Unofficial: Reavon Dropping Out

[Jodi]

UNOFFICIAL -- UNOFFICIAL

In a phone conversation I had earlier today with Let's Get Physical (a Florida distributor of Reavon and Magnetar 4K Blu-ray Disc players), it has been brought to my attention that all Blu-ray Disc players from Reavon are going to be discontinued.

Not only will Let's Get Physical continue with making Magnetars available here in the states, we had a nice conversation about the even greater quality of the Mags vs. Reavon players, as well as a comparison between the Mag 800 and Mag 900 players.

Right at this moment, I am prepping to have two Magnetar UDP-800s shipped to me (the 800 goes for $1699 USD) from a dealer in Cincinnati (not too far from where I live).

But I can definitely tell you all this: Consider this yet another blow to the physical media world.

[Vilya]

Until confirmed, I will consider it to be a rumor.

I don't have the energy to prematurely.

[metsfan1545d]

its been discontinued for almost a year

old news

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by metsfan1545d

its been discontinued for almost a year

old news

Well, that's a then. I can't be bothered to panic over news that old.

[danny24]

Yeah but there was never a thread for it so some people may not know. One of those rare 4K players that let you change the region code with the remote. The main problem with the Reavon players was how cheap the inside components were not enough to justify the asking price. I think that played a part in why the stopped making players. The remote though was one of the nicer ones I have seen on any 4K player.

The Magentar players are the way to go now, better build quality and inside components and very Oppo like. You can make it region free for $100. Hope they hang on and keep producing players in case Oppo stops servicing their own players at some point.

I would imagine if Oppo stopped servicing players Magnetar would sell a ton more than they already do. It's way more economical though to just buy a used parts Oppo unit and send it in for service vs buying a Magnetar player. Even working second hand 203's are way cheaper than a new UDP-800.

However I see why Magnetar charges what they charge because they have to make a profit. One of the reasons Oppo shut down was they said they were not making a profit. The 203 was originally $549 and 205 $1,299. a bargain compared to the Magnetar players price.

However they said they were not making a profit. Oppo should have charged way more than they did.

[Jay H.]

[Robert Zohn]

Originally Posted by metsfan1545d

its been discontinued for almost a year

old news

Originally Posted by Vilya

Well, that's a then. I can't be bothered to panic over news that old.

It's true that Reavon stoped manufacturing their BD players almost one year ago, but Reavon, and many dealers had stock up until last month.

So this is new information as Reavon has not made any official notice of their disc players being discontinued.

Magnetar's the a sister company to Reavon and they do have better audio and vide decoders and processors and dedicated power supplies for the audio and video circuits.

I'm also a fan of Panasonic's UB9000P1k and even the UB820 for the very resonable price and high quality performance and features.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

It's true that Reavon stoped manufacturing their BD players almost one year ago, but Reavon, and many dealers had stock up until last month.

So this is new information as Reavon has not made any official notice of their disc players being discontinued.

Magnetar's the a sister company to Reavon and they do have better audio and vide decoders and processors and dedicated power supplies for the audio and video circuits.

I'm also a fan of Panasonic's UB9000P1k and even the UB820 for the very resonable price and high quality performance and features.

I'd consider buying a Magnetar, but you can keep the Panny's.

[Jodi]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I'd consider buying a Magnetar, but you can keep the Panny's.

We should keep the Pannys in mind, even the 820.

I'm going in on the 2 Mag 800s tomorrow.

[Robert Zohn]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I'd consider buying a Magnetar, but you can keep the Panny's.

Panasonic's UB9000P1k is an excellent Blu-ray disc player/Smart Streaming device.

Other than the excellent design and premium build quality their exclusive HDR Optimizer is very important when your TV is an WRGB OLED or any projecotor as you can set the streaming and Blu-ray's EOTF PQ curve to match your digital video display's peak luminance capability so you see the full dynamic tonal range.

When set-up properly Panasonic's UB9000P1k will make your WRGB OLED TV and any projector image quality better than any other disc player, especially when watching 4K HDR content.

[MechaGodzilla]

I can only speak to my experience, but my Panasonic UB820 has been rock solid. I've owned it for over half a decade, played lord knows how many UHDs, BDs and DVDs on it, and it hasn't had a single hiccup.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

It's true that Reavon stoped manufacturing their BD players almost one year ago, but Reavon, and many dealers had stock up until last month.

