Pioneer Elite DV-47A DVD/SACD Combi Player Page 2

KEY FEATURES
  • Plays both SACD and DVD-Audio discs as well as DVD-Video discs and recordable DVDs in several formats
  • Full Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel decoding
  • Progressive-scan component-video output
  • Plays CD-R/RW discs with MP3 files
  • TruSurround virtual surround for playback over two speakers

OUTPUTS Two composite-, one component-, and two S-video; 6-channel analog audio; 5.1-channel coaxial and optical digital audio; two pair analog stereo DIMENSIONS 16 5/8 inches wide, 3 7/8 inches high, 11 inches deep WEIGHT 9 1/4 pounds PRICE $1,200 MANUFACTURER Pioneer Electronics USA, Dept. S&V, P.O. Box 1540, Long Beach, CA 90801-1540; 800-421-1404; www.pioneerelectronics.com

Other video-oriented features include a host of fine-tuning adjustments suited to the critical videophile. For example, you can select among presets for CRT, plasma, and "professional" monitors to make sure the player's outputs are optimally matched with the visual characteristics of the type of video display you have. There are four video noise-reduction adjustments: for luminance, color, MPEG block noise, and MPEG "mosquito" noise. Finally, you can store all of your video settings - including those for esoteric adjustments like gamma and chroma delay - into one of four memory presets. This is a very handy feature, which can be used to save preferred settings for different types of program material or different monitors. For my tests, I used the CRT preset to match the monitor in our lab.

Hookup and setup were fairly straightforward. I was able to obtain unusually good speaker balances since the DV-47A has individual channel-level trim controls that can be adjusted in 0.5-dB steps - a welcome refinement on the too-coarse-for-perfection 1-dB steps provided with most other players and A/V receivers. (A half-decibel imbalance between, say, the front and surround channels can move finely calculated sound effects to the wrong positions.) The speaker-distance compensation - essential for the most precise imaging, especially among the front channels - operates only with multichannel DVD-Video and DVD-Audio programs but, unfortunately, not with multichannel SACDs.


ARTICLE CONTENTS

X