American manufacturer McIntosh has announced the arrival later this month of its MVP881 BR, a high-end universal Blu-ray player with BD-Live support.

April 8, 2010 — Deep-pocketed home-cinema fans will rejoice at the arrival of a new high-fidelity Blu-ray player from US-based manufacturer McIntosh. The MVP881 BR will play back Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, DVD Audio discs, SACDs, and CDs, as well as multimedia files via its SD-card slot.

McIntosh is owned by D&M Holdings, the same company that produces the Marantz and Denon brands, and the latter companies’ attention to detail is once again in evidence here: There’s damping to reduce drive vibration, and the separately housed circuit boards are intended to reduce interference and physical resonance within the device. A rear-mounted Ethernet connection allows the player to access BD-Live content and software updates.

Even McIntosh refers to the player’s looks as “dreadnaught style”. Still, the steel and aluminium casing has an attractive grey-blue finish.

In the US, where McIntosh lists the player at 8,000 USD (about 5,300 GBP), early buyers will receive a free promotional Blu-ray Disc containing Neil Young tracks in 24-bit/96kHz PCM stereo. The manufacturer hasn’t yet announced pricing or availability for the UK market.