It is quite sobering to think that it is some 15 years since I first laid eyes on a Dune HD media player. Since then, I have worked with many media players, including a number Dune HD’s offerings. Today I have the pleasure of reviewing the latest flagship media players in Dune HD’s line-up: The Dune HD Max 8K and it’s little brother, the Solo 8K.
Ever since the BD Prime landed on my review desk in 2010, I have taken a keen interest in Dune HD’s media players. From the ultra stylish Dune HD Smart series right through to the newer 4K models, I have always been impressed with not only the build quality but also Dune’s incredible ability to playback almost any media file and format in existence.
With this in mind, it is a rather large understatement to suggest that my expectations for the new 8K series was high.
tl;dr
Dune HD has done it again. The Dune HD Max 8K and Solo 8K are, quite simply, the best local media players money can buy. Period. Both units share the same core hardware, delivering flawless playback of almost any audio and video format you can throw at them, including true 8K and every flavour of Dolby Vision. The software is robust, with an incredibly accurate media indexing system that makes organising a large collection a breeze.
Key Features & First Impressions
While Unboxing the Dune HD flagships isn’t quite an Apple experience, it is pleasant, with everything neatly packed, arranged and wrapped for maximum protection.
As has been our previous experience, both the Solo 8K and the Max 8K come complete with everything you could expect, right down to certified HDMI cables and even batteries for the included remotes!
SOLO 8K
Beyond the unit itself, the Solo 8K includes two screw on wifi antennas; a IR/Bluetooth remote control, a power brick with four plugs (including an Australian plug!), that certified Ultra High Speed HDMI cable and of course the aforementioned AAA batteries. Also included is the ubiquitous quick start guide and safety notice.
The Solo is a relatively compact unit, with a width of 21.5cm, depth of 18.5cm (21.5cm with wifi antennas installed) and a height of 7cm.
As soon as the unit was out of its protective bag, it immediately reminded me of the absolutely gorgeous Smart series. The entire unit is wrapped in a metal shell and at 1.6kg (without a hard drive installed) it has some genuine heft to it.
The front of the unit is dominated by a full height perspex finish containing the unit’s display. “SOLO 8K” adorns the centre along with a solitary power LED off to the left hand side. On either side of the screen are what appear to be brushed aluminium panels which look the business. On the left is the power button and USB-A port while on the right panel is the familiar Dune HD logo.
While the left side of the unit is featureless other than some venting, the right hand side has another two USB-A 3.0 ports and an opening to slide in a 3.5″ HDD.
As always, the rear is the business end of a media player and the Solo 8K has all the connectivity you would expect. Along with a small hard wired articulating Bluetooth antenna, two larger wifi antennas adorn the top left and right of the Solo 8K’s rear. From left to right, the ports included on the rear are: Analogue audio (left and right); coaxial; Infra-red in; another USB-A 3.0 port; Optical TOSLINK port; HDMI out; RJ45 gigabit Ethernet and a power port. Along with some venting, a pin reset button and a master power button rounds out the rear panel.
It is also worth noting that the whole unit sits atop good old fashioned silver isolation pads, giving the unit a premium look.
The included backlit R4 remote looks neat and contains a familiar layout. The buttons have a soft rubber quality while the remote’s body has a nice premium texture to it. The remote layout harps back to the first Dune media players with a large circular enter button surrounded by directional buttons. The remote has both infra-red and Bluetooth functionality and a microphone is built in for Google assistant queries. Another neat feature is that at the top of the remote are six user programmable buttons which can be set to control your other infra-red controlled devices.
MAX 8K
While everything is still packaged neatly, the packaging of the Max 8K is far more spartan. Despite this, the Max inclusions are excellent. Like the Solo 8K, everything you could expect is included.
The Max 8K comes with the same dual wifi antennas; remote control; certified HDMI cable; batteries; safety notice and quick start guide as per the Solo. As the Max 8K has an internal power supply, no power brick is supplied but four different IEC C13 (PC style) cables are included for world wide use. Additional to the Solo 8K inclusions are an infra-red extender as well as two rack mounting plates with screws.
At 43cm wide, The Max 8K is a full size Hi-Fi component, both in design, weight and feel. It has a height or 7.9cm and a length of 32.4cm (34.5cm with wifi antennas attached). And without a hard drive installed, the unit weighs a solid 6.22kg!
The front of the unit follows the same design cues as the Solo 8K, with the two outer strips of brushed black metal with the central section – offset to the left on the Max – containing a full height Perspex face featuring the LCD display. Underneath the logo on the left hand side is the power button and a USB-A port. While to the right is the Max 8K branding as well as a reminder of its internal TCXO Cock, linear PSU and Hi-Fidelity components.
