[Hajime]

Hello there. In the past month or so I've been looking around for a new CD player within my budget of $300. Upon the reccomendations I found here I decided upon the Pioneer DV-563A and ordered it from Crutchfield.com. Well, the Pioneer came today and here are my initial impressions.

First of all, the Pioneer is about half the size of my last CD player (an old Technics). I was incredibly surprised at it's size. I knew it was small but not this small. It's very sleek and it looks well-designed. It's also incredibly light. The display is easy to read, the remote is usable though nothing to look at. I have no complaints about the build quality.

Now, my initial impressions on the sound quality of this player. The first thing I did when I got it was set it up with my Singlepower MPX3 headphone amplifier connected to the Sennheiser HD600 headphones. I plopped in a SACD (Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed) and laid back to listen to music. Well, the SACD performance was.. alright. It sounded a little murky. Everything sounded distant and the midrange was slightly recessed. I haven't heard SACD before this. I can tell you now that I am not impressed in the least bit by it coming from this player. I have no claim as an experianced audiophile - but I expect my music to at least sound good!

After the bad experiance with that SACD I decided to try another SACD (Rolling Stones - Aftermath). I got the same results as the first. Now, here I am using a supposed high-resolution format and I'm getting worse sound than my older CD Player with a regular CD. At this point I decided to give up playing SACDs on this player and I put in a regular CD (Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers). Good lord. It sounds even worse. I'm listening to "Sister Morphine" right now which is, in my opinion, a great song. This Pioneer player is mauling it.

I'm going to contact Crutchfield about returning this player tomorrow. I suppose what I've learned from this experiance is, "You get what you pay for." If you're going to only pay $180 you're not going to get much.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Sorry about your experience with that Pioneer DVD unit.

Pioneer has made great transports; it's just that their mass-market consumer-level players continue to use crappy DACs and/or crappy analog output stages.

 

[JMedeiros]

Sorry to hear about the disappointing experience.

While it does not have the same performance the Philips 963SA has with its upsampling....I have found it to sound quite good on CDs, SACDs and DVD-A.

Did you make sure that in the onscreen "Initial Settings" you had Options>SACD Playback set to "2ch Area" instead of "Multi-ch Area" or "CD area" ? The sound you described hearing on your 2 Stones SACDs is just what it would sound like through headphones if Multi-ch was selected.

John

 

[Hajime]

JMedeiros, in the manual it specified the default setting was 2ch Area. I didn't change any of the settings before I listened so I am assuming that is what I heard. It could be the manual is wrong and I was listening to something other than the SACD layer but the display showed "SACD" when I popped in the disk.

 

[elrod-tom]

I would check the settings first.

Also, I'll tell you that IMHO Let it Bleed might be the WORST SACD in terms of sound quality that I've ever heard. Aftermath is definately better, but the format DOES magnify the effect of source material flaws.

Additionally, my Elite DV-47Ai took a little while to burn in. Might be that you are experiencing issues with that??

How long do you have to return to Crutchfield? You might want to wait.

 

[Koui]

Hajime...try this :

Home Menu > Setup Navigator > Audio Out Settings > 5.1ch Audio Out > Not Connected > Digital Audio Out > Not Connected

Home Menu > Initial Settings > Speakers > Audio Output Mode > 2 Channel > Channel Level > Fixed

If these settings don't improve matters, you have either a defective player, insufficient burn-in, or something else is wrong with your playback system. What these settings accomplish is to turn off bass management (you don't need any for headphone use) and lets DSD through without PCM conversion. SACDs (DVD-As and redbook CDs as well) sound 'much' better letting the signal run straight through without any surround 'adjustments' getting in the way. Good luck, Koui

 

[Hajime]

Koui,

Thank you for your help. I will try this tomorrow after I get home from school. I think I will still return the Pioneer (unless it improves incredibly, but it will still be nice to know if the Pioneer's sound can be improved.

 

[Zoomie]

Quote:

Originally posted by Koui Hajime...try this : Home Menu > Setup Navigator > Audio Out Settings > 5.1ch Audio Out > Not Connected > Digital Audio Out > Not Connected Home Menu > Initial Settings > Speakers > Audio Output Mode > 2 Channel > Channel Level > Fixed If these settings don't improve matters, you have either a defective player, insufficient burn-in, or something else is wrong with your playback system. What these settings accomplish is to turn off bass management (you don't need any for headphone use) and lets DSD through without PCM conversion. SACDs (DVD-As and redbook CDs as well) sound 'much' better letting the signal run straight through without any surround 'adjustments' getting in the way. Good luck, Koui

I have a 656A, and I can say that the above settings dramatically improve every type of playback. I don't know how different my player is from the 563A, but they are likely pretty similar. Although the 656A doesn't support SACD so I can't say much about that. DVD-A sounds great, however.

 

[jpelg]

Does the player need to be connected to a television/monitor to make these menu changes?

 

[elrod-tom]

I'm almost certain that it does...all the other Pioneer and Elite players do.

 

[JMedeiros]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpelg Does the player need to be connected to a television/monitor to make these menu changes?

Yes....but the onscreen user interface seems a bit easier to me than the Philips 963. Also, the manual does a great job of explaining the use of the onscreen adjustments.

BTW Koui...thanks for the detailed path. I used it last night and it did indeed improve the CD and SACD sound out of 563 considerably over my headphones.

John

 

[Habib]

Hajime: any more updates? I might be getting the MPX3 in the near future. And also eyeing the 563A as a cheap universal player to test out the format. Very curious about your tweaked results.

 

[Hajime]

Habib, sorry for not replying earlier - I completely forgot! I think that with the new settings the player was more enjoyable but it was not at the quality I expected/hoped for. I think you may enjoy it if you aren't expecting it to sound better than a $180 DVD player.

Take from that what you will. As for the MPX3, I have only praise for it.

 

[Koui]

Quote:

Originally posted by JMedeiros BTW Koui...thanks for the detailed path. I used it last night and it did indeed improve the CD and SACD sound out of 563 considerably over my headphones. John

I'm glad you found those settings useful, John and Zoomie. I think the 563 would get considerably more praise among audiophiles and headphone users if only they could hear what this little beauty of a player is capable of with a few simple menu 'tweaks'.

 

[JMedeiros]

Quote:

Originally posted by Koui I'm glad you found those settings useful, John and Zoomie. I think the 563 would get considerably more praise among audiophiles and headphone users if only they could hear what this little beauty of a player is capable of with a few simple menu 'tweaks'.

I assume I need to go through the setup again in order to play DVDs through my receiver in 5.1 .
I use this player for movies as well as music.

John