Pioneer DV-578A-S DVD Player with DVD-Audio / SACD
Nice Universal Player for the price
Pretty much everything that could be said about this player has been said in some of the other reviews; however, I noticed some innacuracies.  First, the SACD does play in 5.1. I had a bit of confusion playing Michael Jackson's Thriller album.  Without reading very carefully, it was difficult to determine that it was a 2.1 mix.  This labeling issue can lead a person to believe that the player is faulty when in fact it's the mix of the disc.  Some discs have both stereo and surround mixes.  This may also have been a cause for confusion.  The player does have a setting allowing the user to define to which format the player will default.  I felt that was a nice feature given that tastes vary among listeners.  It can cause confusion, but that's why we read our instruction manuals :). <br /> <br />With regard to the conversion, there are internal menus that you can set to PCM; however, the true encryption can be set as well. <br /> <br />Overall, I've loved this player for what it is. It's given me access to all the formats that I want.  The richness of some of the mixes produced for both SACD and DVDA formats have brought tears to my eyes.  Music genres that I otherwise don't enjoy (i.e Jazz) become a moving experience.  It moves the listening experience away from hearing music to feeling music.  It's unfortunate that these formats did not take off.  Most people simply prefer convenience over quality.   <br /> <br />My one gripe with the player itself is that it doesn't have any sophisticated channel management or bass control other than the selection of small or large speakers (hence the 4 star rating).  For me the channel controls for the 5.1 inputs on my receiver were able to correct this.  It took some odd and perhaps aggressive tweaking, but it was time well spent.  This player can't be beaten for the price.