Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater DVD-A / SACD player

Everyone,

What DVD-A and/or SACD player do you own? Pleased with it?

I'll be getting the budget Pioneer DV-563A from Best Buy when I move. It's only $149 and can play all formats. That player is going to last until I get a new tv. When ever that happens, I'll then splurge on something more along the lines of the Denon 5900. I'm assuming by then, there will be other high quality universal players with digital outputs available at more reasonable prices.

(Come on Rotel...still waiting!)

I have the Sony DVP 755V and like it alot. In my personal opinion, you can hear the difference between SACD and redbook. I got it open box for $189. The video is also exceptional. In the future I would like to get it Matthew Anker modified. That coupled with some Axioms would sound really sweet.

Spiff, whne you the Pioneer, please report back on how it is. I've never been able to hear it or see it in action and would love to know how it performs, both in audio and in video.

i have a basic onkyo dv-s555. it has very fast load times, but no dvd-a or sacd support.

guess you're not getting your 2900? i suppose i'd rather get a new townhouse too, and wait for the 5900. oooo....DVI too.

BTW, I have the Denon 2200. Love it. Just wish I could find discrete remote codes so it'd be easier to switch between 2 channel and multichannel modes.

I've got a Pioneer DV-563A. Great for the price, but I wish it had a bit more flexibility with its bass management.

I also have the 563. Though some criticize the unit's picture quality and bass management, to me movies look good and DVD-A and SACD playback sounds awesome. In fact, right now I am listening to the "In Absentia" DVD-A by Porcupine Tree. If you like Radiohead, Pink Floyd, or other similar bands you need to listen to Porcupine tree. They're the best band I know of that nobody's heard of.

That said, I think the 563 is a no brainer for the price. There simply are not that many universal players on the market, and most of them are $600+. I plan to keep it until something better comes out at a reasonable price point. That doesn't keep me from jonesing for a Denon 2900, however.

Mark

Hey Mark....keep plugging away for PT. We'll make some more Porcupine Tree fans around here yet. *wink*

Hell, I'd like to give Porcupine tree a chance -- but no-one online seems to carry In Absentia on DVDA! I ordered it from Buy.com, and they still haven't gotten it in yet.

On topic, I use the Pioneer DV-563A as my SACD/DVDA player. It's a nice budget player.

I'm still on the waitlist for the 2900, but I may just throw it up on Ebay or audiogon when it arrives. I'm already getting some hassle for getting the 563A. If I got the 2900 and then wanted another new DVD player when we got a TV, it could cause some major "marital" strife. Roger doesn't understand upgrading. Yeah, my current DVD player is only a year old, and works just fine - but it won't play SACD's. His response? "So?"

*sigh*

And I thought a fascination for electronic devices was part of the Y chromosome!

My wife doesn't understand why I had to replace a perfectly good DVD player with the 563. It's hard to make her understand that I simply cannot allow "Dark Side of the Moon" to exist in a format I cannot play. There's no way I could ever explain my lust for a 2900 to her.

Let us know what you think after you get the 563. I don't think it's the holy grail of DVD players, but I also don't think it's as bad as some have said.

Mark

You can listen to snippets of each song from In Absentia at Walmart's new music store. I like Pink Floyd and Radiohead, but not what I heard of Porcupine Tree.

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My wife doesn't understand why I had to replace a perfectly good DVD player with the 563. It's hard to make her understand that I simply cannot allow "Dark Side of the Moon" to exist in a format I cannot play. There's no way I could ever explain my lust for a 2900 to her.

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Are you sure you're not speaking about Roger? That's the exact boat I'm in right now. LOL!

HA! I'll have the same problem convincing the wife to get HD D*Tivo...

We watched Nemo and NCAA in HD this weekend on our 42" plasma. She was definitely impressed. But then she told my friend that she'd be fine w/ D*Tivo on a 13" tv.

sigh, the technofile's greatest arch enemy, the indifferent "SO".

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I simply cannot allow "Dark Side of the Moon" to exist in a format I cannot play.

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That's exactly why I got an SACD player too. My wife was understanding, though... she knew what she was getting herself into when she married me.

Roger has been really great with all my purchases over the past year or so. What's driving him nuts now is that I've been wanting to replace things that work just fine. He saw our current DVD player on Ebay the other night and thought I'd lost my mind.

I tried to explain my plan (replace it with the 563 and then get a "real" player when we get a new tv) but he didn't really buy it. After this 563 purchase I think I'm cut off for awhile. At least until we start looking for a new TV. (Thank god he's on board for that!)

fyi...I just noticed my DVD player is up to $81...err, make that $87!. You just gotta love Ebay.

