The Best 4K Blu-Ray Players

PlayStations have supported Blu-ray playback ever since the format first launched—the PS3 was one of the best of the early players around. And while chances are you fancy a PS5 for its undoubted gaming prowess, you shouldn’t overlook the fact that it’s a very accomplished 4K UHD Blu-ray player too.

Where color fidelity, detail retrieval, and contrast are concerned, this Sony is giving nothing away to dedicated disc players. It doesn’t support any HDR dynamic metadata standards, so there’s not quite the visual pop that you get from more focused players—but when you consider Sony’s wider skillset, that’s just about acceptable.

Sound is full-bodied and detailed, and there’s been a software upgrade that allows compatibility with Dolby Atmos for gaming as well as for movies. So whether you choose to get your leisure-time kicks actively or passively, the Sony PlayStation 5 has you covered—and in some style.

Yes, this is quite a lot of money for a 4K UHD Blu-ray player, especially one that doesn’t support SACD or DVD-A multichannel music. But if you’re interested in finding out just what is on those 4K Blu-rays of yours without spending properly silly money, the Panasonic DP-UB9000EB is the way forward. From the moment it’s out of its packaging, the Panasonic is all business. It’s built from aluminum (to guard against disruptive vibrations) on the outside, and on the inside its premium, high-end componentry ensures outstanding picture and sound quality.

It’s no easy feat, but the DP-UB9000 manages to combine out-and-out punch with real subtlety where image quality is concerned. Its color palette seems limitless, it piles on the details in every circumstance, and the depth of field it can create is prodigious. It covers all the HDR bases, too, so it’s ready and able to do the business with any appropriate 4K UHD Blu-ray disc. And when it comes to upscaling your legacy disc collection, it’s the most accomplished upscaler this sort of money can buy—and by a distance.

It’s a very acceptable CD player too, which only adds to its attractiveness. It’s a shame this outlay doesn’t buy compatibility with multichannel audio formats, true—but why ask for the moon when Panasonic has already given you the stars?

Really, it’s doing the Magnetar UDP800 a disservice to call it a 4K UHD Blu-ray player. Sure, it’s the best 4K UHD Blu-ray player around—but really, this is a universal disc player. Name an optical disc format, from 3D Blu-ray and SACD to DVD-RW and Kodak Picture CD—the Magnetar can handle it. And, what’s more, it can handle it like an absolute natural.

If the rest of your AV system is of a similar standard, the UDP800 is capable of almost humbling performance. Its picture fidelity is remarkable—the only way to see more naturalistic, lifelike, and convincing images is to look out of a window. In every respect, it’s completely assured, and there’s nothing showy about the pictures it creates. Whatever’s on that disc is extracted, displayed, and given appropriate context. Upscaling of lesser-quality content is accomplished, too. This is a player that will have you hunting through your collection just to see how good your old discs can look.

It’s a similarly thrilling story where sound is concerned. Stereo or multichannel, the Magnetar does the business where dynamics, detail, sound staging, and all the other fundamentals of music reproduction are concerned. It even has balanced XLR outputs, which helps its music-making credentials. If you want one disc player to do everything you need for the foreseeable future, here it is.