Beyond this, a small indent at the top of the right hand panel clues you in that there is more to see here. Pushing down on this panel reveals a hidden HDD slot, complete with vibration isolation to keep things suitably quiet. Both the left and right sides of the Max 8K are unremarkable beyond some angled vents.
Being a physically much wider unit, the rear of of the Max 8K – save the front USB-A port – is where all its connectivity resides.
Along with the Bluetooth and wifi antennas, the Max 8K has a few additional ports over its smaller sibling. On the left hand side, there are a number of Hi-Fi outputs: An i2S-E RJ45 port; Coaxial port, and low noise USB 3.0 audio out port. Two more regular USB-A 3.0 ports are included, as well as a gigabit Ethernet port for network connectivity.
Utilising the TXCO clock, there are stereo RCA ports; a coaxial port; Optical TOSLINK port and an HDMI output port. Beyond the power cable receptacle and power button, an earthing point is included as is a Kensington lock slot.
Like the Solo 8K, the entire body of the Max 8K is metal and it also sits on the same gorgeous silver isolation feet.
Automatic or Manual Setup?
As soon as the units fire up, they ask for a language and if we would like the automatic or manual setup. We opted for manual on the Max and automatic on the Solo.
In manual setup, we had to choose our network connection (we mainly tested the Dunes via gigabit Ethernet) and of course, we were immediately greeted with a firmware update to install, which took around 10 minutes to download, apply and reboot.
After the update we were asked to select our city. Melbourne still isn’t an option (ugh) so we reluctantly chose Sydney since it’s in the same time zone.
We were then asked if we wanted to allow community applications, and we said yes and clicked through some warnings.
Once booted up, we were greeted with a screen containing lots of current movie posters. Clicking on a movie poster brings up a list of where this movie can be played. For example, clicking on the Top Gun Maverick poster, provided us with an Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV link.
In Automatic mode, the wired network was automatically configured, which was then followed by a firmware update. The same community applications permission pops up followed by a Bluetooth remote firmware upgrade before the usual wall of movie posters appeared. All in all a very similar experience and with the firmware upgrades, less than 15 minutes from unboxing to playback
While we dabbled with some streaming, we adjusted the settings to mainly suit our more traditional network playback model. Having a number of test movies and TV shows on a network share, we began by indexing the movies folder. Out of 479 movies, the Dune impressively discovered 475 correctly! And the kicker: The four movies it didn’t automatically scrape, it actually guessed all bar one correctly! Considering our movies are not named uniformly and are a random assortment of files and folders from various sources, this accuracy of the indexing was quite staggering. Indexing 2.6TB of files took just over 15 minutes.
Identifying TV series was much the same with the Dune taking just over 15 minutes to indexed 2.47TB of TV shows. As per the movies, these were inconsistently named files/folders and yet the Dune managed to get the majority of them correct. The few that it didn’t recognise were largely due to folder naming inconsistencies.
Looking through the movie/TV posters (which is the default for the My Collections view) the movies were indeed all identified correctly. The only time the poster was missing was when we had a file inside a folder with alternate versions or additional subtitle folders. Beyond this, both Dunes found pretty much all of the movies and scraped the right information automatically!
Flawless Performance & Playback
While the Dune was capable of displaying the Google TV interface, the traditional Dune interface is always available as an app. We configured the Dune to boot into the older interface for most of our testing as it is our preferred way of browsing local media.
While it has added all the major paid streaming services, the fact that the old UI is available is great for long time users just wanting to get straight to it with virtually zero learning curve. Now some may argue that this “old” interface is a little dated and while that isn’t an unfair statement, we think if it ain’t broke, it don’t necessarily needs fixing.
Despite this, when connected to Google, the new Bluetooth remote now allows for movie searches to be done via voice input which was a nice addition. When you run a search this way, the Dune opens up a list of matched movies and then offers you all the ways it can be played. This list includes all the steaming services that offer it – and critically – if you happen to have it stored on your HDD/Network, a local playback option.
As part of our testing, we played back media from various sources, including streaming, USB and from local network folders. While playback from these inputs all worked well, we were a little disappointed that in 2025 Dune still hasn’t popped a USB-C ports on either unit.
Playing media on these units was, as expected, excellent. Not only did both units play back everything we threw at them, from YouTube streams right through to full Bluray ISOs. We really couldn’t get the Dune’s to baulk, no matter what we threw at them.
To test the breadth of the unit’s playback, we played a range of high-definition files from full length movies, TV shows and some short demo and test files we have collected over the years. Playback was flawless: the usual video formats were handled without difficulty, with Dolby Digital, Atmos and DTS audio varieties all being passed on to our Denon receiver without any issues. Even lossless formats like DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD played back as if they were no more complex than two channel stereo.