So this is new information as Reavon has not made any official notice of their disc players being discontinued.

Magnetar's the a sister company to Reavon and they do have better audio and vide decoders and processors and dedicated power supplies for the audio and video circuits.

I'm also a fan of Panasonic's UB9000P1k and even the UB820 for the very resonable price and high quality performance and features.

Maybe Reavon might decide to start making players again in 2025+, or if the rumors are true maybe a official announcement of them existing the 4K Blu-ray player business in 2025.

While I would hate to see anyone stop making players, if Magnetar is a true sister company, hopefully the Magnetar’s will continue to make players. We do not want to lose Magnetar since it would be a major blow with only Sony making players that do both SACD and DVD-Audio discs.

I wonder what the story is with Tascam, are they still making rack mountable 4K Blu-ray players for businesses, Synagogues and churches? There is still stock so maybe so.

https://tascam.com/us/product/bd-mp4k

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...sb_1_rack.html

[HDTV1080P]

The Reavon UBR-X200 is the best 4K Blu-ray player they made out of the three with a list price of $1,699. However, the problem is that player does not have HDR10+ and only HDR10. The OPPO UDP-203 has HDR10+. I actually like the UBR-X200 but it became a deal breaker for me when the company did not offer HDR10+ with a firmware update. Magnetar and Panasonic both offer HDR10+ and auto Dolby Vision HDR, and going forward all new models of 4K Blu-ray players from any company in the ideal world should offer both HDR10+ and auto Dolby Vision HDR. If the BDA would have been smart they should have mandated all new standalone 4K Blu-ray models coming to market by a certain date are required to have both HDR10+ and auto Dolby Vision HDR. But the problem is there never was a mandate like that. But when Panasonic this year released a 4K Blu-ray player for under $200 that offers both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR, then companies like Sony will need to offer HDR10+ in the future.

https://www.reavon.com/copy-of-ubr-x110

https://www.soundandvision.com/conte...players-review

[Robert Zohn]

Thank you for posting about Tascam and their links!

Magnetar is very happy with their USA sales and I expect for them to be in the Universal Disc player business for many years.

[Jodi]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Maybe Reavon might decide to start making players again in 2025+, or if the rumors are true maybe a official announcement of them existing the 4K Blu-ray player business in 2025.

While I would hate to see anyone stop making players, if Magnetar is a true sister company, hopefully the Magnetar’s will continue to make players. We do not want to lose Magnetar since it would be a major blow with only Sony making players that do both SACD and DVD-Audio discs.

I wonder what the story is with Tascam, are they still making rack mountable 4K Blu-ray players for businesses, Synagogues and churches? There is still stock so maybe so.

https://tascam.com/us/product/bd-mp4k

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...sb_1_rack.html

The Tascam is also another option for a 4K UHD BD player, and some of us keep forgetting about it. Good catch!!

I'd also like to throw in another option if you would like a standard Blu-ray (no 4K) at only $399 in Tascam's BD-MP1 MKII. It is exactly identical to the 4K version - just without the 4K. It has 7.1 and 2.0 analog audio outs (RCA) and a pair of balanced XLR audio outs, too! It is on pre-order and available here:

https://tascam.com/us/product/bd-mp1mkii

[HDTV1080P]

So 2K Blu-ray for a $300 saving, but I wish the company would have made a new 4K Blu-ray player even if it costs $999.99. $699.99 for Tascam 4K Blu-ray player and $399.99 for Tascam 2K Blu-ray player. In general, all the new standalone Blu-ray players in the last four years have been 4K models (I am surprised to see this 2K model coming to market). I personally am not interested in the Tascam and Panasonic players since both those companies do not have SACD and DVD-Audio support (that is why people like Sony, Reavon, and Magnetar since they support SACD and DVD-Audio discs for people that need it).

The Tascam rack mount feature is good for some consumers, businesses, Synagogues, and churches, however people that do not need rack mount feature in general buy another brand. Correctly me if I am wrong but I believe Tascam makes the only rack mountable 4K Blu-ray players and 2K Blu-ray players. Also when rack mounting most businesses have to use a long HDMI fiber cable solution or some type of CAT8, CAT7A, or CAT6A HDMI extender. Since HDMI and HDMI to DVI are the only secure way that the BDA allows players to be connected. Analog video outputs on Blu-ray players disappeared 10+ years ago because of a BDA mandate.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Panasonic's UB9000P1k is an excellent Blu-ray disc player/Smart Streaming device.

