Best budget-oriented single disc DVD/DVD-A/SACD/CD player? (1 Viewer)

[KyleT]

Sorry guys... I've been out of the loop for quite a while.

Well I've got a really nice pair of Polk LSi15s, an SVS 20-39+ (I think that's what it's called, it's the "plus" version of the tube tuned to 20 hz), a pretty nice widescreen Philips CRT TV, and a Rotel 2-channel amp for those LSis.

Great setup, right?

Well almost great. My current DVD player is my playstation 2. I just bought a house, and until my fiance starts working, my budget doesn't have anywhere near the flexibility it once did. So honestly I was just going to keep using my playstation 2 as my DVD player until funds allowed.

Well now the darn thing won't play DVDs. It will still play games fine, but no DVDs. I suspect it's just a misaligned or dirty laser, and I've fixed PS2s for friends in the past. But realistically I think I'd rather just use this as an excuse to buy a nicer, but still inexpensive dedicated DVD player.

I've seen plenty of DVD players recently that also play DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD in the 100-200 dollar range. And I suspect if I've seen them for this price at Best Buy, I could find them for even less $$ on the 'net.

I don't mind paying up to 200 or maybe even 250 dollars for a player (internet pricing, not retail pricing) if it's truely going to give me a much better/more reliable player. But if I can get something perfectly nice and capable that may just be missing that extra 10% of quality that a player 3 times as expensive would give me, at this point I'd rather save my money.

Oh, and my TV has component inputs as well as VGA inputs, but no DVI/HDMI inputs.

 

[KyleT]

Oh and by the way, will I get a better picture sending my DVD player through VGA output than I will through component cables? My TV is HDTV capable if that makes any difference.

 

[Rob Kramer]

What size phillips? If only 30 or 32", then an upscaling player is probably not really that important.

Does your rotel have MC inputs?

 

[KyleT]

MC? It's just a Rotel 2 channel amp (RMB 1095). It has RCA inputs and balanced XLR inputs, that's it.

It's a 30" widescreen CRT (flat)... the one they sell at Costco for like 700 bucks (although back when I bought it, it was 888 at Costco )

Anyhow... what about the new Panasonic DVD-S97?

That's a little on the high side of the price scale, but if it's worth the extra money, I don't mind. Only thing that seems to suck about it is they refuse to support SACD since their beloved DVD-A is a competing format.

 

[Phil A]

I guess Onkyo has a new player that is $399 list? Toshiba has a $180 list model. Samsung has a player in this range but just upconverts over DVI and they have one for a bit more that has HDMI too I believe. I'm sure by CES in Jan. there will be more announcements.

 

[Rob Kramer]

Are you using a pre-prosessor that can handle multi-channel (5.1) inputs?

 

[Rob Kramer]

Oh, never-mind. I realized that you are just looking to do 2-channel SACD/DVD-A.


Are you sure that you even want to bother with SACD/DVD-A? To me, the benefit of those formats is the true multi-channel surround mix - which you wont be using. And yes, the 2-channel mixes are of a higher quality, but at the price range you are looking at, I dont think you will hear a bit of difference. The sound may even be worse.

My opinion.

 

[Phil A]

Rob, I have multi-channel in all my systems (3 of them) from ultra high end to upper mid-fi to entry level high end and I still prefer 2-channel on 85% of the stuff. The problem as you noted is that most cheap universal players released to date or even DVD-A/DVD-V players have not been particular good at everything, especially CD playback. Many budget (to even +$2k) DVD-V players used the video bitstream (48k) to transmit PCM for CDs which combined with the rest of its circuitry may not be ideal for CD playback. I have not listened to many of the recent models out within the last 6 mos. I did buy a Sony SCD-C2000ES CD/SACD changer for the basement (have a separate DVD-A player already) and it is very good on SACD and good on CD especially given the $399 list price. Of course that gives no DVD-A. At this point it is only a couple of mos. to CES and it might be worth it just to see what is announced before buying something.

 

[Rob Kramer]

 

[LanceJ]

One company not wanting to support another company's competing format sounds perfectly reasonable to me. On highfidelityreview.com a few months ago a Panasonic rep was quoted as saying that Panasonic would never build a sacd-capable player. And I wouldn't be surprized in the least if Sony shares the same thinking.

I agree.

And much of the "improved" sound of stereo sacd/dvd-audio releases may actually be coming from the remastering effort that so many of those titles receive......and which also quite often seem to end up appearing on the CD version a few months later.

 

[Kenny_H]

The Pioneer DV-578A (single disc, $199.00 list) the Toshiba SD-4960 (single disc $199.00 list) and Onkyo DV-CP802 (6-disc $499.00 list) are all quick reviewed in the November 2004 issue of HOME THEATER magazine. Check for comments on them in the forum and see if either of them might fit your needs. Hope this helps.