Now that the upgrading has been just about completed, here is what my Home Theater consists of and whether the unit is the final piece for its type (receiver upgraded to the one I REALLY, REALLY wanted, DVD,LD etc. all to what I really want, regardless of price). Next to the components will be the ones that I am going to get within the next 3 months, if any change will take place at all. I am about 85% of the way there, so there will be little change from this point on:
Denon AVR 5600DTS - 700 Watt Dolby Digital, DTS and THX Receiver

Denon D-5000THX DTS DVD PLayer - Dolby Digital, DTS, THX DVD/CD Player

Pioneer Elite DVL-91DTS LD/DVD/CD Player - Dolby Digital, DTS LD/DVD/CD

Sony DSS Satelite - Will upgrade to the receiver with Digital hookup and wire to 5 other rooms with 5 separate receivers for a total of 6 different shows at any given time.

Sony Hi-Fi S-VHS VCR - S-Video doesn't make any difference, but I can say I have it.

Sony JA50ES Minidisc - Sony's #1 MD Player is BEST on the market right now.

Nakamichi 3A Cassette Deck - Will upgrade to the Sony ES top line single cassette player/recorder. No dual.

Mitshubishi 40 inch Diamond Direct View - In 2-4 years will get the HDTV. Until then, this is still the BEST direct view along with Sony XBR. This is a larger screen and does make a difference when watching Home Theater in a PITCH BLACK DARK ROOM!

B&W Matrix 803 L&R Fronts - Will NOT trade in for ANYTHING, not even the new Nautilus 803s. They both sound a little different, but not enough for me to even think about changing. I do give the nod to the Nautilus, but they look weird and that is a factor that, to me, outweighs the sound quality difference. Man they look funny. The Nautilus 801s, probably the best speaker EVER MADE by ANYONE, looks the funniest of all. They look like some kind of futuristic Terminator 2: Judgement Day style speakers. No Way Jose. Sounds incredible though.

B&W Matrix HTM Center - I'd be a fool to trade this in for ANYTHING, except another Matrix 803.

M&K TripolesTHX L&R Surrounds - I'd be an even bigger fool for trading thes for ANYTHING, except another pair of Matrix 803s.

B&W ASW 3000 - Probably the best subwoofer I have ever heard. What have I heard? Well, here you go, for starters: Vandersteen, Velodyne, M&K, Paradigm, B&W are only a few of the 15 or so. I just like B&W best. That is not to say someone else has a valid reason for liking something else. Just do not say that B&W SUCKS, or M&K Blows B&W away, or some other nonsense phony ass snobby ass "audiophile" bull ----. You cock------- who claim to be so high and mighty can kiss my ass.

B&W In Wall speakers - wired to basement room #1.

Boston Acoustics Voyager - wired to deck


The biggest addition I am going to make soon is to add a CD Player. I know the D5000 DVD sounds better than just about EVERYTHING EVER MADE. In comparison to Meridian, I find them to be very, very close. The $5000 model of Meridian is better, but not by much. I am going to get the $5000 Meridian to cap off the system.


System #2 in basement:

Denon AVR 5600
Denon D2000 DVD
Sony ES Dual Cassette Deck
Sony JA3ES Minidisc - the 2nd best MD Player EVER!
Magnavox Hi-Fi VCR - a bare bones basic model which funtions as a conduit for TV in stereo.
Denon DCD 560 5 Disc Changer - Denon's Best 5 disc changer is one of the elite changers on the market right now.
Sony XBR 32 inch - I like the picture almost as much as my Mitsubishi Diamond.
JVC 20 inch - For when I do reps facing the other way!

The busy week of upgrading my A/V system has come to an end. I bought a new MD Player as the final purchase of the week. In fact, I bought 2 of them, one for each of my setups, the Theater Room and the Gym Area.
The Sony JA3ES is the 2nd best MD Player/Recorder Deck that exists. It has the digital hookups to go right into my receiver and offers excellent recording without distortion and having to adjust the recording volume and sound level, or whatever the hell that dial does. On the sampl I made, I was able to significantly improve the volume level by just recording. On my old MD player, JE510, you must carefully adjust the sound level in analog. In digital, which I never did with it, was probably good too.

