UGoos AM6B+ - End-Game 4K Media Streamer (for me anyway, and anyone who cares about Dolby Vision playback)

[timothyemerson]

3 x Yes

Cool. Sounds like a decent machine.

 

[slmccaul]

Dave/Garry, would the AM6B Plus be the one to buy vs another one I see on Aliexpress the UT8? I built the Amazon Firestick per your instructions Garry and while it works fine, I don't like the constant bombardment with the Alexa BS, causes OCD flareups, lol.
I didn't load your skin as I've been using Confluence since 2014 or so.

Dave, thanks for all the info you have presented here, very valuable.

 

[steelydave]

It has to be the AM6B+, the newer models (and older models) have different chipsets that haven't been hacked or reverse engineered or whatever it is that's allowed them to get Dolby Vision playback with CoreElec.

Dave, thanks for all the info you have presented here, very valuable.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, it makes pushing through the "did I remember to put all the important information in the first message without sounding like a crazy hobo yelling at the sun on the street corner?" doubts I had when writing and proofreading this worthwhile.

 

[pat bateman]

I saw this when it was posted on Reddit, and while intrigued, my first thought was wondering how much of a difference the enhancement layer makes, ie, would you be able to pass a blind test. 2 duplicate screens/configs, one setup running the AMB6+/coreELEC, and 1 running Shield/Plex. I just upgraded to a 77" OLED. If my Remuxs can look even better than this, if you good people say it's like the difference between Apple Music/Tidal and Blu-ray audio - I will give it a shot.

Side question - when I playback a DV profile 7 Remux via Apple TV or the Shield, and my TV is recognizing that Remux as DV - what exactly is happening here? It's DV without the enhancement layer? I've seen some say it's actually HDR10 fallback, but that doesn't make sense to me, as the TV is registering it as DV per the picture mode settings.

 

[JediJoker]

Side question - when I playback a DV profile 7 Remux via Apple TV or the Shield, and my TV is recognizing that Remux as DV - what exactly is happening here? It's DV without the enhancement layer? I've seen some say it's actually HDR10 fallback, but that doesn't make sense to me, as the TV is registering it as DV per the picture mode settings.

I don't know this for a fact, but I imagine it's static HDR metadata (i.e. HDR10) in a Dolby Vision container. Therefore, it registers and is processed as DV, but is functionally the same as HDR10.

 

[Stuj]

I have an Ugoos AM6B+ and a new Zidoo z9x 8k and have a Dolby vision TV so fully utilise the DV content. To be honest I can’t really tell the difference in PQ between them. Both are good but i prefer the Zidoo, as it has Apple Music app inbuilt that can play Apple ATMOS via the HDMI. Also too the VS10 engine in the Zidoo is great at tone mapping to LLDV if you have a projector etc, so it is a much more versatile machine. It also now has its version of Kodi so you can use hat a an interface as well.

 

[HomerJAU]

Are you using CoreElec on your AMB6+?

There is an unofficial CoreElec build that supports the VS10 engine (and another test build that converts HDR10+ to DoVi).

 

[Stuj]

Yes I am, i know there is another build for VS10. That box is 922, the Zidoo is a newer soc 928, the VS10 engine in that already does that.

 

[Stuj]

I currently have a Zidoo Z9X which is fine but won't play everything gaplessly so have been looking at the latest 8K Zidoo's and Dune's but they all seem to have gone backwards in terms of handling music.

Really ? I have the 8K and the music is much improved, they have taken the cues from the Eversolo range of streamers. To be honest if you buy a Zidoo UHD8000 I recon you could throw away the oppo 203/205 (if not using physical media)

 

[johnbs]

Really ? I have the 8K and the music is much improved, they have taken the cues from the Eversolo range of streamers. To be honest if you buy a Zidoo UHD8000 I recon you could throw away the oppo 203/205 (if not using physical media)

The Zidoo Z9X has official Roon support for multichannel over the network to HDMI, which is crucial for me. It seems none of the more recent streamers have that, correct?

 

[Stuj]

The Zidoo Z9X has official Roon support for multichannel over the network to HDMI, which is crucial for me. It seems none of the more recent streamers have that, correct?

Eversolo A6 and the Zidoo UHD5000 and UHD8000 do I believe, im not sure about any others

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is either the UGoos AM6B+ or Zidoo Z9X able to transcode multi-channel audio streams to multi-channel PCM and pass this via HDMI to an AVR?

 

[HomerJAU]

With Kodi as the player, yes.

 

[johnbs]

Eversolo A6 and the Zidoo UHD5000 and UHD8000 do I believe, im not sure about any others

Yes, but at 5 x the price. Sorry I should have stated that there are no other low priced (under US$500) streamers with multichannel Roon Ready via HDMI, AFAIK.

 

[timothyemerson]

Really ? I have the 8K and the music is much improved, they have taken the cues from the Eversolo range of streamers. To be honest if you buy a Zidoo UHD8000 I recon you could throw away the oppo 203/205 (if not using physical media)

Yeah, this is what I've been able to glean from the Zidoo forum on their website: http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?find-new/74296700/posts

I don't have one so I'm not able to confirm but I've read about lip sync issues, Dolby TrueHD dramas and subtitles repositioning themselves + music not playing gaplessly - rookie stuff and also stuff that worked fine on previous models.

Have you experienced any weirdness along these lines?

 

[HomerJAU]

So what does Roon give you?

 

[dabl]

Another Zidoo z9x 8k question:

As I understand it, it can bitstream DSD from stereo SACD .iso (or also maybe .dsf/.dff?) to a compatible AVR via HDMI.

Can it do the same thing for multichannel SACD .iso /.dsf/.dff?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Another Zidoo z9x 8k question:

As I understand it, it can bitstream DSD from stereo SACD .iso (or also maybe .dsf/.dff?) to a compatible AVR via HDMI.

Can it do the same thing for multichannel SACD .iso /.dsf/.dff?

I'd quite like to know the answer to same question for the Ugoos AM6B+?

 

[johnbs]

So what does Roon give you?

I value it for multiroom, metadata, many endpoint support and remote access. I paid the fixed cost as it is very important to me for all my ripped CDs and music downloads stored on my Synology NAS. You can also connect Qobuz and Tidal streaming.

 

[dabl]

I'd quite like to know the answer to same question for the Ugoos AM6B+?

There's probably an avsforum thread on that one too but I'm just starting to make my way through this one for the Zidoo line.