pangl

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5, 2.00 votes

Price Paid:  $950.00 from eBay

Summary:
This product frankly is a complete joke in terms of value. Want proof? An $110 Pioneer SACD/DVD universal player (the one recently revised by TAS) has better VIDEO performance than this. On the audio side, it actually performs quite well, out-dueling many mid-price audiophile transports (old Muse and mid-range Meridian, for example) in certain area. However......as an pure transport, Sony XA777Es ($1600 used) simply better in every way, and ditto Toshiba SD9200($350 used). In the end, an level2 modded Sony DV7700 ($175 in Audiogon) kicked this DaViD out of my house. The DaViD does look more high-end than many transports that I owned before.

Strengths:
Strengths: Good look. Decent sound quality as an transport.

Weaknesses:
Video performance is a joke, but thank God it is better than the Chinese made DVD players. Audio performance does not justify its costly price tag - I feel bad for those who purchased it new from dealer. (I actually feel like an idiot, paying $950 for an used unit!) Of course, there is other super-overpriced transports out there (say, SF Transport 3), preventing me from giving this unit an '1' value rating.

Similar Products Used:
Sonic Frontiers Transport 3; SF SFT-1; Pioneer DV09; various Meridian; Muse 8; Sony XA777ES; Toshiba SD9200; etc

Price Paid:  $4500.00 from Woodbridge Stereo

Summary:
I had one for 2 years and it worked 98% of the time. However,it stops working so I sent it back, cost $175, plus $24 shipping, six weeks later it's back, but no explainations to the costs, and why so much for such an expensive product, that failed!

Strengths:
Great sound, nice picture

Weaknesses:
BREAKS!

Similar Products Used:
Sony DVP 7000, 90% of the David for 10% cost

Summary:
I own a Sony DVP-S7700 and was having trouble with the CD sound quality through my Theta Casa Nova Processor (Amp is Gryphon Tabu 3/100). So my kind dealer lent me a David for 1 week. There was not much difference at first using the digital RCA connection (a little purer with less jitter could be distinguished) but the apocalypse happened when I connected the David to the Casa Nova using a Silway Pro II XLR digital cable via the AES/EBU port. So smooth. So much sound stage, width, depth and height. Closing your eyes you could tell how large the room was that the recording was made in and how far away, relative to each other, the instruments were. This is reference quality. One could be forgiven for wetting ones pants at this quality!

I am currently trialling a Mark Levinson 31.5 CD transport and whilst this is very good and very similar in sound quality to the David, the magic that happened between Theta Products using the Silway Pro II cable is not quite there. I think this says more about the synergy Theta gets between its products rather than the quality of the ML 31.5.

The David's video performance is not as good on my Lowe 16:9 TV as the Sony DVP-S7700 using S-Video as a direct comparison (I normally use RGB connection via SCART cable on Sony but David doesn't know about SCART). My dealer didn't believe his eyes so he swapped the David with another and the same thing. So 2 out of 2 Theta Davids failed to beat the Sony's video performance. Sony DVP-S7700 is 20% of the price of the David in Australia...go figure.

Since I have placed this review in the CD Player category my rating of the David is based on its CD transport function. The DVD side would be 4.9 stars for the video. Meaning excellent in itself but the video from the DVP-S7700 is more stable, sharper and less noisy than the David.

Summary:
Robert, a forum like this is all about being able to express your views, and I do not wish to come across as though you don't have that right. But I do wish to respectfully add my view that you are in fact missing something. SGHT says this unit is the only one on the market which has ever received perfect scores in their bench tests. If you think something else is better, then your Theta is set up wrong, or you don't really know what your test disk is supposed to look like. I love mine, but it is way expensive. 5 speakers for performance, but only 4 for price/performance...

Summary:
Am I missing something? This unit cost more than twice what a Pioneer Elite DV 09 costs... yet, Its video quality is significantly worse. As a CD transport, the DaViD may have a *slight* edge, but not a 2500.00 dollar edge. Save yourself some money, buy a Dv 09 for 2k. You'll get a better player, and have lots of money left over for DVD's, cables... even a better DAC if you can't live with the Pioneer's on-board (which is great in its own right). I'm not saying this is a bad product... just a nonsensical one, aimed at people who just can't bear to buy something from an evil, "mass market" company like pioneer and can't live without a "boutique" company's marquee. Rip-off ville here, gents.