’d swear you were looking at a native UHD disc. So if you have a large collection of Blu-rays you might find yourself rewatching them all thanks to the UDP800’s superb upscaling.

If you still have a collection of 3D Blu-ray discs and a TV or projector that’s able to display them, the UDP800 is capable of equally impressive playback in three dimensions. The player will expertly send the left and right 1080p images to the display, although how good it looks will depend on the inherent capabilities of your 3D TV or projector.

When it comes to native 4K discs with HDR the results are naturally even better with fantastically detailed images. While picture quality will largely depend on your display’s inherent capabilities, the UDP800 plays its part by perfectly rendering what’s on the disc in terms of resolution, frame rate, dynamic range and wide colour gamut.

The player can handle HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision without any issues. The player will basically output the HDR based upon the static metadata, and in the case of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision the dynamic metadata, on the disc itself, but it’s up to your display to tone map the content correctly and display the HDR images accordingly.

It’s worth pointing out that while the UDP800 has controls for adjusting the image quality, these settings should be left unused. A player’s job is to send exactly what’s on a disc to the display without manipulating the image in any way, and leave the TV or projector to correctly render or tone map the signal to the best of its ability.

Despite what you may read elsewhere, DVD, Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray are all digital formats where the information is encoded as ones and zeroes. Since these can’t be ‘subtly improved’, any attempt to manipulate the image in the player will simply result in a picture that deviates from the original creative intent.

Audio Quality

• CD, DVD-Audio and SACD disc playback
• High-resolution audio support
• Audiophile grade DACs
• Two-channel analogue outputs
• 7.1-channel decoding

The Magnetar UDP800 is an excellent sonic performer, although to what extent this sound quality will impress you largely depends on whether your emphasis is on digital- or analogue-based audio. If you only plan on using the digital outputs of the UDP800, the overall sound quality will largely depend on the digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) in your sound system – be that a soundbar, AV processor, or AV receiver – rather than the digital signal itself.

However, assuming you have a decent sound system, the audio quality of the UDP800 with a digital signal is excellent in terms of its delivery. It handled the digital audio from the CD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD and Blu-ray Discs I tested without any issues, supporting all these formats up to and including lossless high-resolution audio where available. So regardless of which digital disc (and file) format you prefer, this Magnetar player can handle it.

You should use the main HDMI output for audio as well as video, although if your sound system can’t pass video features like 4K and HDR, there is also a second audio-only HDMI output just for the sound. Some people like to use this second output regardless of their sound system’s video passthrough capabilities because they feel the audio benefits from being separate from the video signal, although given its a digital signal that’s definitely debatable.

HDMI outputs also allow you to bitstream lossless audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, and while the UDP800 can also decode these multichannel audio formats internally and output them as 7.1-channel PCM, if you want to enjoy immersive object-based audio formats like Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro-3D and IMAX Enhanced, you’ll need to bitstream them to your suitably capable soundbar, AV processor or AV receiver.

The UDP800 also includes audiophile analogue components, with high quality DACs and power source to deliver high quality two-channel stereo. You can choose between balanced XLR connectors or basic RCA phono outputs, with the former offering the best option if your amplifier supports XLR, and the results are fantastic. Whichever connection you use, this player makes for an excellent disc player for music fans as well as cinephiles.

The analogue performance is exceptional, with a clean and detailed delivery that retains precise stereo imaging, localisation of instruments and plenty of fine clarity. Audiophiles who partner the UDP800 with a good quality amplifier will be delighted with the results. If you want 7.1 analogue outputs you’ll need to look at the more expensive UDP900, but otherwise the awesome UDP800 is as capable a performer with audio as it is with video.

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