Universal player, kind of nice to be able to throw anything at it.

Bass/speaker management. Barely holds its own against a 4 year old panasonic 5 dvd changer that I paid the same price for!

OK unit for what I paid, kinda feel sorry for the folks that spent more than 200 bucks. Sound and Video quality marginally better than my Panasonic f85, but using the DACs in my reciever sound better than either so I didnt gain much there. Bass/speaker management is horrible. Guess its OK if you have a standard system but I run four large speakers. I just use the 2 channel out on it, since thats how I prefer to listen to music anyway, didnt fulfill my dreams of replacing the panasonic. Had to leave that hooked up for the rare occasion that I want to actually listen to the multi channel mix on a dvd-a

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic f85

Sleek look. Audio and video is fantastic. Yamaha customer support.

Main menu background is an odd choice (planet and stars). Remote is poor considering the price paid. No screensaver. From what I've been reading here, including my experience ... Yamaha should look into the build quality of this model.

My original unit had a very noisy transport, was slow to read/detect discs, would randomly "freeze" on Upon initial purchase of this unit, everything was fine. Over a period of several months, however, DVD-A discs (and some SACDs) would freeze the player at random points. Some brand-new SACD discs would refuse to load at all. I returned the unit to Yamaha, they sent me a new player, and all is well. Fantastic sounding SACD and DVD-A playback. Video playback is stellar with progressive scan and DCDi - very filmlike on my LCD TV.

universal player, auto detects disc type, slim, on screen menu decent (compared to others), sound and picture quality excellent. Not having to switch outputs to play back differant audio types (DVD-A/SACD to DTS).

doesn't recognize some standard red book audio CDs! Occasionally hesitates during DVD playback then skips to next chapter - not always repeatable but happens often enough to be a concern, even with brand new discs. Random audio drop out during DTS playback (maybe my reciever?). Occasionaly sticks in Reading mode, must power down. Skipping tracks on SACD playback. LED screen is useless. Remote isn't so great.

Well, I love that it's universal and that it figures out what the formats are on it's own, but I have to agree with some of the above comments: it's slow to read discs, it's noisy, and the UI stinks. Sound and picture quality seem top notch, but due to many random, and some repeatable problems I'm afarid I need to return this. My search for a decent and sub $500 universal player continues.

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Toshiba DVD Audio player

Sound quality, video quality

Remote control.

I bought this unit off the internet for $369.00 shipped to my door. This is an excellent SACD/DVDAudio DVD player. The sound quality is as good as any unit I've listened to up to a thousand dollars. The bass is deep and tight, the highs are extended with minimal grain. The only major quirk I've listened to is if you're going to use it in stereo mode you should use the dedicated combined stereo outputs. When I put the player in stereo mode through the user interface and used the front left right outputs from the five channel output the sound was way worse in comparison. No life with a totally dull sound. In mult-channel mode it worked much better. If your looking for a Universal player for under $1000.00 save your money and purchase this one.

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Philips S920 DVD/SACD player. Denon 220 Universal player.

Good detailed sound. As expected from a Yamaha. Very decent picture quality.

Horribly loud transport buzzing when playing most audio CDs and certain DVDs. Takes a noticably long time to read when the disk is inserted. It takes longer than it takes for the Yamaha CDX2 CD player to read a CD (a CD player Yamaha made 20 years ago).

Good, but this product never should have made it to market. Very noisy transport especially when playing CDs. I don't know if this was an individual flaw of if it is a defect of the unit in general. My guess is the latter. I did not want to go through the trouble of taking a second unit back.

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Denon JVC

looks ok

slow load time weak redbook performance

I bought this unit hoping to get better audio performance than my $70 JVC. Honestly the JVC smokes the Yamaha as a cd player. The Yamaha is uninvolving and lacks drive. Never tried it's DVD-A circuits. SACD was marginally better than the Redbook. It's video performance is better than the JVC by a small margin. It consistantly took 20 seconds to recognize what disc you put in it before it would allow it to play. Some of the very basic DVD players out there will kill this unit on cd performance. I'll give it 3 stars for value only because of it's universal nature.

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JVC XVN-40 Toshiba 3960

Its very small if you like small,sounds half way decent for $350,detachable power,metal front.Pretty bad strenghts.

Just about everything other than sound and the few "strenghts"mentioned.

Whyyyy?What is it about a multi format player that just freaks all these long time audio companies out?Is it toooooo much to ask?I got the 1500 in hopes of a budget player doing the job,it does sound ok but the rest is a hoot.If you set the multi ch out to active(6 analog cables) it will no longer upsample cds.If you stick a cd in with multi ch out active it plays in prologic,not 2ch,you must turn on tv,change tv input,set up menu on 1500 to 2ch output,then play cd.When thats over if you want to hear sacd/dvda in multi ch you gotta go back in menu set to multi out or it down mixes.My 4 year old dvd A10 has better interface.The bass management makes my 2900 look good,WOW,talk about no thought or beta testing.The front is almost as bare as my amps,few hard buttons.The display shows less info than my watch.

Similar Products Used:

Denon 2900/Yamaha 2300/Technics a10/Pioneer 578,Toshiba.

Progressive scan video performance Audio performance Format support (DVD, SACD, DVD-Audio, CD, CD-R MP3, DVD-R) On screen interface

Remote control transport controls Front panel display

I've been waiting a while for a good, reasonably priced universal DVD player. Late last year (when I began considering upgrading my TV to an HDTV), I started looking at Denon's DVD-2200, but when Yamaha announced this player at CES in January 2004 I decided to wait for it to arrive. The wait ended up being longer than expected. In the end, though, I got my hands on one. The progressive scan video output is excellent, allowing good DVD transfers to finally approach the feel of the HD programs I watched off and on over the summer. DVD-Audio performance is easily on par with my Panasonic DVD-RA60, and SACD and regular CD playback are likewise very satisfactory. In fact, the analog output of CD's is better than any player (CD or DVD) that I've owned. The on-screen interface for audio disc playback (SACD, CD, or MP3) is better than I've seen on other players, and the setup menus are straightforward and relatively easy to navigate through. The one qualm I have with the S1500 relates to some of the secondary user interface characteristics: the front panel display is rather underwhelming (capable of only a counter or a title and chapter listing, not both at once), and the remote lacks dedicated fast forward and rewind buttons (you must hold down the skip forward/back buttons). These two quirks are all that keep the player from being a slam-dunk fabulous product in my opinion - enough to be worth noting and grumbling a bit, but not enough to pull the overall rating down to 4 stars. Call it 4.6 stars since the most critical aspects - video and audio - are handled so well for the price, and round it up to 5.

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Panasonic DVD players (A310, RA60, DMR-E80, S35) Toshiba DVD player (SD-1600)