kcaudiophile

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Price Paid:  $100.00 from eBay

Summary:
I purchased this unit to be able to play DVD-Audio discs and hopefully gain an improvement in sound quality over my Philips 795SA player. I find it's better overall for standard CD playback, DVD-Video and SACD. This isn't surprising as it retailed ($1200) for twice the price of the Philips. CD sound is exceptional within the limitations of the format - high level of detail and resolution. SACD playback is excellent - a noticeable improvement over the Philips - warm rich and satisfying. DVD-Audio perfomance is good, but not up to SACD in my opinion. This may be due to my prefering the sound quality of the SACD format overall. This unit doesn't support the highest DVD-Audio sampling rates which is rather disappointing. I find DVD-Audio discs vary greatly in sound quality, though almost always best their CD counterparts. Video quality is very good. All in all I couldn't have done better for the low price I paid for this piece of equipment. Recommended.

Strengths:
Plays most formats. Sound quality is very good. Highly customizable.

Weaknesses:
Doesn't playback photo CD's. Doesn't support the highest resolution DVD-Audio discs, but downsamples them to 96k. Doesn't display "artist/song title" information on discs coded with the info.

Similar Products Used:
Toshiba SD-K760, Phillips DVD 795SA

Price Paid:  $900.00 from Buzz Shop 09/02

Summary:
I've been using this player for about 4-5 months now. I've really enjoyed it. I have owned a Pioneer 414 DVD player, which broke down multiple times and then I purchased an Onkyo DVD player, which broke down 3 months after use. I then purchased a Denon 2700. Which worked great for about 10 months and then the video would start to skip and ultimatly quite working. So as you can see, I've owned quite a few of them. I don't know whats wrong, I don't use them out of normal bounds. I just happen to get the lemons...all 3 times. Anyways, I was a little hesitant to buy another Pioneer product because I had had so many problems with the 414 after a year of use. But I read the reviews on the 47-A and (so far) am quite happy with this player. The video quality is excellent much better than any of the others. The audio quality is also very impressive. SACD and DVD-A sound amazing compaired to the shotty HDCD standard that Denon keeps trying to push on their players. Don't get me wrong HDCD sounds a little bit better than regular CD's. But SACD sounds soooooo much better. Played on the right equipment of course. The problem is that SACD has taken a while to get off the ground, but the fact that they are releasing Dark Side of the Moon on SACD is a good sign that SACD might become more of the norm. Also a lot of labels are releasing Hi-breds so that will also help it's acceptance. To be honest I've only listened to a few DVD-A's and they are impressive as well. BUT I am a firm believer in listening in 2 channel stereo for song recordings that were originaly recorded in 2 channel, I had a hard time listening to the revamped Billy Joel 52nd Street in 5.1 sound when it wasn't recorded that way to begin with. But maybe some of the newer artists might sound alright if they record in 5.1 to start with. Video Quality is excellent. Episode II Attack of the clones looks beautiful. My only complaint about the playback of the 47-A player is that compaired to the other players I've owned, this player seems to take a little bit longer when switching layers on Dual layered disc's. The pause just seems longer then the previous DVD-Player models I have owned. Maybe a firmware update might fix that. Another thing that I must talk about and others have also is the build quality. Pioneer sells it as "Elite", which the insides are, the outsides, however, are not. It's very light and feels cheaply built compaired to the Denon 2700 I had owned. The Denon was heavy and the build quality was very good. The pioneer 47-A doesn't look very "Elite" on the outside. But at the same time, are you buying this for Video/Audio quality or are you buying this for looks. It doesn't look ugly, it just doesn't look/feel like a $1000 dollars worth. I cannot comment much on the use of the remote because as soon as I recieved the 47-A. I programed all functions into my Marantz RC2000 MKII remote. Overall I would highly recommend this player. It's quick on the start-up and it is also quiet. Plus you can find it for about $700 bucks if you look at the right places.

Strengths:
Video and Sound quality are beautiful. SACD Excellent. 2 Year Warranty (See review above)

Weaknesses:
Build quility, not the worst looking thing, but looks pretty close to pioneer's cheaper models, execpt that it has the word "Elite" on it. But again, are you buying this for looks/feel or for Video quality and Sound and usage. It usually just sits in the cabinet so it's not like it's getting packed around anywhere.

Similar Products Used:
Pioneer 414, Onkyo 406C, Denon 2700

Price Paid:  $575.00 from ebay

Summary:
I owned it for about a month and a half. The unit broke down twice while I owned it. The board that the power supply is made out of is not glass eopxy and is not well supported. it warps and casued a trace to break in shipment. The second failure was due to a cold solder joint on the jack connections. I would compare build quality to any low end dvd player. But the comparable sony, marantz, and onkyo put this thing to shame. Putting the horrific build quality aside, the unit performed well. It was no match for a referecnce cd transport and a seperate dac but it was good. After demoing sacd and dvd-a on a $150,000.00 system I have concluded that I am not impressed with either and will stick to upsampling cd's. The dacs are smooth but not at the default settings. I found that mode 2 produced the most pleasing overall sound. And these settings don't effect hi res playback. The standard modes and other dac options produced a rough sound more typical of mid range cd players. If your looking for home theater I would say that it is an excelent piece, but if you are looking to delve into the realm of hi rez audio then I would say stay away and stick with cd's. Buy a good used upsampling dac instead.

Strengths:
Plays both DVD-A and SACD, Precise Video adjustments, Extensive setup options. Good remote.

Weaknesses:
Build Quality!!!! Marginal sound

Similar Products Used:
assorted cd players, dac's, etc..

Price Paid:  $385.00

Summary:
This is a review of the DV-45A but they haven't started that yet so I'm putting it here. First the build quality isn't the greatest but then I'm beginning to think that maybe these things don't have to weigh 20#'s. Anyway this doesn't way much, if that counts for anything. The important thing for me was the audio. My setup is a simple two channel stereo system and a TV. The sound from this system in DVD Audio is fantastic but then you'd expect that. What surprised me was how much better it was using standard CD's The openness, clarity and slam were really amazing. Much improved soundstage and lots of detail. The video looked good too.

Strengths:
The sound, it's something else.

Weaknesses:
Build quality. Geez Pioneer, throw some metal in there somewhere.

Similar Products Used:
Arcam, Pansonic, Marantz, Adcom, Cambridge etc, etc

Price Paid:  $900.00 from 9/6/2002

Summary:
Excellent sound and video, easy to setup. I suggest you use the Leggato option and the hi-bit for much fuller sound. Overall this was a great addition to my Adcom system.

Strengths:
Like I said easy to use excellent quality all around, very configurable.

Weaknesses:
Remote's joy stick is hard to use if you have big fingers. Disk tray is a little flimsy.

Similar Products Used:
Marantz vc5200