Quote Originally Posted by paul_pci
Thanks for the heads up on the universal player. I agree, if it operates as well as it is promoted to, it would be a very tempting buy. Certainly cheaper than the Denon 2200.
That Yammie could go either way. If it has the same bass management and PCM conversion deficiencies as in the Pioneer DV-563, then it's worth getting only for the Faroudja DCDi processor. But, if it has good bass management and can do the native format DSD processing with SACDs, then it pretty much stands alone among the universal format players. Plus, the 176.4 kHz upsampling with CD audio's a nice bonus to try out and it's the only upsampler I've seen that does so using a whole number multiple from the CD's native sampling rate 44.1 kHz. (read an interview with a recording engineer with one of the audiophile labels, where they recommend that any recordings earmarked for CD mastering should be originally recorded in whole number multiples from the 44.1 kHz CD audio sampling rate, so who knows if that impacts on the upsampling)

My only concern would be its build quality. Up to this point, Yamaha has put some pretty rugged DVD players together, but this new one's got a very slim profile and it weighs about 7 lbs, which is 11 lbs. lighter than their current universal player.