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http://dvice.com/archives/2009/09/good-lord-its-a.php

Good lord! It's a $135,000 Blu-ray player

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Next time you have a spare $135,000 lying around, why not pick up a Goldmund Eidos Reference Blue Blu-ray player?

This 66-pound behemoth has such beautiful design, we're thinking it would be right at home in an art gallery. But does it make the Blu-ray movies look any better? Only those with golden eyes and ears will know for sure.
Those precision spring-loaded legs, a completely isolated power supply and fancy Goldmund Magnetic Damping drives the price up into the stratosphere, along with that ritzy Goldmund name.

And hey, expensive Blu-ray player collectors, Goldman is limiting this production run to 50 units, and there are certainly enough suckers available to snap up every one.
For crying out loud — save yourself $132,000 and just get one that loads fast.
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beautiful design? where?

From Engadget's coverage of this absurdity:

But hey, at least if you’re willing to drop that much you can be sure that your player is better than anyone else’s, complete with every feature imaginable.

Actually, you can’t be, because this thing doesn’t support internet access or BD-Live. Yes, this is a $US135,000 Profile 1.1 player.

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And hey, let's not forget that FANCY green LCD display.

Seriously, my alarm clock display looks fancier than that.

Fuck that if i had that money to spend i would get a hi def projector for my ps3 to play on

I don't get it. What about this monstrosity makes it worth 135k?

That thing looks a lot like my first, top-loading VCR.

ThatNickGuy said:

I don't get it. What about this monstrosity makes it worth 135k?

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I am curious too. Looks like a simple box with 4 ugly legs.

That's one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. I can even understand 200,000 dollar home speakers, as the fidelity really is better, but this is simply r-word.org

Almost as bad as:
http://elitechoice.org/2008/06/15/world’s-most-expensive-sunglasses-costs-383609/

Better link from that site, 80 worlds most expensive items

http://elitechoice.org/2007/12/31/2007-round-up-80-worlds-most-expensive-elite-products/

most expensive fishing lure 1 mil
most expensive bikini 30 mil
most expensive vodka 1 mil

Chibibar;253926][quote=ThatNickGuy said:

I don't get it. What about this monstrosity makes it worth 135k?

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I am curious too. Looks like a simple box with 4 ugly legs.[/QUOTE]

It's worth 135k because:
1. It's rare, only 50 are available.
2. It's different, therefore people can tell which ones are the rare ones and which ones are not.
3. Rich people are stupid. Well, some of them are.

This is sort of similar to why people will pay ridiculous sums for stamps where the airplane was printed upside down.

Sometimes, things are expensive because someone just says it is and a few idiots agree with them.

It's for rich bored people. They're not necessarily stupid at all. To an extremely rich person shelling out for that player is like one of us buying a 300 dollar PS3. It's kind of ridiculous how rich people can blow money that the middle class would never see in a lifetime.

That blu-ray player is pretty much the value of my house!

ZenMonkey said:

That thing looks a lot like my first, top-loading VCR.

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That's exactly what I thought... are they trying to do some weird retro thing? Because everyone's all about having clunky electronics around their house?

when the house is large enough that every piece of furniture can be clunky and there's still enough space to have a ballroom dance floor, sure

Allen said:

when the house is large enough that every piece of furniture can be clunky and there's still enough space to have a ballroom dance floor, sure

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That would be neat, actually... a house with an actual dance floor. *makes notes for a future date*

Chazwozel said:

It's for rich bored people. They're not necessarily stupid at all. To an extremely rich person shelling out for that player is like one of us buying a 300 dollar PS3. It's kind of ridiculous how rich people can blow money that the middle class would never see in a lifetime.

That blu-ray player is pretty much the value of my house!

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Considering it's a few versions behind and not even "top of the line", yes I'd have to call anyone who bought it stupid.

bhamv3 said:

It's worth 135k because:
1. It's rare, only 50 are available.
2. It's different, therefore people can tell which ones are the rare ones and which ones are not.
3. Rich people are stupid. Well, some of them are.

This is sort of similar to why people will pay ridiculous sums for stamps where the airplane was printed upside down.

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I'd also add:

4. It's "audiophile" quality gear, which claims to do all sorts of mystical things to the electrons to make them sound better. It's the same market that pays $485 for a wooden knob, because it'll make the music sound better than with bakelite knob.

figmentPez said:

4. It's \"audiophile\" quality gear, which claims to do all sorts of mystical things to the electrons to make them sound better. It's the same market that pays $485 for a wooden knob, because it'll make the music sound better than with bakelite knob.

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Heh, so many audiophiles are addicted to placebos. When you reach a certain level, it becomes so hard to even improve the sound just a little it's almost impossible to hear.

A colleague of mine at work once got angry at me because I told him he was crazy when he said that MP3s at 320kpbs sound incredibly dull and flat (we're talking about on mid-range speakers). I know there's some loss at the lower and higher ranges (which is at the edge of what our ears can perceive) and it's also slightly noticeable in very quiet sections of songs but that's it.

