Objective Review of the ModWright Pioneer LX800


Earlier, I promised to share an objective review of the ModWright modified LX800 BDP Blu-ray player I ordered from ModWright Company owner, Daniel Wright. After a couple of months search, I had a review commissioned with David Mackinnon. He and his team have done over 450 reviews of audio gear.

The MW unit is compared with an original brand new LX800 unit. And with another upgrader, The Upgrade Company. The review is done and I am very pleased to make a copy available here. I hope you find all the information here useful to your future decision-making around upgrading. I specifically asked for the section explaining measurements from David. It’s intended to be educational and I hope you find it helpful.

My sincere thanks go to the David MacKinnon for his patience and persistence.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wjkbzvtl-HR4i42ma4XOfrxZI5IwHBpV 


128x128johnread57
Thanks. That’s an eye opener and food for thought. Hoping some Modwright owners, or at least some owners of gear with tubed power supplies, will chime in to give their perspective. I owned a MW Oppo 83 and still have a Pioneer BD player that was the immediate predecessor of the LX800. Not really the same as what’s in your review, and the Oppo is long gone, so I’ll abstain from commenting on their relative pros and cons.
Did you try the LX800 before sending it to Modwright? If yes, what did you think of it? There’s been some positive user impressions of the stock LX500 and it seems the stock LX800 should be even better.
Also, the guy who did your review did not mention what tubes are in your Modwright unit, unless I missed it. Perhaps the choice of tubes makes a difference? I had an Allnic phono stage with a tubed power supply and thought the sound got even better with a quality rectifier tube.
Thaluza thanks for your feedback. The note on tube type is well taken I’ll update the doc soon.
Thaluza the report report includes testing and listening notes for an untreated LX800 as a benchmark. It’s a winner actually...