While we are still using a 1080p screen to display video, the picture coming out of the Dunes – particularly down-sampled 4 and 8K content was superb. We still rock a Pioneer Kuro for video playback and while the screen is too old to render ultra high definition formats, we swear the down-sampled UHD content coming out of the Dunes looked sharper than anything we have ever seen played on our Kuro.
Good old Standard Definition content looked as good as it ever did and regular 1080p content similarly looked as expected. Playback from all sources rendered similar results with no lag other than the occasional YouTube buffering due to ISP network congestion. In a normal listening environment – media player in TV cabinet – we could not here any fans or noise from either unit. For all intents and purposes, both units were silent during network playback. We also tried the vibration isolated HDD slot in the Max and other than the occasional muffled HDD clicks, no general noise could be heard from the unit, even during quiet moments.
Playback via network was achieved via both Samba and some old NFS shares. Interestingly, we did have some issues with NFS shares not being played back which Dune Support helped us solve.
When clicking through the movie posters on our local content we were repeatedly confronted with the error, “Playlist is empty.” While we thought it may be a bug, it turns out that the old shares we used on previous dunes, now required an additional “/” at the beginning of the share. Once the forward slash was added, playback resumed as normal. We can also report that the Dune HD firmware team reports that this issue should be solved in a future update, for those playing at home.
As mentioned earlier, disc images also played back without issue, with full menu functionality being displayed for both Bluray and DVD ISOs. Bar the hiccup with the network share, we encountered zero issues with either unit, both in usage and in pure file playback.
Max out or go Solo?
This is a tough call. Both units are.. well, superb. Both have the same core hardware and support the same codecs and file types. The UI and general user experience is also identical, including the inclusion of the R4 Bluetooth Backlit remote.
Where the Max differs is in it’s full size component dimensions and its additional advanced features. The increased size brings better internal cooling and also the addition of a vibration isolated HDD rack for reduced news.
Beyond this, the inclusion of a linear power supply and TCXO chip cater to the audio/videophile for reduced noise and jitter. An XMOS chip is also included to further improves audio quality.
While we like the enhanced hardware of the Max, for the average punter who just wants the play everything Dune HD experience, we’d suggest the Solo is the better option. If you prefer your equipment to be at the very top of the tree and you want a form factor that matches your pro Hi-Fi equipment – and you are more likely to use the internal HDD bay – then the Max is your ticket.
I know a lot of reviews tend to end a comparison by saying this, but honestly, there really isn’t a bad option here.
Selected Specs
As mentioned earlier, the Max 8K and Solo 8K share the same basic hardware platform, albeit in different form factors.
Shared Specs
Processor: Amlogic S928X-K/J with Dolby Vision VS10 engine
Memory: 8 GB RAM and 64 GB flash storage
Video Support: True 8Kp60 decoding and output, AV1 codec, HDR10+, Dolby Vision (including Profile 7 FEL), and YouTube 8K HDR
Audio Support: Full HD audio formats, including multi-channel DSD and other advanced music formats
Networking: Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), and Bluetooth 5.2
Storage: 3.5″ HDD rack
OS: Android 11 with Dune HD OS, Dune Control mobile app, and support for automatic framerate/resolution switching
Max Only
Power Supply: Advanced linear PSU with custom magnetically shielded toroidal transformer Standard switching power supply
Clock Chip: Ultra-low noise high-precision TCXO clock chip for improved A/V quality Not specified
Audio Outputs Hi-Fi digital audio outputs (coaxial S/PDIF and I2S-E) based on XMOS chip Standard digital audio outputs; Dedicated low noise USB-A port.
Other: Enhanced cooling design and 3.5″ HDD rack vibrationally isolated from case.
For a full list of technical specifications of both units, please visit Dune HD’s Max 8K and Solo 8K product pages.
The Verdict: Are They Worth It?
If I were a multi-millionaire, I would most certainly upgrade my lifestyle. My Civic Type-R would become an NSX-R; My modest home would be replaced by a veritable palace, and my 25 year old Project 6.1 turntable would morph into something worth a properly stupid amount of money. My A/V system too would similarly be kitted out with some crazy expensive high end speakers and amplifiers, but sitting alongside these products worth hundreds of thousands (and even maybe millions) of dollars, would be a Dune HD media player.
Over the years Dune HD has shown to reliably produce excellent devices and the Dune 8K series are simply the best locally stored media file players money can buy right now. Period.
At $799USD and $499 both the Max 8K and Solo 8K are certainly not cheap but considering their build quality and playback abilities – and the kind of equipment they could be connected to – they aren’t expensive either, and certainly not out of reach of most home theatre enthusiasts.
Both the Dune HD Max 8K and Solo 8K are available now and can be purchased directly from the DuneHD website for $799USD and $499USD respectively.
DRN would like to thank DuneHD for providing the review units. We love it so much that we are giving this one a Pulse Award, congratulations!