I also have the Pioneer 563. I can't comment on the DVD-A/SACD capabilities as I'm not really into that. But as a straight DVD player it does good for a budget player. PQ is good and it is very easy to set up and navigate. I'm happy with it.

Just my opinion here.

I love my 563a....for how much it costs and what it adds to my system, it was a bargain.

BUT, if your receiver/pre-pro can not do bass management on the 5.1 analog interconnects, I really advise against it. On the 563a, when the speakers are set to small, the crossover point for SACD is 120hz, and for DVD-A is an astronomical 200hz!

The reason for this is because the unit was designed for the HTIB market, and the types of systems that we have put them in.

Why not simply set your speakers to large when using the analog multi-channel functions?

The same reason why you don't do it when just listening in 2.1...or DD5.1 or DTS.

I know Walmart is cheaper than iTunes, but it's still Walmart -- the bane of the entire planet. If you have iTunes installed, use this link:

Porcupine Tree at iTunes Store

I know it's not the best solution, but it's better than a 200hz crossover, no?

Everybody complains about the 200 Hz crossover for DVD-A, but I don't really notice it when I'm playing DVD-A's.

Mark

I have never tried setting the speakers to small on the 563a. I will give it a try and compare when I get the chance.

Am planning to buy a 563 myself, wondering what cables i will need to hook it up with the reciever, am i looking to spend big bucks for the hookup?

Do you want to spend big bucks? If so, then you could. But definately not neccesary.

For DVD's you'll need a digital coax cable or an digital optical cable. For DVD-A and SACD, you'll need six, yep, six analog RCA cables. I wouldn't spend too much on the cables. Doesn't make any sense to spend more on the cables than you do the player. The days of analog cables are numbered anyway. Very soon you'll have one, maybe two cables coming out of your DVD player. One digital video and one digital audio.

btw...picked up the 563a at lunch today. I'll have it hooked up tomorrow.

The days of multiple cables are numbered. I can hardly wait. One cable from player to recevier will be grand. I just wish HDMI would hurry up and be accepted as some sort of standard so all manufacturers would start incorporating them into DVD players, receviers, and display devices.

i have an older onkyo dv-s555 dvd player. i'm still using s-video. i have not made the commitment/jump to hdtv yet.

anyways, i'm wondering if i'll even buy many SACDs/DVD-As if i picked up the pioneer.

wonder if the pioneer would be any better PQ or SQ wise than my onkyo?

spiffnme, thnx for the detail, 6 rca cables more, man that a lot of clutter, i will b getting mine sometime soon and enjoy urs....hoping to hear ur thoughts.....

without the 6 analog cables, how would one enjoy 6 channel output?

Maybe I'm just a little slow, but why can't they use digital coax or optical for the SACD or DVD-A format? It seems silly to be using 6 RCA cables when the technology is available for 1 cable.

The amount of data required for high resolution multichannel output is too great for the standard Digital optical or coaxial link. Therefore, until a faster digital link is accepted, the high rez mixes must be decoded by the player, and sent via analog to the receiver. Denon has such a link ready to go, but its use has not yet been approved by the digital copyright police.

Mark

Is the Denon one yet another relabeling of Firewire? I know that Firewire is also under consideration for this purpose. If Sushi were still around, I'm sure he'd be happy to tell us about it (although he'd insist on calling it i.LINK.

The cable companies must be scared. Soon we'll only have two digital cables coming out of the back of our players. One for video and one for audio. Heck, someday that'll probably also be replaced by only one. Hey...maybe even wireless! Can you imagine that! An entire A/V system with NO wires. That would be cool.

Anyway...to get back on track a bit. I grabbed the 563a at lunch yesterday. Hooked it up last night at about midnight and got it all set up. (Had a heck of a time figuring out why it wasn't playing back the 5.1 mix)...anyways haven't really had a chance to give it a good listen, but so far so good. Billy Joel sounded incredible.

spiff....did you have the 563a set for large or small speakers?

Getting SACDs to play 5.1 was a stumper....until I read the manual.

You read the manual? I bet you stop and ask for directions when you're lost too, don't you?

Right now the speakers are set for small, and it sounded pretty darn good. I haven't had a chance to play with anything yet.

It was a last resort. DVD-A's were playing in 5 channel...but not SACDs....I was desperate!

I have all my speakers set to small, and I think SACD's and DVD-A's sound fantastic on my 563. I never get the impression that the bass is all coming from the corner of the room where my Hsu is. I've been tempted to get an ICBM (even bid on one on Ebay), but right now I'm mostly blown away with my multichannel audio. It's going to get even better when my M2's come.

