The player also delivers some commendably deep and punchy blacks to your display and it doesn’t lose any shadow detail during dark scenes, a virtue that’s demonstrated perfectly by Spidey and Sandman’s scrap in the subway.

While its HD performance is superb, its treatment of DVDs is less impressive. The deck’s reproduction of detail in The Fellowship of the Ring, when upscaled to 1080p, lacks the sharpness and crisp edge definition we’ve come to expect from DVD upscalers, and this comes as something of a disappointment.

Clean and crisp audio

Sound quality is excellent. Spider- Man 3’s Dolby Digital track sounds clean and energetic through the 5.1-channel outputs, while True HD playback on a compatible amp is spellbinding.

The deck’s inability to handle DVD-A and SACD is a minor disappointment (no-one has included it on a Blu-ray player yet), but CD playback is enjoyable, with a fluid balance of bass, midrange and treble with no distortion.

Unappealing price

There’s no question that the Loewe is a decent Blu-ray player that offers fantastic HD picture quality.

But when you compare its limited feature list with players such as the Panasonic DMP-BD30 or the Sony BDP-S500, we can only conclude that the BluTech Vision is hugely overpriced.

For this sort of cash, we’d have expected DTS HD Master Audio support, compressed media playback and better DVD upscaling – although we can just about forgive the Profile 1.0 spec, given its original launch date.

However, in the unlikely situation that your buying decision is based purely on looks, then the Loewe’s undeniably classy and distinctive design will make an eye-catching addition to your system, particularly if it’s made up of other Loewe kit.