Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners SACD/DVD-A player...

OK. I want to get a good SACD/DVD-A disc player. What I'm on the fence about the most at the moment is whether to go all out and get a "top shelf" player - one with a good HDTV upscaler and digital video output, as Onkyo, Denon, and others make... or whether to not focus on the DVD (video) aspects much at all.

Part of me wants to get a great DVD upscaler; I bought the consumer-grade Toshiba upscaling DVD player, and it has been utterly unsatisfactory - the picture through the HDMI output looks worse than my Malata region-free DVD player with component outputs (and it doesn't upscale!).

At the same time, part of me thinks I should save my money when it comes to the DVD-video aspects - HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are on the horizon, and I imagine the good players for those systems will have strong HD upscalers for playing standard DVD vidoeo content. I can live with component non-upscaled for a year, right?

So... what do you all think? Is it worth getting a universal player, and pay some more for a good HD upscaler, or is it better to find a less pricy machine which just does a great job with DVD-Audio and SACD, and I can just leave upscaling alone for the time being?

Suggesting particular models or options would be most helpful!

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I'd go for a good universal now, I have the Denon 2200. The more recent ones w/ DVI would be good.

Also, if you don't have an HDTV display, it's not really worth it, videowise.

This is coming from a guy who still owns his barely used minidisc player, laser player, and who also considered buying DAT and that Philips alternative that was on standard cassette format...

For me, the whole HD DVD/Blu Ray thing is the Beta vs VHS debate all over again. Our family had betamax growing up, and it SUCKED to go to the video store... Wait till the format wars are over.

I do have an HDTV display... but I was on the Beta side fo the format wars as a kid, too... every time I went to the video store and grabbed the beta version of some film, the guy would ask "you grabbed the Beta version - are you SURE that's what you want?!??" Ugh.

I honestly don't think blu-ray vs HDDVD is going to be the next VHS vs Beta. Players will be made that will play both. Much like nearly all uni-player play both DVD-A and SACD. It just doesn't make sense for a company to pigeon-hole itself to only one format.

That being said, I wouldn't go all out on a player right now, unless dumping another $1000+ in a year or two is ok with you.

You're in the same boat many, many others of us are. There are so many really great players available right now, but is now really the right time to spend that kind of money on a player? Personally as much as I'd love to buy now, I'm going to wait for the "ultimate" player. Hopefully (fingers crossed) we'll be getting a nice new HDTV in 2005. When we do, I'll likely purchase a used Denon player (right now my eye is looking a a used 2900, but who knows what it'll end up being by the time we get a new tv.) That'll keep me pretty happy until a killer HD-DVD/Blu-Ray machine arrives.

The disappointing thing is that this whole thing will end up costing the consumer more money than is necessary. If the equipment will play both formats, it makes the number of parts, circuits, complexity, etc. more numerous and more expensive. From a personal standpoint, I find it repugnant that I need to spend money because these people can't figure out how to sit down and resolve this. issue.

A friend is offering me his Denon 3910 at a good price (and I've been able to audition it, so I know it works). So I'll probably do that.

Anyone here know anything about region codes or region hacks for making it multi-region (or where I can find such info if not here)? I'd like to only have 1 DVD player in my setup... and as much as I like the picture I get with my Malata region-free player, it has an annoying remote and only a hard power switch. So if I can cut it loose...

Thanks for your opinions, all!

Oh, wait... game's on!