Pioneer DV-588A-S Slim Progressive Scan DVD Player
Its about the SOUND!!
The DV-588AS is one of the few DVD players under $150 which plays almost every standard audio and video format around.  The audio and video are very good, particularly given its price.      WHY BUY DVD-A and SACD?     After listening to DVD-A and SACD for some time, I really have gotten to dislike listening to CDs because CDs sound harsh and brittle. CDs produce listening fatigue in minutes. Prior to the introduction of SACD/DVD-Audio, I needed to resort to the long playing vinyl album for serious music appreciation. These have their own problems such as limited dynamic range, transient distortion, poor pressing quality, tape hiss and noise, scratches and thousands of pops and ticks, rumble, wow and flutter, and expensive playback equipment which needed care and tuning. And worst of all, I had to get up to flip the album half-way through!     It is hard to explain the subjective difference between the sound produced by SACD and DVD-Audio and the sound produced by a CD. Essentially, trying to reproduce music with a CD is like trying to reproduce cool seaside air with the dry brittle air blowing out of an airconditioning nozzle in a jet airplane and a spray bottle of salt water. In a very literal sense, the CD format is like playing a violin with a hack saw -- there is simply no way to smooth out the saw teeth sufficiently to make it sound correct. SACD and DVD-Audio fix the problem by giving you enough data to filter out the audible errors created by digitizing analog sound.     WHY BUY THIS UNIT?     First, I do not recommend purchasing separate SACD and DVD-Audio players. On my home theater system, I used to have a Sony SACD player and a JVC DVD-A player. I had to run both through two 3-channel switching boxes with lots of extra audio cables, because both SACD and DVD-A require the single set of six channel direct feed inputs on my HT preamp. The extra cabling and connections partially defeat what one is trying to do with SACD and DVD-A because it degrades the sound quality. This unit solves that problem. And although it looks impressive to have two DVD players, the switching boxes look like @#$%!!     Next, this will play just about anything: DVD-Video, video CD, DVD-R, and video-mode DVD-RW.  It plays super-high-resolution DVD-Audio and SACD (stereo and multichannel), as well as compressed audio files (MP3 and WMA) on recordable CD.  It also plays DivX/AVI video files.  DivX and AVI files are highly compressed near DVD quality video files which take about 1/10th of the space of a DVD video.  These are the formats in which most of the TV shows I have downloaded over peer to peer networks are stored.  (I spent months watching all 150 or so episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in order!)  Only recently have DVD players started playing these types of files, but I suspect most of the next generation of DVD players will all be AVI enabled.       The literature says it does slide-shows of digital photos -- JPEG digital photo CDs, Fujicolor CDs, or Kodak Picture CDs. I never use them. As a bonus, it has progressive scan, and nearly twice the video processing power of previous Pioneer models with a 12-bit/108 MHz video digital-to-analog converter (DAC). As to the subjective video properties, the other reviewers will tell you it is very good. I can't tell how good the quality is because the video is fed out to the tuner card in my computer. I bought it for the MUSIC!     Finally, the unit compares well to much more expensive units.  One professional review I read (which did all kinds of technical tests) said this is one of the few players under $150 he would recommend, and the video quality was comparable to more expensive units.  C-NET did an A/B comparison between the nearly identical DV-578 and a Dennon unit which costs four or five times as much. They said that the Dennon sounds a bit better, was heavier and significantly more impressive looking. It certainly does not sound as if it justifies the price difference, unless you arean audio name brand (and appearance) snob.     The trade off for the low price is that it comes with a cheap remote, it looks like an inexpensive (cheap) player, and doesn't have much physical weight, which says Pioneer may be using cheaper components and may be skimping on the power supply. (There really is a relationship between the weight of audio gear really and sound quality!) But, as with all things electronic, over time, less buys more.     