He insisted that mp3s made songs sound flat so I had a bet with him. I recorded a CD with 4 times the same song. I told him that one song was lossless (straight rip to WAV and then re-recorded), one song was FLAC (also lossless), one song was MP3 192kbps and one song was 320kbps (Lame codec used in both). I didn't tell him which was which and said: take it home and if it's so dull in sound, you should recognise the two songs immediately. Result? He found the MP3 at 192kbps but wasn't 100% sure and then said the second MP3 was ... the lossless re-recorded song. It's just one example of how audiophiles are fooling themselves. Heck, I've had a different audiophile friend say "aaah this sounds much better" after tweaking the sound settings only to discover it was identical to the last settings.

I'm somewhat of an audiophile, but not as anal of one as the guy Icarus mentioned. I can tell between low and high end mp3s and such, but at the higher quality end it becomes finer and finer distinctions - enough that I'm fine with just settling for the "inferior" quality if it's close enough. Having near perfect pitch sometimes sucks for this, though - if a particular file has some minor issue that isn't present in the original track, I'll usually pick up on it and get pissed off (I can't listen to the version of Gimme Shelter I have because of this - random audio pop present that isn't in the original version ticks me off every time).

But, yeah, back on topic - I'd be willing to bet that there really is a difference in audio/video quality that this thing would be able to play back. Whatever difference that is, however, is not in any way, shape, or form, worth the ludicrous price tag this thing carries. An extra teaspoon of dirt on top of a mountain is not worth more than the price of the original mountain.

Chronos[Ha-G];254418 said:

I can't listen to the version of Gimme Shelter I have because of this - random audio pop present that isn't in the original version ticks me off every time).

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I take it you can't listen to vinyl?

Chronos[Ha-G];254418 said:

But, yeah, back on topic - I'd be willing to bet that there really is a difference in audio/video quality that this thing would be able to play back.

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There should be zero difference in audio quality when using an external reciever. (I don't even know if this monstrosity has it's own audio processing.) If the digital sound is being passes straight from the disc to the receiver, then what Blu-ray player is reading the disc shouldn't matter (assuming it's not defective in some way). It shouldn't matter if the audio is 2.0 channel PCM, 5.1 lossy Dolby or some 8 channel lossless bitstream, as far as I know the Blu-ray player shouldn't be messing with the audio at all.

As for video, yeah I suppose it's possible it's got some really high quality video processing, but if it's "better" or not may be a matter of personal preference. Assuming 1080p Blu-ray content, there's no de-interlacing to worry about. Does anyone know if 3:2 pulldown and other framerate processing magic is needed? Oh well, beyond those it starts to get subjective. How much de-noise is too much? Is it noise or film grain you're getting rid of? Can this $135,000 beast even do the scaling necessary to display on something unusual like a 21:9 display? or would you have to rely on the television or other box to do that, thus negating most of the benefit of the extra-expensive player?

figmentPez said:

Chronos[Ha-G];254418 said:

But, yeah, back on topic - I'd be willing to bet that there really is a difference in audio/video quality that this thing would be able to play back.

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There should be zero difference in audio quality when using an external reciever. (I don't even know if this monstrosity has it's own audio processing.) If the digital sound is being passes straight from the disc to the receiver, then what Blu-ray player is reading the disc shouldn't matter (assuming it's not defective in some way). It shouldn't matter if the audio is 2.0 channel PCM, 5.1 lossy Dolby or some 8 channel lossless bitstream, as far as I know the Blu-ray player shouldn't be messing with the audio at all.

As for video, yeah I suppose it's possible it's got some really high quality video processing, but if it's "better" or not may be a matter of personal preference. Assuming 1080p Blu-ray content, there's no de-interlacing to worry about. Does anyone know if 3:2 pulldown and other framerate processing magic is needed? Oh well, beyond those it starts to get subjective. How much de-noise is too much? Is it noise or film grain you're getting rid of? Can this $135,000 beast even do the scaling necessary to display on something unusual like a 21:9 display? or would you have to rely on the television or other box to do that, thus negating most of the benefit of the extra-expensive player?

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For that price tag, that unit better scale to anything I want (like 21:9) also, while the unit can "output quality" video/audio, it is only good if you have a million dollar TV to hook it up with

Cajungal;254008][quote=Allen said:

when the house is large enough that every piece of furniture can be clunky and there's still enough space to have a ballroom dance floor, sure

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That would be neat, actually... a house with an actual dance floor. *makes notes for a future date*[/QUOTE]

we should do the charleston sometime and then watch some blu-ray movies on this expensive one

Allen said:

when the house is large enough that every piece of furniture can be clunky and there's still enough space to have a ballroom dance floor, sure

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That would be neat, actually... a house with an actual dance floor. *makes notes for a future date*[/QUOTE]

we should do the charleston sometime and then watch some blu-ray movies on this expensive one[/QUOTE]

heh. If I somehow receive a gob of money (in the millions) I would rather spend that 135,000 to make a nice audio/video room and put in REAL equipment instead of that clunky thing (I still think it looks ugly I don't care if it is only 50 of them are made still ugly)

Chibibar said:

For that price tag, that unit better scale to anything I want (like 21:9) also, while the unit can "output quality" video/audio, it is only good if you have a million dollar TV to hook it up with

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For that price tag it ought to be able to connect to the internet to get firmware updates so that it won't end up unable to play the latest Blu-ray movies in a couple years. However, it doesn't have an internet connection.