Help In Choosing a Single Disc DVD Player

[Cory]

What might be the single "best" choice of a simple single disc DVD player to match my B&K AVR 202/B&W DM6's/basic 36 inch TV? I've got an old Toshiba that I think needs replacing and may be my system's weak link. I'd like to spend as much as it takes, but not more than necessary. Minimum features is preferred.
Thanks.

[Cory]

So far, the Rotel RDV-1060 is in first place.

[N. Abstentia]

What makes that player $900 better than a $99 Panasonic/Pioneer/Sony/Toshiba? Just the fact that it costs $800 more? You'll never see a difference.

[NickWH]

What are you looking to get out of the upgrade? What is lacking with your current player?

[magictooth]

What makes that player $900 better than a $99 Panasonic/Pioneer/Sony/Toshiba? Just the fact that it costs $800 more? You'll never see a difference.

Have you ever seen a high priced DVD player? The higher priced units often yield a much better picture. This is not to say that every high priced unit is good and that every affordable player is junk. There are some good cheap ones, and some bad expensive ones, but for you to say that you'll never see a difference is plainly absurd.

The only concession that I will make is that the difference in sound quality may not be as "night and day" as the picture. The new Panasonic 3960 (or some model number close to that) sells for about $120 Cdn at Walmart. It's got 24/192 DACs and the new Crystal decoding chip. You can't get much better in terms of sound decoding quality for that price.

[Poss]

The only concession that I will make is that the difference in sound quality may not be as "night and day" as the picture. The new Panasonic 3960 (or some model number close to that) sells for about $120 Cdn at Walmart. It's got 24/192 DACs and the new Crystal decoding chip. You can't get much better in terms of sound decoding quality for that price.

How's the CD playback quality on this unit?

Peace!

[magictooth]

How's the CD playback quality on this unit?

Peace!

Dunno. Don't have the unit, but it wouldn't be that tough to go and buy the unit and give it try. If you don't like it just return it to Walmart. I imagine that it would be quite good, though.

[N. Abstentia]

[QUOTE=magictooth]Have you ever seen a high priced DVD player?

QUOTE]

Yup. Didn't take long to realize that a good $250 progressive scan player did just as good, if not better, than players that cost over $1000. Plus if you get a $250 player now (or better yet, a $120 player) you can replace it next year when the new models come out that has more features. You gonna do that with a $1000 player?

I know if I would have bought a $1000 player 2 years ago I'd be kicking myself because it didn't support things like DTS, DVD-Audio, SACD, DVD-R, DVD+R and it only holds one disc at a time. Heck, I'd feel downright foolish in fact.

In fact, a buddy of mine bought a $600 Denon DVD player a number of years back. I opted for a 5 disc Panasonic for $179, the CV-51. His Denon worked great until he discovered the world of burning DVD's and CD's. Ooops, it won't play burned media. Then to top it off, it burned up after 2 years. I dug it out of the trash and have it on my shelf right now. There's schrapnel damage inside where something blew apart, meanwhile my Panasonic is still going strong to this day. I just have to laugh.

[uncooked]

your paying for the name mostly. maybe a slight picture increase but nothing you will notice big time on a standard tv.

but say you bought a 10 000 pioneer elite tv. then i might say spend more money on a dvd player that can keep par with it.

[magictooth]

[QUOTE=N. Abstentia]

Have you ever seen a high priced DVD player?

QUOTE]

Yup. Didn't take long to realize that a good $250 progressive scan player did just as good, if not better, than players that cost over $1000. Plus if you get a $250 player now (or better yet, a $120 player) you can replace it next year when the new models come out that has more features. You gonna do that with a $1000 player?

I know if I would have bought a $1000 player 2 years ago I'd be kicking myself because it didn't support things like DTS, DVD-Audio, SACD, DVD-R, DVD+R and it only holds one disc at a time. Heck, I'd feel downright foolish in fact.

In fact, a buddy of mine bought a $600 Denon DVD player a number of years back. I opted for a 5 disc Panasonic for $179, the CV-51. His Denon worked great until he discovered the world of burning DVD's and CD's. Ooops, it won't play burned media. Then to top it off, it burned up after 2 years. I dug it out of the trash and have it on my shelf right now. There's schrapnel damage inside where something blew apart, meanwhile my Panasonic is still going strong to this day. I just have to laugh.

Which models did you audition? On what monitor was it watched? Did you watch the interlaced signal on a progressive TV/projector or did you just watch the progressive to progressive?

My personal experience from watching a lot of different DVD players on different monitors in both interlaced and progressive is that there IS a big difference in cheap vs. good players depending on the player.

A lot of people on these boards will also recommend always getting a progressive scan DVD player, but I strongly disagree with that because more often than not, my projector's internal deinterlacer will outperform by a large margin anything in your standard $250 DVD player. Please don't tell me that all deinterlacing chips are the same because they are not. Faroudja DCDi is better than the old Genesis chips that come with most $250 DVD players. You won't get a DCDi decoder for $250 unless it fell off the back of a pickup truck.

My RDV-1 will play CDs of any variety and will play DVD-R as well. If you do the proper research, you should be able to get a machine that plays all the formats that you want it to play. That shouldn't be a concern. As for the burning out of the $600 Denon, what does that have to do with anything written here? Are you saying that all high priced machines will burn out well before your $179 machine?

Anyways, my point is that you are really mistaken if you truly believe that a high end DVD player will give you exactly the same picture as your run of the mill $120 player. You either haven't seen any true high end DVD players or else you haven't seen them on a monitor that will do them justice.

Also, I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy an expensive $3000+ machine new. Go used and you can get the unit for $1000. I bought my RDV-1 For $1038 including shipping. It was about 1.5 years old. I just recently bought the Classe DVD/CD-1 to do an A/B. It was $3500 new and I got it for $1275 shipped. I'll bet either of these units will DESTROY your CV-51 in a head to head on a good front projection unit.