Pioneer DV-563A Review (1 Viewer)

[Brian L]

OK, excuse my ignorance here, but do I have to worry about BM being enabled or not if I'm only doing 2 channels for SACD/DVDA? I haven't noticed any lack of bass with either format.

Nope. For you, life is good (and about 1,000% easier!)

But to be on the safe side, I would make sure the 563 is set for 2 CH, not 5.1 (assuming it has such a setting. The 45A does).

BGL

 

[Jeff O.]

Like Brian said, and, yes it does have the 2 channel setting. The setup is exactly the same as the 45a (with the one exception that I noticed that you could set speaker distance in 1 ft increments rather that 0.5 ft on the 45a).
Jeff

 

[Scott Kriefall]

No big shock that the 563 needs a big boost for the .1 channel. Thats consistent with just about evey uni player known to man.

Has anyone ever determined why this occurs?

Boosting the .1 channel on my receiver or in the player's setup isn't a very good solution. I tried that and the result was too much bass when listening to multichannel material. This "feels" like a design oversight... I can't imagine why anyone would deliberately design a player to behave like this.

The workaround seems to be setting all speakers to LARGE, in effect disabling the player's bass management. With these settings the bass levels seem to be accurate for 2.0 material, even though my SVS sub isn't helping with bass reproduction. Multichannel material still sounds correct, too.

Happily, my Paradigm Active/20s handle bass amazingly well for standmount speakers -- I had to check the SVS sub's woofer more than once to verify that it wasn't moving.

 

[Brian L]

Has anyone ever determined why this occurs?

I have read that it is a byproduct of the requirement for DD sources to have a +10 dB boost in DD ecoders. But, since a uni-player does DD plus DVD-A and SACD which DO NOT need this, it was left out.

That theory does not completely wash though.

If that were the case, and you calibrated with DD test tones (which already asuume there will be a +10 boost in the deocder) you would need to manually dial in the +10. And thats pretty muich what most users find they need to do.

But, that would also imply that when a DVD-A or SACD source were played it would be 10 dB too loud on the sub channel. That is not what happens though.

As I may have posted previously, I used the Chesky Ultimate DVD-A to calibrate my rid. It has DVD-A and DD test tones. I balanced all channels with DVD-A, then I played the DD tones. Although each channel was about 3 dB lower than DVD-A reference, the relative levels were dead nuts.

Why is that? I have NFI. The only thing that makes sense is that the player internally attenuates the .1 channel on DVD-A and SACD.

BGL

 

[Shawn C]

Does this player suffer from the chroma upsampling bug?

It does have a "Chroma Level Adjustment" in the video settings menu....

 

[DavidJ]

Picked this up last night, so I thought I would throw in my two cents worth.

I am pleased with the PQ of the Pioneer and it does not appear to have the chroma bug. It has better PQ than a Panasonic I was borrowing. In the first scene in Monsters, Inc. where it starts out on the toy shelf, the egg-person toy on the far right has an orange band across the middle. This bled on the the Panasonic, but it is steady and sharp on the Pioneer.

For those of you, like myself, who had a hard time figuring out if it would indeed play Monsters (the actual movie) correctly after reading through this thread, the answer is it will. Like others have mentioned, it does have an annoying problem with the improperly flagged "Mike's New Car" on the second disk.

It is so nice to be able to play my DVD-Audio disks again (when my JVC would not work with my new TV I was stuck without DVD-A for a while) and I am enjoying my first SACD title. BTW, where do you guys buy SACD? One of the reasons I wanted a SACD player was because of all the available titles, but they are much harder to find on-line than DVD-A.

Some notes on audio levels:

With the player set to the maximum +6 dB for the sub and my Pioneer VSX-35TX set to -10 on the sub (it does not change the multi-channel input), I get great sound and levels (SPL checked) on DVD-A and SACD. This is with the volume on my sub set at 50%. Unfortunately, this means that the bass level is about 13dB to high for movies (although the T-rex scene in JP is amazing, but my neighbors might complain). I have to lower the sub volume control to about 30% to get the correct levels. Kind of a pain.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

RE: shopping for SACD titles, I generally buy from TowerRecords.com. They seem to have reasonable discounts for the most part and pretty good selection. Amazon.com occasionally yields a good deal, but their selection is abysmal. Haven't tried CD Universe yet, but they might make a good alternative to Tower.

_Man_

 

[Paul.S]

. . . where do you guys buy SACD?

From where I sit, it's scattered and dodgy at b & m retail and most e-tailers (Sony's SACD sites and Warner's own DVDAudioPreview.com are no exceptions).

Music Direct (www.amusicdirect.com) has what appears to be a very strong selection of both SACDs and DVD-As.

Here's a direct link to their SACD selection.