The master of all MD Players is the JA50ES, the other of Sony's Elevated Standard MD Decks. I see now why they are called ES. They truly excel in performance and sound, and offer features and benefits that outdo ANY other MD by others like Denon, JVC, and Sharp. The new Yamaha can't come close to the 2 Sony ES.

As far as the JA50ES goes, it is definitely an upgrade from the JA3ES, the $1200 unit. At $2000 MSRP - I got them for $850 & $1700, respectively - it is 31 lbs. vs 15lbs for the 3ES. The 50ES has a key feature. When you hook it up in the digital outputs to the receiver, you can adjust the volume control. You can make it as loud as you want without regard to any red/orange meter that tells you you went too high and need to adjust the volume down some. The high adjustable volume capabilities are great in that with a much louder, and still clear, recording, playback on the MD Walkman for jogging is loud enough to block out ALL sounds of traffic and other noise. You can really escape while running.

If you have a Sony CD player ( and probably DVD player, too ) you can hook the 50ES up to it and record right from there without any receiver. You can then use the receiver to watch a movie or listen to anything other than the recording if you want. I have never been able to do this as the hookups I always had went through the receiver. If I recorded directly from CD to MD, I still could not play something else on the receiver. So, for those who want to make a ton of recordings early on like I did - put my entire 700 CD collection on MD. Only the songs I wanted and made many compilation MDs. About 275 MDs makes up the collection which I play in the Walkman and the car MD7900 Car Deck and MD61 6 MD changer. The size is great.

Back to the 50ES. ANYTHING you can think of it has. Editing is easier and track designation is better. When I made MDs with the 510, most oif the time when I did a 70 minute 15 track CD, the reult was a 10 track MD or 1 or 2 track MD. RARELY if ever were there exactly the same number on both. I would then have to manually edit the MD and put the tracks in myself. It was not too big a deal, but I spent a lot of time on it. With both the 3ES and 50ES, I NEVER had that problem on the 6 tests I made this afternoon. The tracks are marked just like the CD and will not add multiple jacks when there are some silent sections to a song. Somehow, it can read the CD and tell if the 3 or 5 second silent part is is still part of the same song. THAT was my only real complaint about the 510.

If you are thinking MD or have a car deck and are committed to it over recordable CD - to me no big deal because you can't erase them all and they still are the same size- I highly recommend buying or stepping up to either the JA3ES or the new industry standard, the JA50ES! Both get 5 solid stars, with the 50ES being only incrementally better than the 3ES!

"Jesus", you fool, the Denon 5600DD/DTS/THX is what I just bought for the main theater. The regular DD Denon 5600DD/THX is in the gym room.
First of all, why are we talking receivers in the minidisc section. And second, you ass, I prefer the Denon. Obviously I do because I tried them both out before I bought the DTS version last week. Why would I buy something that was not as good as something else, even if the price of what I bought is higher than the thing I did not buy and is supposedly better? Unfortunately for you, it is all a matter of opinion. I am willing to bet that if you played them side by side and switched back and forth, there is no way you or most people can tell which is which. And if you say you do, that is a buch of bullshit. Anybody that says the can is full of it.

Audiophile? You are a joke. Nothing but knocks on people. Is this what you call a review: "the dsp-1a is better than Denon". ? What the hell kind of a review is that, you dumb F - - K.

I don't know why you think I'm from conneticut, but I'm not. I'm from heaven,someplae you'll never get to. Anyways, of course I know what you write in your
reviews, I'm the son of God. Anyways, Denon 5600 isn't good as the dsp-a1. How you like them apples. And in my name, Amen.

Buzz, you always have to write what you have. No one really cares what you have. I know the truth and I know you really don't have it. In my
name, AMEN.

