By Patrick Avenell
MELBOURNE, VIC & SYDNEY, NSW: One of Pioneer’s high-end Blu-ray players has won the European Blu-ray Player 2009-10 award. The BDP-LX91 took out this prestigious award, which is presented by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA).
This award is voted on by editors and journalists from around 50 different technology and multimedia publications throughout Europe. Collectively, the panel described Pioneer’s winning Blu-ray players as the “jewel in Pioneer’s AV crown, beautifully finished and comprehensively equipped".
Discussing the relevance of this award for the local market is Pioneer Australia general manager (sales and marketing) Chris Kotis.
“The EISA award reinforces the popularity of the BDP-LX91 in the Australian market. Despite severe price erosion in the Blu-ray category over the past 12 months, it’s pleasing to see a $5,000 Blu-ray in Australia exceeding sales expectations.”
The full EISA acclamation of the BDP-LX91 is printed here:
"Pioneer’s BDP-LX91 is one of the very first BD players with sufficient on-board processing power to decode both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It’s also one of the first to offer a full 7.1-channel analogue output – perfect for direct connection to the multi-channel analogue inputs of new and legacy AV receivers alike.
“Naturally, the BDP-LX91 also offers HDMI 1.3a connectivity and the full flexibility of Profile 2 BD Live functionality with its 4GB of internal memory. Powerful DSP is included, offering audio bass management and Pioneer’s own ‘adaptive bit expansion’ which interpolates BD’s native 8-bit per channel to 16-bit colour.
“Picture and sound quality are spectacular, being both vibrant and hugely detailed. The very brightest whites look pure, free of spurious colour and any suggestion of dynamic crushing, while the multi-channel sound is amazing, the most dense acoustic imaginings depicted in seemingly intricate detail.”