I've had a chance to spend some time with the Marantz DV8300 but returned the Yamaha a few weeks ago and it has since been sold by the dealer I borrowed it from.
I really liked the Yamaha.It is very well built and is a heavy duty looking and feeling player.It is fairly heavy,weiging about 20 pounds.It has a very nice and quiet transport and the RCA jacks seem to be of a much higher than usual quality.The remote is truly full featured and seems to control most of the frequently used functions directly though it is not backlit.It looks kind of plain and I hate that stupid yellow display color.It becomes tiring very quickly.There are seperate screen menus for each format and I think that is stupid.This requires set-up for each format seperately.The Yamaha S2300 was a true multi-player.It played every kind of disc I could find and never skipped on even my scratched discs.The Redbook CD playback was very,very good.The bass is excellent and I think is bested only by the best audio-only, non-upsampling players,like the Arcams.The midrange is good but lacks the sweetness and analog-like euphoric effect of players like the Philips DVD963SA.The treble detail is stunning and projects a complete and realistic impression of the upper frequency.I really like the treble a lot.The upper frequency bailed this player out of the dumps at every turn.Whenever I thought about the fantastic treble I was able to overlook other perceived shortcomings.SACD playback was very good as well.The bass was again killer.This is big bass done well.The SACD bass is very tight and super punchy.the impact is real and can be felt in your gut.Usually I would rave about the midrange on a good SACD player.The Yamaha just doesn't seem to have the midrange of the great SACD players.I played with some of the settings hoping that I accidently had the player in multi-channel format,I did'nt.The midrange seemed to hollow out and that effect hurt the overall soundstage and female vocals.The treble was even more rich and detailed on SACD playback.It is great and near the best.I normally would not forgive a less than stellar midrange performance on any player but the treble is so nice I just seem to forget about the midrange deficiencies.I tend to believe that the DVD-A format is geared more towards the multi-channel playback while SACD is geared towards two-channel or stereo.I am not a multi-channel fan and I did not listen to the Yamaha in multi-channel.I only had three DVD-A discs (Eagles -Hotel California ,Grover Washington JR. - Winelight and John Coltrane - Bluetrain )I have all these titles on Audiophile vinyl as well and sought to compare the sound quality to the DVD-A discs.None of the sonics of the vinyl came through on the Yamaha in DVD-A format.The bass was again,excellent and accurate.The midrange was MIA and the treble was great.The DVD-A just does'nt do it for me.It lacks the warmth and the hard-hitting dynamics of SACD and the best vinyl.Overall I would say the Yamaha DVD-S2300 is a solid candidate for best universal player and is a makes the leap to multi-format playback less risky.The DVD video playback was very good but it was quickly noticed by my wife that it was not as crisp as the Philips 963.There is slight color smearing and there is what appear to be "ghosting" on some DVDs.
I am entirely disappointed with the Marantz DV8300.It is well built and that's it.I really could'nt find much else to like about the Marantz.It is over-priced for the available performance and is,in my opinion,a big step backwards in terms of digital sound quality.I honestly think the cheapest Sony players sound better.The SACD performance was particularly poor.It lacked any semblance of a believable midrange and the soundsatge was one-dimensional and very thin.Every single vocal sounded "digital".There was a hard edge to every recording.Bass was boomy and bloated and treble was harsh and brittle.It was best at DVD-A playback where it was very detailed in the midrange but lacked good bass and still displayed the horrid treble grain.This player is a huge leap in the wrong direction for Marantz.I can't fathom how this player made it past the prototype stage.It's that bad.I won't hide the fact that I am not a fan of any of the Marantz SACD players but none of them has been as big a letdown as this one.This player promises so much and delivers so little.I am returning it tomorrow and I'll let the Marantz rep know what I think of it.The DVD-Video performance was not bad at all but this is an audio site and I would never pay $1600 for a DVD player.
I hated to beat up on the Marantz but somebody is asleep at the wheel at that place.The Yamaha is a solid player and I think I may buy one.I will borrow another for the Chicago meet in a few weeks and allow some other folks to offer impressions.I have to conclude that the Philips DVD 963SA is truly a fantastic all around player and I still think it is the best value digital player ever produced.The Yamaha is ,so far, the most serious multi-format player I have heard.I hope the new Denon is at least as good.I think the Yamaha is a great starting point and I hope that Yamaha continues to improve their digital rigs.Somebody at Marantz deserves to be unemployed.The DV8300 is a complete off-the-paper miss of the high definition target.
