JaZZ
Headphoneus Supremus
I bought my DVD963SA on Friday. DVD via TV is completely new to me, and so is SACD more or less. The picture is very sharp, and the colors are brilliant and natural – both sharpness and color tone can be adjusted to the individual liking. A have no complaints about the picture at all, it seems to be of very high quality.
When used as a transport for redbook CD, it causes a huge difference in sound compared to my standard transport, Audiolab (now TAG McLaren) 8000CDM. Much more colorful and a lot more details, a bit at the expense of dynamic (contrast) and liquidity. Anyway: more fun and musical. I almost can't believe how much of a difference a pure transport makes. Note: the difference in character is bigger than the difference in quality, which I'm not yet completely sure of – maybe the Audiolab sound is more natural anyway (?). But I dare to say: the transport function of the DVD963SA seems to be of high quality.
As an one-piece CD player, compared to my Bel Canto DAC2, there's only a small difference in sound (nearly ridiculously small when I think of the difference with the transports); so the redbook section including the analog output stage obviously is of high quality, too. There is a choice between no, 96 and 192 kHz upsampling, both with 24 bit (I rather believe the device's display which shows 192 kHz instead of the 172 kHz in the user manual and the TV screen menu). I didn't test the 96 kHz variant so far, since to change the rate I had to use the TV. There's only a small difference with upsampling, to my ears: a very slight increase of focus, both tonally and spatially. A greater difference brings the «audio direct» knob, which disables the video circuits: a subtle, but important increase of detail sharpness and spatial depth. With thus optimized conditions, the redbook sound is of high resolution, very detailed, colorful and dynamic, extended to both frequency ends. Switching to the DAC2 (which additionally needs the disabling of upsampling to get a digital output signal again) shows just very subtle differences: slightly smoother and darker presentation with a trace more sharper details and thus more focussed soundstage, slightly more natural than the more exposed details and rather a bit rounded upper end of the DVD963SA. Anyway, just very subtle differences – I'm not sure if I really would invest in the Bel Canto again given the small differences both in quality and character.
With the SACD layer, there's a new dimension of realism. Superficially, it's not a sensational step. But with highly resolving equipment (I used my HD 600 with Corda HA-2 and EMP as well as my electrostatics with Stax SRM-T1) it's more than obvious: high-frequency details, especially overtones of instruments and voices, are much sharper focussed. Also, there seems to be more energy in bright percussion instruments, such as snare drums and those hollow wood shakers with pebbles in it. With classical orchestral music the violins' overtones are much more realistic, no digital smearing and glare anymore. All transients gain speed and subtlety. There's a lot more air and space. With synthetic instruments, on the other hand, the gain isn't that obvious.
I have no idea what really high-end SACD equipment is capable of; I would like to know. But I guess the DVD963SA is not far from this level. And I think its CD section is of very high class, too, in terms of DAC and analog (output) stage. The biggest surprise to me is the quality of its transport. – Its price is hard to believe.
JaZZ
When used as a transport for redbook CD, it causes a huge difference in sound compared to my standard transport, Audiolab (now TAG McLaren) 8000CDM. Much more colorful and a lot more details, a bit at the expense of dynamic (contrast) and liquidity. Anyway: more fun and musical. I almost can't believe how much of a difference a pure transport makes. Note: the difference in character is bigger than the difference in quality, which I'm not yet completely sure of – maybe the Audiolab sound is more natural anyway (?). But I dare to say: the transport function of the DVD963SA seems to be of high quality.
As an one-piece CD player, compared to my Bel Canto DAC2, there's only a small difference in sound (nearly ridiculously small when I think of the difference with the transports); so the redbook section including the analog output stage obviously is of high quality, too. There is a choice between no, 96 and 192 kHz upsampling, both with 24 bit (I rather believe the device's display which shows 192 kHz instead of the 172 kHz in the user manual and the TV screen menu). I didn't test the 96 kHz variant so far, since to change the rate I had to use the TV. There's only a small difference with upsampling, to my ears: a very slight increase of focus, both tonally and spatially. A greater difference brings the «audio direct» knob, which disables the video circuits: a subtle, but important increase of detail sharpness and spatial depth. With thus optimized conditions, the redbook sound is of high resolution, very detailed, colorful and dynamic, extended to both frequency ends. Switching to the DAC2 (which additionally needs the disabling of upsampling to get a digital output signal again) shows just very subtle differences: slightly smoother and darker presentation with a trace more sharper details and thus more focussed soundstage, slightly more natural than the more exposed details and rather a bit rounded upper end of the DVD963SA. Anyway, just very subtle differences – I'm not sure if I really would invest in the Bel Canto again given the small differences both in quality and character.
With the SACD layer, there's a new dimension of realism. Superficially, it's not a sensational step. But with highly resolving equipment (I used my HD 600 with Corda HA-2 and EMP as well as my electrostatics with Stax SRM-T1) it's more than obvious: high-frequency details, especially overtones of instruments and voices, are much sharper focussed. Also, there seems to be more energy in bright percussion instruments, such as snare drums and those hollow wood shakers with pebbles in it. With classical orchestral music the violins' overtones are much more realistic, no digital smearing and glare anymore. All transients gain speed and subtlety. There's a lot more air and space. With synthetic instruments, on the other hand, the gain isn't that obvious.
I have no idea what really high-end SACD equipment is capable of; I would like to know. But I guess the DVD963SA is not far from this level. And I think its CD section is of very high class, too, in terms of DAC and analog (output) stage. The biggest surprise to me is the quality of its transport. – Its price is hard to believe.
