My little brother wanted a dvd player for christmas, so I thought, hmm upgrade, give him mine and buy a nicer one for myself. I'd like to have dvd video, dvd-audio and sacd all in one unit. Since I have an onkyo 797 I lean to the matching onkyo sp800 i think its called. But I'd like to hear some input on that unit or similar units. Thanks, Dave.

2nd hand dvd player as a present?

Save your money and get one of the Denon's. The 2200, 2900, and especially 5900 are all amazing DVD players.

The 5900 is likely the best DVD playere under $2000 today.

$2000 for a DVD player? ouch!

The 5900 is on my wish list too. I'm reserving full judgement till audioholics gives it the once over, but it looks like a phenominal unit for everything.

Feedback as expected has been mixed on the avs forum. Those that like it love it and the ones that don't took it back

-Nick

At that price, if you don't love it but keep it anyway, you either don't value your money or you have too much of it.

Be a nice brother and get him the Pioneer DVD 563A. It's only $180 (max) and you can listen to all of his DVD/A and SACD then go get one for yourself.

For $180 you get all 3 formats at a great price. It's definately not a Denon, but mine sounds pretty damn good!

In terms of audio, what does a good dvd player compared to the worst one? I thought it would read digital and output digital to the receiver to decode. What part does a good dvd player contribute to?

It depends on how you handle your audio. If you send it to the receiver from the DVD or CD player via a digital input (coaxial or optical) then yes, it only really matters how good the DAC's (digital-analog converters) are in the receiver. That's because the receiver will receive the media digitally, convert it to analog, and then output it to the speakers.

However...if you have a high quality CD or DVD player with better DAC's than your receiver and you pass along the signal to the receiver via analog cables (RCA), the receiver would basically act as a passthrough and send your audio signal untouched to the speakers.

This is my understanding, and I believe it to be correct. If you still don't get it, perhaps someone else will be able to explain it more clearly or I'd be happy to try again. Either that or I'm wrong and someone will tell us that too!

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Be a nice brother and get him the Pioneer DVD 563A.

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I have to second this. The 563-A is not audiophile quality (at least that's what the audiophiles say), but it plays everything and sounds pretty darn good to my ears in all formats.

Mark