Dear Bedouin
I purchased a Pioneer 565A at Richer Sounds (UK) for £200 inc 5 year
warranty to play my three SACDS and one DVD-A. I had no DVD player at all
and decided to get the multi format player. It is substantially better than
my Computer which plays both DVD and DVD-A. It works almost as good,
possibly as good as my Marantz CD-11LE which is used as a transport (Both
run into Chord DAC 64). I cannot comment on how good the SACD and DVD-A
performance is compared to more expensive players but for £200 I consider it
a good starter to justify buying SACD and DVD-A and a way of playing my
music DVDs

Regards Richard

New Ash Green Hi-Fi club
"Bedouin" wrote in message
...
I am thinking that it is time to get a DVD player, and I am thinking of
taking the opportunity to try what the high resolution audio formats
(DVD-A
and SACD). I consider vinyl to be my main source but I also have a
reasonably good CD player (Meridian 500 feeding an AudioNote 1.1 DAC).

The main reason for going for a DVD player now is for the Video side
(although I am not too bothered about video quality), but I am hoping
that
I will also be able to start building up a DVD-A and/or SACD collection.

Without going wild there seem to be three price points - a £200 player
(Pioneer), a £450 player and a £800 player - anything above that is ruled
out at the moment on the grounds that prices are still falling and quality
still rising and the technology changing. Even the £800 (e.g. Denon 2900)
would seem to be a lot to pay for a player that is likely to need
upgrading
in 2-3 years.

I am interested to know what experience people have of players in this
price
range. I am assuming that none of them will better the Meridian/AN combo
on
RedBook (and will still use that as the main CD player), but how will
their
hi-res sound compare with my current CD?

My current inclination is to go for the cheapest and wait a couple of
years
for things to settle, but will I be able to live with the sound quality?