In summary, I ordered the Panasonic DP-UB820. * The LG player seems like it has the primary features I’m specifically looking for in a unit however this “entry” model seems to be mostly ignored by the community because it’s entry level and I’d question whether an Xbox wouldn’t be a better use of your money. IMHO I don’t care for the new “elite” gold faceplate and if you’re paying for the DAC why not include balanced outs? This unit is targeted at the connoisseur of hifi physical media who wants the best 4k player in the same unit. The Pioneer UDP-LX500 seems like an oddball, a very high quality 4k unit with SACD / DVD-A support but still odd. It’s also unclear whether or not Sony can remedy this auto detect problem with a firmware update due to hardware limitations. The Sony offerings do not support HDR 10+ and have a strange Dolby Vision implementation where you must manually turn it on or off for a given source, the problem is that some 4k discs are not transparent on whether or not they contain Dolby Vision content. I also appreciate the front panel controls that don’t require you to use the remote. Of note, the DP-UB9000 is the only unit in this list that has balanced analog outputs if you have a compatible amp. However, they do offer (just like the rest of the units listed) usb and network playback of DSD, FLAC and other audio formats. The Panasonic units are more expensive at $400 / $1000 but offer all the features and performance you’d expect with the exclusion of SACD / DVD-A and flaky streaming apps. Also, I have an LG C7 TV which is not HDR 10+ compatible so don’t care about dual support. That said I think the Tidal implementation on my Marantz receiver is terrible and would appreciate hifi streaming audio support with my 4K player. I stream video from the TV and I don’t have an SACD collection, I focus more on hifi downloadable content than the physical media (because it’s outrageously expensive and hard to find). To begin, I personally don’t care about video streaming apps or SACD / DVD-A support on this type of device. Ok, so a shortlist of the the available choices:

Usb 2 vs usb 3 oppo 205