The cat’s out of the bag, allegedly, and Lexicon and THX have been well and truly caught with their fingers in the till. It has taken some time to uncover, thanks for the heads up by the way AV rant, as doubts where being raised (by savvy consumer electronics aficionados) on message boards and electronics blogs, about the Lexicon BD-30 as far back as August 09;
Peach – August 12th, 2009 at 9:29 am GMT+5
Save $3000 and get the Oppo BDP-83 that this is based on, unless you have to have the brushed-silver face plate. On second thought, it would look better with my Anthem gear!. Hmmm…..
7 Oppo BDP-83’s or one Lexicon? This could be a tough decision…not!
Adriandb – September 22nd, 2009 at 12:38 pm GMT+5
I was hearing how similar this unit was to the Oppo BDP-83, but this is ridiculous. On the face, the buttons are all in the same place and in the back every port is in exactly the same spot.
I’m sticking with the Oppo BDP-83 that I already have.
It now appears that the Lexicon BD-30 is in fact a Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player simply shoe horned into the brushed ally case of the Lexicon. Must be some good case, perhaps it’s platinum, as it turns out Lexicon have in fact been ripping customers off to the tune of $3000 for it.
Nice case but $3000 are you havin' one
You can pick the Oppo BDP-83 up for around $500 or even the Oppo BDP-83se, the special edition model based on the BD 30 but with highly enhanced and added features, for about $1200, yes a lot of money but still a long way off the hefty $3500 price tag attached to the Lexicon BD 30.
Here’s some of the ‘bumph’ put out by Lexicon at the launch;
Providing unparalleled video quality, the BD-30 incorporates Anchor Bay’s award-winning Video Reference Series (VRS) technology, and delivers a picture that is cleaner, smoother, true-to-life and free of artifacts. With exceptional picture and sound quality along with fast loading and response times, the BD-30 delivers an incredible sound stage and an immersive surround experience.
Only time will tell if it will all come back to bite them on the arse but it really should. And then there is the fact that THX felt the need to stick their “standard” on the model. If you look at their own description of how their quality certification is achieved I would say someone has been telling ‘porkies’
THX CERTIFIED PRODUCTS
THX works with consumer electronics manufacturers to design and build the finest home audio and video products. Through proprietary performance requirements and advanced technologies, THX enables home entertainment products to deliver stunning sound and visual performances.
THX certification begins during the initial product design phase. Every product detail is meticulously mapped to THX standards.
THX engineers spend countless hours testing and analyzing products in laboratory and home theater environments to ensure quality, usability and compatibility.
Black is the cheap Silver
AV rant led the way with a strip down, comparison and photo’s that showed the internals of the two models. This was then taken up by the guys at Audioholics.com who took it a step further by running in house testing with an Audio Precision analyzer. The two models returned comparable analogue audio performance, and to compound the plot further, both then missed out on a couple of basic THX specifications. Opps!
So the question has to be how much damage will this do to the two companies involved. The facts have to be outed but if they are indeed guilty of knowingly shafting customers then I for one hope they pay the price.
In the meantime let me know where you stand on it, are you happy two well respected high end companies could have colluded to deceive the great American consumer (and for that matter all consumers).
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\\ tags: bdp83, Bluray, oppo, oppo blueray player, Player
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