Premium deck is a universal soldier

The Magnetar brand may be largely unknown, but its first high-end disc spinner is hard to resist, says Steve May

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As I listened to Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith play funky jazz, on a dusted down Super Audio CD, it struck me that perhaps the most compelling reason to invest in the Magnetar UDP800, a deliciously well-specified 4K Blu-ray player, is not for its video performance, which is unquestionably mighty, but its sublime audio.

This audiophile-grade BD player is triggering my dopaminergic neurons, and I'm loving it. Magnetar is a brand with no track record that I'm aware of, but this old-school deck could well restore faith in physical media for even the most lapsed of cinephiles.

So who the heck are Magnetar? Well, the company is based out of China, with European distribution handled by Archisoft, the originator of the Reavon and Zappiti brands, and there may be some overlap between them. Indeed, this machine's nearest competitor appears to be the Reavon UBR-X200 HCC 324) with which it shares many, many similarities, although it's not a clone of that model. Currently, the UDP800 has no UK retailer, but you can buy it direct from France, priced at 1,599, with free shipping.

Silver (disc) service

Availability may be limited, but disc compatibility is wide. In addition to Ultra HD BD and Blu-ray discs, the UDP800 plays DVD, CD, Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio. DVD playback is unlocked out of the box, playing both Region 1 and Region 2 discs without issue my US DVD of Raiders of the Lost Ark spun as hoped, and looked surprisingly good upscaled to 4K. The deck will also play music and movie files from connected external HDD drives; capacities up to 16TB are supported.