Musings on the LG BP175 blu ray and DVD Player

 

A few years back, probably sometime before the pandemic (time is wanky when you are retired), I bough tthe LG BP 175 all region blu ray and DVD player from 220 Electronics. I had a SONY all region blu ray and DVD player, which I also bought from 220 Electronics but I had recently purchased an inexpensive LG TV since I wanted to replace the one I had, which was an inexpensive all region Sharp TV, which I also bought from 220 Electronics. Why?  Because the Sharp required a digital tuner and I did not want to screw around with the digital tuner any longer. 

As of today the Sharp TV which needs a digital tuner, the SONY BDP blu ray and DVD player, and the LG TV still work. The LG BP 175 does not, however. On Thursday, two days after I had watched House of Cards, which was a region B blu ray, on the LG player the LG BP 175 suddenly stopped working. I could play DVDs but I could not play any region blu rays. Fortunately, I still had the SONY blu ray and DVD player so I switched out the blu ray and DVD players on my TVs which unfortunately required some heavy labour.

So why am I telling you this? I am telling you this because I want you to think twice before you buy an LG blu ray and DVD player. I would rank it below average and certainly well below the much superior SONY BDP blu ray and DVD player. But didn’t we know that already? 

Anyway, caveat emptor to those thinking of buying an LG blu ray and DVD player. For my money it is a piece of crap.

Buying a CD Player Part Two

 

As some of you know from reading earlier posts I have had problems with CD players over the last several years. The problem is that I live close to a busy road. As a consequence when cars go by my CD players I have used previously either stopped briefly or frozen or turned off on the last track. 

 I have, therefore,  been looking for CD players that do not stop briefly or turn off on the last track. As I noted in an earlier post the best one I had found was the Fiios player. Instead of stopping on the last track it simply briefly stopped when a car or truck went by on the street in front of my apartment. It was not, in other words, perfect. Additionally, one could hear clicks if you were up close to the player particularly when the disc was on its last track.

Well I think I have now found the near perfect CD player. It is the Syitren R300 CD player. I found a review of it while browsing “what is the best portable CD player” on Brave and found in my search that it was the recommended one by the New York Times Wirecutter we tested these items page. After using it for several months I can say that I concur with the Times’s assessment. I hear no clicks. It does not stop of freeze when playing a disc. The only down side so far? The volume of the player.

I should also mention that it has an optical port so I am using an OREI SPDIF/Coaxial Digital to RCA L/R splitter so I can hook it up to my Bose Acoustic Wave Music System, the bigger one, via the headphone jack and it works fine thorough my Bose system. Praise the New York Times.

Buying a CD Player: The FiiO Multifunctional Stereo CD Player

 

Several years ago the CD player of my Boze Acoustic Wave Music System died. RIP. 

Because I have a lot of CDs, mostly classical CDs, and because I wanted to continue to use my Boze Acoustic Wave Music System I hooked up several CD players over the last several years to my Boze system by using the accessory port.  All of them had failings. Every inexpensive portable CD player, when the last track of the CD was being played and when the right (for me wrong) vehicle went by, the CD suddenly stopped playing. It was, to say the least annoying to be listening to the last track of a symphony, for example, and it just stopped. 

As a consequence I have been looking for a CD player that would not stop suddenly when a vehicle went by. The pictured FiiO Multifunctional Stereo CD player is almost the CD player I was hoping for. Almost. The FiiO, which was relatively expensive, does not stop on the last track when a vehicle goes by it does pause, however, and the sound quality consequently sounds like one of those old 78 vinyl pressings when certain vehicles pass by on the busy street on which I live.

Now for some more bad news. I really don’t like the fact that the on/off button also serves as a mode change button. It is easy, at least for elderly me, to not press down on that button long enough leading to a change in mode and minutes spent trying to the node back to the one I am using to play CDs through my Boze speakers. Nor do I like the fact that the function icon of the keys—white on black—on the player are really difficult for an elderly person like myself to see because they are small. Finally, the CD player does have audible clicks you can hear when CD tracks end at the last track of the CD. These are not audible, however, unless you are up close to it.

Now for some good news. Aesthetically the CD player looks nice (though I prefer quality to looks). The CD player sounds quite good running through my Boze system. This means that I am glad to have purchased it even though it does have certain failings.