I've been using the 47A for 3 weeks now and am very impressed with it's capabilities and and performance for both audio & video. I have played DVD's, DVD-A, SACD, and redbook CD's in it so far.
First of all, unlike older machines it recognises the type of disc it has in the tray quickly, about 3 sec. The 47a has to be hooked up to a monitor of some sort (computer, TV) to change any settings. If you get the opportunity to trial one these make sure you go through the settings and make sure they are optimum for what you're trialing. For regular CD's set HI-BIT to on and set the Legato Pro filter to Standard (these settings do not effect SACD's or DVD's). This is recommended in the manual but at least one pro review I read was not thrilled with the redbook performance, and he had both of these items set to off. If you are trialing multichannel discs with headphones make sure you set the machine to 2 channel, and unless you have a better store than I did do not rely on the salesperson to know anything about the machine, especially how to set it up. One more thing, in order to understand the different Legato Pro settings you will need the manual.
In my opinion setting the HI-BIT and Legato Pro digital filter on is the difference between a good redbook CD player and an excellent one. Set up correctly the 47 A is an excellent player.
I use this machine about 90% for audio only and have been very pleased. Highly recommended.