Paul

 

[Brian L]

With the player set to the maximum +6 dB for the sub and my Pioneer VSX-35TX set to -10 on the sub (it does not change the multi-channel input), I get great sound and levels (SPL checked) on DVD-A and SACD. This is with the volume on my sub set at 50%. Unfortunately, this means that the bass level is about 13dB to high for movies (although the T-rex scene in JP is amazing, but my neighbors might complain). I have to lower the sub volume control to about 30% to get the correct levels. Kind of a pain.

Did I read this right...-10 on the sub input of the receiver? I was sort of expecting you would need +10 to get all channels equal.

Perhaps there is something in the receiver I am missing, but I think you can get everything balanced (and not need to tweak the sub between disc types) by going to variable on the player.

Perhaps try balancing the receiver based on the DD via the digital in (with Avia, VE, etc.).

Then set the player back to variable, set the sub at +5 and the mains at -5. You may not get 85 dB across the board, but you should be able to get equal levels between all channels.

If that works, you should not need to tweak the sub between DVD-A/SACD and DD/DTS.

BGL

 

[DavidJ]

Then set the player back to variable, set the sub at +5 and the mains at -5. You may not get 85 dB across the board, but you should be able to get equal levels between all channels.

I will fiddle around with it again soon with this suggestion in mind. It might provide a more resonable work around, but I think the levels will still be off some.

Then again, if I can find someone to buy my 35TX and if I can convince my wife to let me buy the 55TXi I might not have this problem.

 

[DavidJ]

Thanks for the suggestions for SACD stores. I will take a look.

 

[Brian L]

I will fiddle around with it again soon with this suggestion in mind. It might provide a more reasonable work around, but I think the levels will still be off some.

It can get a little tricky. I won't bog down this thread on the subject of low levels of the sub/LFE channel, but if you search on that subject, you will find lots of discussion, most it it from Pioneer 45A users.

As an aside, most of the newer Denon receivers actually have a switchable boot to the sub channel of the 6 CH EXT inputs.

I am helping a friend set-up a Denon 1603 and a 563, and the Denon offers a boost of +5, +10, and +15. Should be pretty easy to integrate.

BGL

 

[Jeff O.]

David,

For SACD, I buy alot from circuitcity.com. They have pretty good prices and free shipping.

Also, on bass levels. When I first posted one of the reasons was because I thought the level was low on the 2 ch Peter Gabriel SACD (low even relative to the 45a, like they were doing BM differently). Last night, set up everything again, balanced analog out using DD tones on Avia and the settings were nearly what I had before, around -4 for mains and +6 for sub. This time I played the PG SACD in the main system with the 45a and then compared to the 563 in the other. For some reason I thought the PG disk had more bass on my main system, but both were nearly identical. So to make a short story long, the BM appears to work at least as good on the 563 as the 45a. This should make you happy Brian when setting up your friends system it should be the same.

All in all, I am really happy with this player. I can listen to Peter and Jorma in bed now.

Jeff

 

[Walt N]

I've been messing around with the 563A some more with more material, and have found that when all speakers are set to "small" with sub "on", SACD bass is indeed being summed and redirected by the BM. DVD-A as well. My Jeff Beck test disc mentioned earlier is apparently just really skimpy on bass overall compared to it's Redbook counterpart, so there was little to redirect and I was fooled.

With the DSOTM SACD, the heartbeat sound at the beginning of the recording was redirected to the subs well and with certainty vs. "large" with sub. This is easy to hear, and with my sub EQ and amplifier both having input meters, it was also easy for me to see. More controls and criteria were involved, but that's the short skinny.

In the Pioneer's menu I've adjusted the subwoofer up by +5, and the main speakers to -5 to get the 10dB boost needed for Hi-Rez MC music. That does work well, and is a better solution than distorting the pre-pro/receiver's subwoofer output which is what I was doing earlier. As also mentioned, if your processor doesn't remember settings for individual inputs you'll really find this useful. Thank you Brian L. for pointing out what should have been obvious, that was a good tip.

I didn't expect this unit to have bass managment for it's analog outputs, but it did. But of course it's still no ICBM.

My speakers are all towers and the center is the size of a dorm fridge, but I'm not going to slide without some bass management. I thought I might, and I have with the old DVD-A player (no BM) and the few DVD-A discs I had where the production team was kind enough to steer most of what needed to go to subs TO them, but now that my M/C music collection has expanded I'm not finding that to be a common courtesy among those who mix.

As you're probably aware, these players with BM tend to have a crossover with a higher freq. than usual and a very shallow slope, but I didn't know how odd that could be. I'm guessing 100-120Hz with a 12-18dB per octave lowpass filter, and my SV's are protesting this change of diet from their usual 80Hz/24dB per octave lowpass signals.

