I think we all must meet this news from pioneer with a little bit of logic and not get so excited about the BDP-09FD. This new announcement from Pioneer, will no doubt generate a lot of curiosity to get some information about this new Elite Player. Yet, there is reason to be rather cautious about this new Elite Player! The new Blu-Ray Player will be the companion piece to Pioneer’s very, very elaborate, top-of-the-line, FLAGSHIP Elite Receiver (at a hefty 70 pounds), model SC09TX. Perhaps the biggest of all anticipation about the new 09 Blu-Ray player is whether or not it will handle all the new surround sound codecs on both sides of the audio spectrum, being 7.1 analog and HDMI for internal processing. If this be the case, then Pioneer will win the battle of the most prestigious of all Blu-Ray players, dethroning the mighty Denon model 3800! The second most anticipated question will be price? The SC09TX Receiver has a list price of about $7,000 and while we can expect the BDP-09FD to be expensive, it will probably be out of the range of most consumers and audio/videophiles. And, if this isn’t enough information to fathom, expect Sony with their top-of-the-line ES series to be introducing their own ultimate Blu-Ray player, replacing the already obsolete model ES2000! One has to wonder just what will be all the hoopla behind the BDP-09FD. The sooner we know, the better for all of us to judge.