PRICE COMPARISONS     In short, there is nothing in this price range which will do what this unit will do.  Even at full retail, the price to performance value of this unit is outstanding, if not unbelievable. The DV-578 is the first and only universal player I have found under $100.  This unit costs about $20 more.  (If you play DivX/AVI files, buy this unit.  If not, the 578 is the better unit for you, but only because it is cheaper and has almost identical video and audio processors.)  Toshiba had a $150 universal 5 disc player which was being blown out for about $100, but its video processors are not as fast, and it has terrible reviews and does not play Divx/avi files.  The next nearest priced combo SACD/DVD-Audio player I have found is by JVC and retails for about $80 more. After that, you would have to spend hundreds more green backs to get any other combination SACD/DVD-A player. Yamaha has the C-750, a multi-disc universal player which retails for around $300 and can be bought on e-bay for under $200.  It sounds very good, has good video, but it has issues.  (I still love my old JVC FA-95GD DVD-Audio player, which was implemented much better than the Yamaha, but does not play SACD or DivX/AVI files.)  Onkyo has a universal multi-disk player with a street value of about 5 bills - the ultra THX certified one is $2K.    INDUSTRY COMMENTS:     Hollywood and the MUSIC BIZ are screaming about people ripping and sharing video and music files. The following comments are from a person who has several hundred of CDs, almostas many vinyl albums, about 75 SACDs and DVD-Audio disks, and several hundred DVDs/Videos, and is not \\"ripping off\\" anyone.     MUSIC: Swapping music files is the new form of radio. If the POWERS THAT BE IN THE MUSIC BIZ properly marketed the SACD and DVD-Audio formats, as they did with the CD format when they AXED vinyl LPs, they might see sales increase. (We all bought lots of Beatles and Fleetwood Mac LPs, repurchased them on CD, and would probably buy them again on DVD-A or SACD if they were released.) At this time, DVD-A and SACD cannot be easily \\"ripped\\" and shared. Although you can digitize the analog output, there is no way (yet) to easily preserve the improved sound quality. I can't find a codec to play SACDs on my computer. Rather than go after file-sharing, they really should be pushing these new higher quality, 5.1 channel sound formats. Instead, those of us who know how good these new formats sound are stuck with paltry limited offerings ranging in the hundreds, rather than in the tens of thousands.     Why are the MUSIC BIZ execs not prosecuting MicroSoft, Real Audio, and the guys who make the software that converts CDs to MP3s, WMA and other formats that allow the CDs to be compressed and saved to a hard drive? This software was instrumental in allowing the Peer to Peer market to thrive and grow, particularly before high speed internet and 200 - 500 Gigabyte hard drives were common. Obviously, MicroSoft knew their compression software was going to be used for file sharing. Yet, it keeps coming out with better, smaller and more accurate compression formats.  I think it has to do with the fact that the MUSIC BIZ bullies know they can't bankrupt MicroSoft, like they can with Napster, and, perhaps, because file sharing is part of their marketing strategy.  They need MicroSoft.    MOVIES: People spend less money to see movies in movie theaters because there are more forms of entertainment, and, possibly, because the quality of the movies does not warrantspending big $$$ to see the movies Hollywood is producing at the inflated prices charged by movie theaters. (It costs almost $40 to take a family of four to a movie, not including popcorn!) In addition, many people just wait 4 months until the DVD comes out and rent or purchase it, sending the allegedly hungry movie mogul sharks into a second feeding frenzy. Then, the Moguls get a third feeding frenzy when they turn those movies into computer and video games. How many hundreds of millions has George Lucas, Inc. made on Star Wars games?     SOLUTION:     At least as to audio, part of the solution is these higher quality formats. The solution starts with cheaper combo DVD-A/SACD players. Then, they have to GIVE US A BETTER AND BIGGER SELECTION OF DVD-A and SACDs and stop bitching and prosecuting pimple faced teens who d/l music.     Strengths:   Nice compact design, sounds good, plays everything. VERY INEXPENSIVE     Weaknesses:   Nice compact (cheap looking) design, cheap remote, unit is a bit light on weight. Probably converts Digital Stream to PCM to process SACDs.