Current SACD/DVD-Audio Capable Players
Updated Nov. 7, 2004
There are some great prices right now on SACD and DVD-Audio players.
Crutchfield has the Pioneer DV-578AS on sale for $129, which is a universal player. If you can live without DVD-Audio, Sony sells a DVD-Video/SACD/CD player for $129 (the DVP-NS775V), or a 5-disc changer version of the same for $149 (the Sony DVP-NC875VB). I prefer the flexibility of the universal player, but the SACD section in the Sony players sounds better at this price point, from what I'm told.
My Pioneer Elite DV45A you can probably get on eBay for about $350 plus shipping (list is $700)--it's a universal player as well.
Onkyo has a universal player at the $299 price point (Onkyo DV-SP502), or you can get better sound with a Denon DVD-2910B for $649, which also has high-quality digital video outputs for all the upcoming HD technologies. Denon's top of the line DVD-3910 is $1299.
All of Crutchfield's SACD and/or DVD-A products are on one page for comparison shopping:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-I6Fg8bqeni4/cgi-bin/ProdGroup.asp?c=13&s=0&g=205250&cc=01&search=
Can't decide on whether to go with SACD or DVD-Audio? A universal player is the best way to hedge your bets. The upcoming DualDisc format will have CD audio on one side, with either DVD-Video or DVD-Audio on the flip side. Universal Music Group is still actively releasing SACD titles (over 150 are planned for the year 2005), as are other labels like Telarc, HeadsUP, dmp Records, and a few classical labels. RCA also just reissued their first batch of classic LiViNg StErEo recordings on SACD. There are hundreds of titles in each format as well, so you can enjoy both with a universal player.
And keep in mind, both SACD and DVD-Audio are capable of both high-resolution stereo sound as well as surround sound. So you can still play these discs on your two-channel system today, and explore the surround programming at a later time. We'll cover the details in a future article here.
Posted on Nov 7, 2004 at 10:40 am by Rudy.
|
