An upgrade worth the price...
Written: Dec 17 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sturdy construction, killer picture, fabulous sound even from normal CD's
Cons: Slightly funky switches, price is $500 higher than previous "reference standard"
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| detayls's Full Review: Sony DVP-S9000 ES DVD Player |
I bought a DVP-S9000ES in November to replace my Sony DVP-S7000 that I bought in May 1997. The player was announced on September and I knew instantly that my search was over.
The new SACD format has been out for over a year but there have only been 3 players on the US market. These were the Sony SCD-1 at $5000, the Sony SCD777ES at $3500 and the Marantz SA1 for a mere $6000. All of these player play SACD's and CD but do not play DVD Videos.
When I bought my Sony DVP-S7000 it was considered the "Reference Standard" for video output from DVD. Indeed I only ever saw very minor artefacts from the decoding process. By comparison my computer-based DVD drive and software decoder combination would show truly awful blotching and jaggy lines. Occasionally the 7000 would balk and refuse to play a rental DVD and I did hear that Sony would provide a minimal cost firmware upgrade to prevent this.
Since my television is a 10 year old Sony 27" Trinitron, I expected only a mild upgrade from VHS. The my surprise the picture delivered by the 7000 was incredible. When the 9000ES arrived I knew that most of the improvements would only be realized by playback via a progressive-scan enabled set. Again Sony surprised me. The picture is even smoother, particularly in high movement situations, where the transitions are even smoother than on the 7000.
Sometime soon I will be upgrading my TV and look forward to the progressive clarity as well.
The real surprise was still to come, however. I knew that SACD playback would be superb but I only bought a couple of these, since Sony seems to be releasing only single-layer disks of older recordings. What amazed me was how good my ordinary CD's now sound.
There is no easy way to describe the CD sound, except to say that it is overall much clearer and less "scratchy." In recent years I have been pleased to hear considerable improvement with newly remastered CD's and have even been known to re-buy certain favorites to gain the better sound. Now the 9000ES makes even the older CD's sound as good as the remasters and some of the remasters are now simply amazing.
Obviously at $1500 this is not a mass market player but anyone who is interested in really good sound and killer video should consider stretching for the extra bucks. The player comes with a paper stating a 3 year warranty but I have seen a few people on the Internet saying that the warranty is 5 years.
My only complaint with the 9000 is that occasionally the buttons need to be pressed twice. The control buttons are very small and react to the slightest touch unless you have let a CD play all the way to the end. Then you have to press the eject button not once but twice. It is probably a small firmware glitch that Sony will fix. I will wait a while though..... I have a few more CD's to listen to!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
detayls
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Member: David Taylor
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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