Summary:
I have been using my DVD a-160 for over a month now and is very happy with the sound of this machine,in fact i have shelved my Musical Fidelity cd player for this baby.I have to admit though the Panasonic doesnt quite match the MF's ability to reproduce female vocals in a very natural way.I think DVD has a big advantage over older audio only cd players on the basis of DVD's superior dac chipsets,to quote a popular hifi magazine " the dac of a DVD player are running in an enhanced mode even while playing ordinary 44/16 encoded discs ".Picture quality is exelent especially on DVDs,buy the way take the manufacturer's advice to connect its video output directly to your TV and not daisy chaining it to a VCR.My only gripe is unlike Pioneer machines it does not have a manual video color system selector. Sure its PAL/NTSC compatible,but it outputs the color system of the disk its playing,so you need a multi systen tv,too bad mine is a NTSC only.
I got mine for $340,although during my visit to the dealer one month later after i got my machine,they were selling it for $20 less.Oh well.... good thing iam happy with the Panasonic's performance.I will go back to the shop after 2 months and maybe it can already be had for $40 less,then i'll be realy sore....
If you intend to use this machine extensively for music,you got yourself an ace.

Strengths:
detailed , good soundstaging

Weaknesses:
no user selectable color system output