Mark

Kos, the problem isn't technological, it's legal. Regular 75 ohm coaxial cable has no problem with the slightly higher bit data transfer rates involved in DVD-A and SACD as compared to CD. The problem is copyrights and efforts to provide copy protection for them. The fear, whether paranoid or realistic, is that if the DVD-A or SACD digital data could be fed into recorders using standard connections, there would be almost unlimited piracy. Therefore the data comes out through only analog outputs, except where special connections and special equipment(not including recorders)are used.

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Is the Denon one yet another relabeling of Firewire? I know that Firewire is also under consideration for this purpose.

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Ken, I believe you're correct (at least if you're not, there's an uncanny resemblance between firewire and Denon Link that someone needs to explain. There's some more info here: 1394 Trade Association. Also some interesting articles comparing Firewire to DVI here.

spiff,
I have set my speakers to large in the dvda-p that i own. With my sub crossover already setup for use at 50Hz with my mains, this works perfect.
Hence, as much as some like to push the "80Hz and speakers to small" guideline on some ppl, it creates this bass management issue with the dvda or sacd players. This problem of bass management is non-existent for my setup since i do not use the 80Hz point in the Onkyo.

Incidentally, i also had to tinker with the dvda-p settings until the right combination came to be such that all channels were firing. The manual was useless in this regard.

I listened to a bit more tonight...more of the Billy Joel disk and the first few tracks of Peter Gabriel's "Up" cd. Good stuff.

I had a bit of a scare watching a dvd tonight though. Part of the way through 'The Wedding Singer' the disc started to freeze up. I took the disc out and cleaned it and it played fine the rest of the way through, but it wasn't very dirty at all. I had never had that problem with my 656a. Let's hope that's not a bad omen.

Not to freak you out too much, but there have been lots of threads going around about playback problems with the 563. I hadn't really experienced playback problems with mine, but I returned it pretty quickly for the Denon 2200 anyway. But I think there have been discussions of hopes for a firmware fix from Pioneer. Good luck--the 563 is a nice player for the price.

Chess, on DVD-A, what happens with the bass for your VP-150 and QS-8s? Are they set to large also, or do you set them (and can you set them) variably at a higher level crossover with your DVD-A players bass mgt? Where do you set the bass mgt -- receiver, player, other?

Birdman

Austinbman,
To answer your first question, yes, i believe i can set all the speakers in my dvda-p to 'large' such that its internal crossover is not used at all. I think the crossover used in my dvda-p is 120Hz but i would have to double check.

I believe it was soncfox who once picked up on a possible drawback of setting up the speakers in this fashion. What happens to the surrounds and centre channel? I believe the question had basically asked, "In using a 50Hz crossover on the subwoofer with the mains set to large, is there a dropout in the frequency response then between the subwoofer and centre and surround channels?"
The answer is yes, of course.
Does this matter?
No, it does not.
There are two reasons why not using an 80Hz receiver cross (or the dvda-p crossover) does not matter.
First, conside the rolloff point of frequency response for most centre channels and surround speakers. Let us take the VP150 and QS8s as an example (and incidentally they are what i own). The VP150 has a rolloff above 80Hz (Axiom specs 85hz) as do the QS8s ( 95Hz). Using an 80Hz crossover from the receiver with these speakers set to small or large, would not change much of anything. Both units are down in dB by the point 80Hz is reached anyway. Setting one's receiver to handle the crossover at 80Hz and allowing the subwoofer to start picking up sound around that range will still result in a 'dropout' with a frequency sweep.

Second, why would anyone want their centre channel and surround speakers to perform bass duties under the 80Hz mark? These speakers were not designed for such a purpose and i highly doubt any sound mixes alot of those bass notes in that range specifically for the centre or surrounds to playback. That is what your subwoofer and main speakers are supposed to handle. If someone ever tries (and i have) using a lower frequency tone with their VP150 or QS8 you will see what i mean.

In playing around with frequency sweeps with all channels driven (or listening to music), there is no audible loss or dropout across the 100Hz and less range with the way my system is setup. INDIVIDUALLY if you listen to each speaker vs. the sub and depending on crossover settings, you may always have a hole in the range if you use any crossover under the speaker's lower frequency limit.
So for those concerned about the dvda-p bass management, if you own towers and you can change the dvda-p speaker settings to large, then that is the way i would recommend to go. Forget about the limited 120Hz or up cross those things have. A subwoofer playing bass up that high to me sounds like someone thumping a 15' drum under water.

I have a Denon 2900 and love it! It's not only incredible for DVD-A and SACD, but redbook CDs sound VERY good. The video is also amazing on my HDTV that's been ISF calibrated.

David

That's really cool. Bass mgt has been holding me back on getting a cheap DVD-A (panasonic f95) or universal (the pioneer 563a), but I like this solution. Very informative post, and argued with the precise reasoning of a 12th century monastic discussing scholastic philosophy.

Birdman