By SN
Saturday January 16, 2010
Slashdot – Jan. 16, 2010:
“Lexicon and THX apparently attempted to pull a fast one on the consumer electronics industry, but got caught this week when a couple websites exposed the fact that the high-end electronics company put a nearly-unmodified $500 Oppo Blu-ray player into a new Lexicon chassis and was selling it for $3500. AV Rant broke the story first on its home theater podcast with some pics of the two players’ internals. Audioholics.com then posted a full suite of pics and tested the players with an Audio Precision analyzer. Both showed identical analogue audio performance and both failed a couple of basic THX specifications. Audioholics also posted commentary from THX on the matter and noted that both companies appear to be in a mad scramble to hide the fact that the player was ever deemed THX certified.”
It’s shocking enough that people are willing to spend $500 for a Blu-ray player, but $3500?! My $250 PS3 is more than good enough for me.
THX has always been a sham!
Hence the “Con” in Lexicon.
I don’t see the problem. I think Acer make computer motherboards for Dell, Apple, HP and probably a few others. Why can’t Lexicon use OEM circuit boards from another company?
Because it is 7 times as much for a differently appearing product. Who would buy a Ferrari with a 1.6L Toyota engine in it for the same price?
The Oppo was great when you were able to hack it to skip the FBI nag screen and override disabled controls and such. The Oppo BD player supposedly has closed those hacks and makes it far less attractive a choice.
#4 If they did a total rebuild completely reworking all the parts?
The point is this was like a Jerry Glowers story where the rich man wanted to buy a high priced horse blanket in a little country store that only had cheap blankets so the store keeper kept picking up different blankets and jacking up the price till the customer was happy.
Part of the problem may be that beyond a certain point you may not actually be able to buy a better product. You can only pay more for it.
In this instance I’d say sellers were con men.
The player would have performed correctly had Audioholics used the required Wattgate 381 Audio Grade Duplex Socket -found here -> http://tinyurl.com/yjb7ytk
add both products together and anyone would then be happy spending $7000 dollars for the delight it would bring!
Heck even my toaster passes all THX specifications using a Wattgate 381 Audio Grade Duplex Socket.
Would have been fun to have a panel of “experts” review the two units and compare their performance. I’m sure the imagined benefits of the Lexicon would have been highly entertaining.
Funny stuff.
I put a Blu-Ray drive in my HTPC for ~$90 a couple months ago. Works great. I rip full-quality Blu-Ray/DVD movies straight to the hard drive with MakeMKV. No commercials or FBI warnings for me.
The only downside is the massive amount of hard drive space I’m filling up. 🙂
The Oppo is a universal player that plays Blu-ray, DVD-Audio, SACD and DVD with an upscaling chip by Anchor Bay. Prices for Anchor Bay’s stand-alone upscalers start at $300 so the Oppo’s not a bad deal.
It’s shocking enough that people are willing to spend $500 for a Blu-ray player, but $3500?! My $250 PS3 is more than good enough for me.
I find as I get older, I really just want a bigger screen and louder speakers. My eyes can’t tell the difference between HD and normal and my ears can’t pick out half the frequencies anymore.
LOL… this is almost as good as the guys on the street here in NYC that sell shrink wrapped electronics like cordless phones and camcorders to tourists..
-only they remove the item from the box, replace it with “rocks” and re-shrink wrap it.
-s
I remember buying an off brand CD player way back in the 80’s and when I opened it up all the parts said Yamaha
I don’t see the problem. I think Acer make computer motherboards for Dell, Apple, HP and probably a few others. Why can’t Lexicon use OEM circuit boards from another company?
They didn’t just take a circuit board from oppo. They took the entire player including the chassis and just put it in an aluminum case and changed the name on the bootup screen. everything else is exactly the same except the price.
From the article:
“And what’s more, it’s not just using the same parts – they actually stuck the player inside – chassis and all.”
Reminds me of when I was a kid, and a well known company was caught selling “voltage regulators” for the house that were literally nothing but a brick in a case with a wire going through it.
Hey, if it makes you happy to spend an extra $300 on a 42 inch screen that is 1080P instead of 720P so you can watch TV, that’s OK with me… but you are still a damn fool. Same thing for high end Blu-Ray players, audiofile speakers to play your MP3’s, “Monster Cables” for your digital connections, etc. Its your money, but just keep in mind the old saying:
A FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE EASILY PARTED
I say Bravo for Lexicon!!!
Lexicon is just exploiting a human fact, American’s believe, they all-ways get what they paid for.
Every watch the news and note how many times they say “you get what you paid for” or “if it’s too good to be true, it is”
A little bit of American style cognitive dissidence and walla, you really do have $3500 worth of high-end electronics.
THX comes out looking the worst.
To another point, most people pay the Oppo premium not for it’s Blu-ray performance, but for it’s DVD upscaling, DVD-Audio and SACD.
But it sounds so good with my Monster cables…it really does…Monster research proves it too.
look at the slashdot thread and you will find someone defending the denon ethernet cables all the while claiming he’s not an audiophile nut.
Well at least Onkyo takes THX certification seriously. I have their THX system and it was only $900, complete with sub, 7.1 speakers and amplifier.
People who pay $10,000 for a turntable, $5000 for an audio cable or $2000 for a wooden volume knob deserve to be ripped off.
Oh yeah, my Monster cables are THX certified. That makes all the difference too.