While experimenting with Yes-"Fragile", the opening acoustic guitar on "Roundabout" is directed to the L&R main speakers. With the bass management on, the bottom half of that guitar got redirected to my subs and it created a nasty cacophony of rattling grills and resonance. The subs are two of the first 16-46CS models that Tom and Ron built so while the drivers got upgraded some time ago, they have the old style screw down grills on top and the Sonotube cabinets. I screwed down the grills some more and the rattle is gone, but those large drivers in those thin tubes aren't happy reproducing frequencies that high.

Fortunately I've only had this mega-resonance/rattle occur on two specific guitar notes so far, so apparently these particular waveforms affect the subs like a Memorex recording of Ella Fitzgerald affects a wine glass. That aside though, I feel I'm gaining enough with this player's imperfect bass management to put off the question of "where in the rack I'll put an ICBM". For now anyway.

I'm still convinced that movies look easily as good on my 57" Toshiba RPTV as they did with my Sage/Farouja chipped Panasonic. I don't have any of the infamous test discs for Chroma Bug, but I've been watching for it as described by the "Secrets" article and haven't seen it on anything. Overall the picture is just great. DVD-A and SACD sound terrific and the resolution advantage is as expected. Bass management is OK, not great. Not bad for well under $200.

Give them another generation or two and we'll see selectable crossover frequencies.

Enough hand wringing and chin pinching for now, time to enjoy some music!

 

[Brian L]

While experimenting with Yes-"Fragile", the opening acoustic guitar on "Roundabout" is directed to the L&R main speakers. With the bass management on, the bottom half of that guitar got redirected to my subs and it created a nasty cacophony of rattling grills and resonance.

If that intro caused your sub make nasty noises, I shudder to think what the last bass pedal note of Cans and Brahms will do.

You best have earth quake insurance

Seriously, that is kind of odd. There really ought not be much low bass during the acoustic guitar intro. Kind of surprising that anything is going to the sub even with the expected high crossover.

I will have to take a listen with the 45A/ICBM. FWIW, that disc is one of my favorites...an absolutely killer mix in DVD-A.

BGL

 

[JohnnyCasaba]

Thanks to all for the great info and feedback on this player. I too just recently purchased this universal along with the DSOTM SACD. The MC mix on this disc is great. So today I go out and figure I would pick up a couple of more titles to test out the player. I bought Yes' Fragile and Steely Dan's Everything Must Go on DVD-A. Liked the MC mix on Fragile but not so much on the Steely Dan disc. I also had the opportunity to compare a standard redbook CD of the Steely Disc with the Hi-Rez 2 channel one and to be honest, not sure I hear that much of a difference. Has anyone else done some of these comparisons with other titles?

 

[Walt N]

Brian, what's bothering the SV's is not the bass being asked of them, it's the atypically high and fast cycling frequencies being fed into them by the Pioneer's bass management. The acoustic guitar plays down to 80Hz and the subs are getting way too much of that. They shouldn't get any of it...no big sub is really happy playing in such a potentially resonance inducing frequency range.

OTOH I've been ram-dumping high SPL 16Hz pipe organ pedal notes, deep synth bass, and fusilades of movie explosions into them since day one with nary a problem. This is something entirely new and a product of the high and shallow lowpass filter.

 

[Walt N]

Yes, but differently. You can't really compare an SACD title against it's Redbook counterpart as the hi-rez versions are mixed from scratch, however some discs have an alternate (comparitively) low resolution layer on the same disc. With 5.1 DVD-A vs. DD on the same disc, no BM, and other factors normalized as much as feasible I've been able to easily identify the difference 10 for 10 blind. It's noticable in the upper registers mainly due to inaudibly high frequencies harmonically affecting the waveforms of the audible treble. That's the theory anyway.

I've yet to hear very many of the "popular" differences between SS or digital gear, wires, etc. blind, but this was quite apparent. The advantage over CD is similar to that of vinyl, but with greater dynamic range and no pops. As long as the engineer doesn't d!ck around with the surrounds too much it's pretty nice.

Try comparing that way if you have a disc that will let you, and see what you think.

 

[David Scott]

Any suggestions for buying analog cables without spending as much as the player cost?

 

[Brian L]

Any suggestions for buying analog cables without spending as much as the player cost?

Whoa....GIANT can of worms!

I personally have my whole rack wired with Phoenix Gold low end stuff (sourced from partsexpress.com). A basic 2 meter audio pair is less about $6 or so.

Of course, I also do not believe that a cable can make any difference at all, unless its broken, so I went with stuff that was simply a notch above what comes in the box in terms of build quality (I tend to re-connect stuff in my rack a bit, so I wanted above average build quality).

Now, if you think they do make an audible difference, by all means spend your money, but I can't help you there.

You might also want to post a note over at the tweaks section of he HTF, where folks that believe in that stuff tend to hang out.

BGL