At $3500, the Lexicon BD-30 Blu-ray player is quite a bit more expensive than the Oppo BDP-83, a $500 Blu-ray player. What do you get for that $3000? A different body, a bogus THX certification, and nothing else, because inside the case, this is the exact same player, with identical hardware. Lexicon has purchased the Oppo player in bulk, then taken it out of the original chassis and put it into their own, and raised the price sevenfold.
The original Audioholics review shows fantastic comparison pictures, as well as testing of the audio. While in the Wired article THX claims that Lexicon somehow improved things, the actual audio comparisons prove otherwise.
Here’s the real topper: because the Oppo has been improved (via firmware upgrades) and the Lexicon has not received those upgrades, the $500 player has better audio performance than the $3500 player. So $3000 actually buys a slightly crappier Blu-Ray player. Fantastic!
