Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Do I even need a CD player?..and "bad first exp."

I just read a post on another forum that mentioned that exact thing Cooper, that the Panny's no longer use the Faroudja chip. I'm in no panic to do anything, maybe not even for 6 months or so. Probably best to wait a bit anyways to see where the DVI/HDMI/Firewire thing shakes out. Fun thing is my budget is anywhere between $25 and $2500, I just have to justify the $2500 to myself.

thanks for the insight
Scott

This thread started as a discussion on whether I'll need a CD player as well as a DVD or not. It looks like if I want really fine audio I should plan on it. That's fair enough. The wife surprisingly agreed.

Having said that, I've been researching DVD players and my hope is to get a BenQ PE8700 some time next year (they'll presumably be even cheaper then). It supports DVI input which leads me to believe that I'll probably want a DVD player that also supports this. I've read of different drawbacks to both Samsungs DVI player and the Bravo D1. The denon 5900 has just come out and although users seem to be impressed I can't see how I could possibly pass a DVD player by the wife that costs more than $500. Does anyone have any opinions on any of these players? I'm assuming a "few" more alternatives with DVI support will be arriving on the market, right?

Thanks,

Nick

Nick, sorry about the hijack. You could always tell your wife spending $2000 isn't bad when it could be $500 each for seperate DVD, CD, DVD-Audio Players. And the former is all in one box!

Yeah...I think the idea is that if you drop $2000 on a player, you WON'T also be buying a separate CD player.

Besides...msrp is for suckers. Soon enough the 5900's will show up on the authorized "b-stock" sellers sites. You'll probably be able to get one for $1400 with full factory warantee.

(visit the Denon site for a list of authorized b-stock sellers)

Oh..I didn't mean to infer that I had a problem with the thread getting hijacked. I was more just summarizing where this discussion started and where I was at now.

So the 5900 is the sort of player that would stand alone for both CD & DVD? I hadn't come to that conclusion yet...I just knew that it had DVI support and if I get the BenQ PE8700 that would probably be worth having. I figured I'd still have to get a CD player of some sort.

I've read quite a few user impressions of the 5900 but no reviews yet. Anyone here got one and have any feeback for CD or DVI DVD performance? Also for that matter component DVD performance. At this rate I might not be getting the projected for a while

-Nick

Nick,
I haven't found any pro. reviews yet, lots on the 2900 though. This one's pretty recent.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article.asp?section_id=3&article_id=493

What I have heard/read from owners though sounds like the 5900 is the cream of the crop right now.

I guess I feel like my hands are a bit tied right now because we'd talked about getting the DVD player ahead of the other things as it would be the easiest thing to enjoy without the other equipment assuming I don't have 10-12k laying around for everything. Unfortunately I've only seen 3 relatively "mainstream" players that support DVI which from what I've seen is a nice improvement. The 5900, the samsung 931 and the Bravo D1. I guess as we get closer to the holidays when we might "give it" to ourselves there may be other options. Anyone heard of any other reputable places that are working to impliment this technology?

Thanks for the link to the article...it was helpful.

-Nick

I don't know what DVI & firewire support is being planned in future models, but I would expect them to take at least another year to trickle down to more players. I'm not personally obsessed with DVI, as I have a progressive scan TV using component 480p, and an LCD computer screen using analog VGA. Both are excellent.

Where I see a greater potential advantage is in a high-resolution digital audio connection, like firewire. This would allow for enormous simplification by sending all the bass management, etc. to the receiver. But there is always some new technology on the horizon; by the time everyone has firewire & DVI, we'll be looking ahead to HD-DVD or something else.

Because of the continual feature-obselecense of these products, I think it's a good idea to stay away from top-of-the-line. Get a Denon 2200 or 2900 today, and by the time you get a nice firewire receiver and a DVI HDTV, you can pick up a cheap DVD that is purely a digital transport. Besides, if you jump straight into the top-of-the-line, you won't have much to upgrade to! Once you live with a low to midrange unit for a year or two, you can form an opinion about what improvements you desire.

-Cooper

That's probably a good suggestion...I just figured if the plan was to get a DVI compatible projector, I wouldn't want to shortchange the player. But as you say there will probably be other options in due time. And it's not like the PE8700 doesn't have component input. I'll have to reread the reviews and boards and see if I find opinions based on that input.

-Nick

hey guys
fyi, here's the link to a list of all Firewire compliant components:

http://www.1394ta.org/About/products/consumer_products.html

I tried to get a complete list of DVI components, but to no avail.

Scott