Dec 20, 2023 10:00 AM

The Best 4K Blu-Ray Players

Physical media hive, rise up, and read our test of the finest Blu-ray players you can buy right now.

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4 / 5

How many video streaming services do you subscribe to? And how many of those reckon they can deliver you full-on, state-of-the-art picture and sound quality for your monthly fee? The answers are likely to be “plenty” and “almost all of them.” But true home-cinema aficionados know the truth: The best picture quality and the best sound quality are only available from a physical storage format. Which is 4K UHD Blu-ray.

Streaming services have made big strides with picture and sound quality, but the difference between a movie streamed in 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos from, say, Netflix or Disney+ is night and day. If you want to truly see and hear the benefits of the latest home entertainment technologies, 4K UHD Blu-ray discs are where it’s at. Honest. And a good 4K UHD Blu-ray player will make the best of your cherished old collection of HD Blu-rays or even (whisper it) DVDs. The upscaling capabilities of the best players have to be seen to be believed—they’re more than capable of breathing new life into your old favorites.

To make your purchasing decision as easy as possible, we’ve selected the five best 4K UHD Blu-ray players around, from affordable to not remotely affordable and most points in between. They support advanced HDR formats like Dolby Vision and HDR10+ dynamic metadata—Dolby Vision remains the more common of the two should you have to choose, but some will support both. And they’ll decode spatial, object-based surround-sound audio formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, so if you’ve a compatible speaker system or soundbar, you can reap the sonic benefits too.

Check out our other TV-adjacent guides like the Best Soundbars, Best Projectors, and, of course, Best TVs.

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Photograph: Panasonic
Best for Most People
Panasonic DP-UB820
It’s the balance of features and performance that makes the Panasonic DP-UB820EB the best dollar-for-dollar, pound-for-pound 4K UHD Blu-ray player you can buy. It covers every worthwhile HDR format, including both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ dynamic metadata. It’s compatible with the most prevalent spatial audio formats too, including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, which means there’s no need to peer at the small print of your discs to make sure you’re getting the best version of your content. You most certainly are.
And in this player's hands, the best version looks and sounds an absolute treat. Colors are punchy, detail levels are stratospheric, contrasts are stark, and control of edges, patterns, and skin tones is absolute. Sound is bold and authoritative, with similarly impressive levels of detail available and an extremely deft way with dynamic variations. There are 7.1-channel analog outputs too, in case your system needs the DP-UB820EB to take care of decoding those spatial audio soundtracks.
The player has an HDR Optimizer feature, which lets you tweak HDR performance depending on your specific circumstances—so if you’re in a brightly lit room, extra brightness can be dialed into your picture to compensate. And in addition to the usual remote control handset, the player is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control. It’s no great shakes as a CD player, true—but when you balance that minor shortcoming against everything the DP-UB820EB gets so very right, it’s an almost churlish observation. This is a superb all-rounder.
$415 at Amazon
$500 at Best Buy
$490 at Walmart
Photograph: Sony
Best Entry-Level Option
Sony UBP-X700
There are more affordable 4K UHD Blu-ray players, sure—but they are, without exception, false economies. If you want proper audio/video performance without breaking the bank, the Sony UBP-X700 is where it’s at.
With Dolby Vision and HDR10 support, it covers most eventualities where HDR is concerned—and, given some appropriate content to deal with, its pictures are brilliantly detailed and convincing. Sony’s picture processing is feted for a reason—and the images available here are above and beyond what the price suggests might be available.
Audio performance is strong too, with support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks. The Sony will even do a decent job with music, thanks to its 24-bit/192-kHz hi-res audio capability. And its smart interface is good, with Netflix and Amazon Prime available in their highest-possible quality. Materials and build quality are nothing special, it’s true, but when you balance that against this machine’s performance, it’s easy to overlook.
$240 at Amazon
$160 at Best Buy
$159 at Walmart

Photograph: Sony
The Multi-Function Player
Sony PlayStation 5
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.
$500 at Target
$500 at GameStop
$500 at Amazon
$500 at Best Buy
Photograph: Panasonic
Best High-End Player
Panasonic DP-UB9000
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?
$1,000 at John Lewis
$961 at Amazon
$955 at Walmart

Photograph: Magnetar
Best Money-No-Object Player
Magnetar UDP800
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.
€1,599 at Magnetar

Simon Lucas is a technology journalist and consultant. Before embracing the carefree life of a freelancer, he was editor of What Hi-Fi? He's also written for titles such as GQ, Metro, The Guardian, and Stuff, among many others.

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