Other than the excellent design and premium build quality their exclusive HDR Optimizer is very important when your TV is an WRGB OLED or any projecotor as you can set the streaming and Blu-ray's EOTF PQ curve to match your digital video display's peak luminance capability so you see the full dynamic tonal range.

When set-up properly Panasonic's UB9000P1k will make your WRGB OLED TV and any projector image quality better than any other disc player, especially when watching 4K HDR content.

I have a mini LED Sony Bravia 9 as you may recall; I bought it from you. As such, I do not think that I need the HDR optimizer function.

I have read so many posts here complaining about the hit or miss nature with the Panny's. It seems like a real crap shoot whether or not you get one that is reliable. It seems like their optical drives easily become misaligned and thus have trouble with 100 GB 4K discs. The Panny threads have a lot of complaints among the 15,340+ comments there. Threads with lots of comments are often due to products that have lots of problems.

It is also widely reported that the Panny's do a poor job with DVDs...and I have a lot of them that I still watch. I know that there are lots of devices that can play DVDs better, but, again, I feel that 4K players, especially $1000+ ones, should be able to play all supported disc formats and play them well. I do not want to have to have separate dedicated players for different disc formats.

The Panny's do not support a wide selection of video file formats and that is a feature that I like and that I occasionally use. One of our best known forum members likened the Panny's video file support to less than that of a potato.

The Panny's force SDR to HDR conversion when watching SDR extra features found on a Dolby Vision 4K disc. This should not happen.

Lastly, Panasonic's customer service has a bad reputation if the comments that I have read are accurate.

I am willing to pay four figures for a 4K disc player, but it better at least be able to do (most) everything that my $550 Oppo 203 can do and do it as well or better.

So, keep your Pannys; I will keep the Magnetars in mind.

[danny24]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Thank you for posting about Tascam and their links!

Magnetar is very happy with their USA sales and I expect for them to be in the Universal Disc player business for many years.

Good to hear that Magentar players are selling well in the USA market. If my Oppo ever bites the dust and Oppo stops servicing them I will have to get a Magnetar player.

With Reavon I also think the product name kind of stunk. It was the inside components though that casused them to fail. The X100 had a very cheap PSU unit and mainboard was very tiny. Optical drive pretty much cheap as well like some cheap Chinese 4K player. At least they got the name right with Magnetar and the product logo is very nice. The players are also very well built inside and out. Even if their price is a little high they have to have it at that to justify making more product so they can make a profit. Something Oppo should have done.

[kristoffer]

The Magnetar even look to have serious on-going Firmware support.

[Jodi]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

So 2K Blu-ray for a $300 saving, but I wish the company would have made a new 4K Blu-ray player even if it costs $999.99. $699.99 for Tascam 4K Blu-ray player and $399.99 for Tascam 2K Blu-ray player. In general, all the new standalone Blu-ray players in the last four years have been 4K models (I am surprised to see this 2K model coming to market). I personally am not interested in the Tascam and Panasonic players since both those companies do not have SACD and DVD-Audio support (that is why people like Sony, Reavon, and Magnetar since they support SACD and DVD-Audio discs for people that need it).

The Tascam rack mount feature is good for some consumers, businesses, Synagogues, and churches, however people that do not need rack mount feature in general buy another brand. Correctly me if I am wrong but I believe Tascam makes the only rack mountable 4K Blu-ray players and 2K Blu-ray players. Also when rack mounting most businesses have to use a long HDMI fiber cable solution or some type of CAT8, CAT7A, or CAT6A HDMI extender. Since HDMI and HDMI to DVI are the only secure way that the BDA allows players to be connected. Analog video outputs on Blu-ray players disappeared 10+ years ago because of a BDA mandate.

Regarding SACD and DVD-A, Yeah, I feel ya! Good universal players like Sony, Reavon and Magnetar truly support those audio disc formats - and that's part of the beauty of them! Now as we enter 2025, the Sonys and Mags will be the only go-to's for true audiophile phys. media. I do own a Marantz SA-10 for my SACDs - love it! - and will be getting ready to connect it into a brand new stereo integrated amp in Feb 2025 via balanced XLRs.