Thanks for your review on the JA50ES MD Deck, what about the new JA20ES compared to the JA3ES? What are the differences? I have the JA3ES and noticed the new models use a drawer instead. Is it any better? Thanks.
Vince
Vice President - WurldLink Corporation - Hong Kong/Honolulu/San Francisco
http://www.WURLDLINK.NET - Internet Service with the performance and value

I did not know you were so involved with ALL of my reviews that you notice that I put what I own in most of them. For one, who else knows for sure when there are some different people in here, other than such an insecure nitwit like yourself. Whoever is stupid enough to call themselves a name other than their real one has some identity problems and completely lacks confidence. They are cleary not happy with themselves and many times, if not all, really do not like or even HATE themselves. In your case where the nickname is such an attention getter in "Jesus Christ", you have as low of an amount of self esteem that is humanly possible, In fact, people like yourself, when looking in the mirror, actually see a loathsome being not much more of a being than that which is considered a subculture of humans. That is indeed you, "Jesus Christ" from Connecticut.
What also is obvious is that you read this review site so you can review other people rather than equipment. Your so stupid sounding and small minded that you probably cannot put together consecutive sentances to describe anything at all, let alone A/V equipment.

What a joke. You are one stupid ass M - - - - - F U - - - R! As far as equipment goes, what do you have? I notice you never write anything. Are you emabarassed? Or, did you forget what lies you told and instead of contradicting yourself you find that never saying what you have is easier?

Take a look back at my reviews, you cocksucker! Am I consistent? Or, do you just think that I am such a good liar because I keep track of my lies by writing them down? What am I trying to prove by lying? You came up with the idea so obviously it was on your mind, what little bit there is, of course! Am I trying to impress others like you, or am I just telling others what I have so that when someone new reads it they can see what I use something with so as to get ideas of what to try out or buy or see if we are in common.

"Jesus Christ" drop dead, you loser. Go up into your little backward ass town in the Nutmeg state - even the state has a shit nickname - and even try to find ANYTHING that they sell there that you can afford. Oh yeah. Almost forgot. Connecticut is the #2 per capita income in the country so you probably can ask your father or mother for an advance on your allowance. Are you not tired of the humiliation of leaching off your parents and still living with them at 35 year of age?

I had a chance to purchase the JA50ES for about $900 recently, and I thought I'd share my opinions on the deck.
First of all, this deck is built like a tank. The JA50ES has an aluminum faceplate like most ES gear, and has "anti-resonant" feet. The JA50ES weighs in at about 31 pounds or so, and is about the size of Sony's XA7ES CD player. The JA50ES loads from a tray (ostensibly, to reduce vibrations during playback and recording) rather than loading from a slot like all the other MD decks on the market. It also runs whisper quiet, a noticeable change from the entry level MD decks on the market.

So what makes the JA50ES so much different from, say, the MDS-JB920 (the current top of the line non ES Sony MD deck)?

The JA50ES features a 24 bit DAC (vs. the 20 bit DAC in the 920), advanced fade in/fade out editing controls, a "variable level sync" for recording from "noisy" LP's and tapes (this is basically a fancy way of the deck inserting track marks into analog recordings), a set of digital filters to give the deck a "warmer" (read as: analog sounding) tone.

At the heart of things, however, this is still a home MD deck, and is no easier or harder to manage than any other home MD deck. All the standard features of a good home MD deck are present: two optical inputs, one coax digital input, optical/coax digital output, and analog input/outputs.

So is it worth $2,000 (the MSRP)? That's a pretty tough call. I don't think I would have paid that much for the JA50ES, especially since I already have a 920 (now relegated to my computer room) which has the ES features (aluminum faceplate, current pulse DAC, etc) at about a $300 price. However, the JA50ES is an impressive deck, and the impressive construction quality alone would lead me to believe I'm going to have this deck around for a long time. The editing features are slightly more advanced than the lower end home decks as well. I find myself using the fade in/out feature on live recordings I've made all the time now.

Does it sound any different? Not really, although you can notice audible differences when you use the different filters. However, make no mistake: this is very much a 5 star deck. Whether or not you think it's worth $2,000 to own a top of the line deck, the JA50ES is still the king of the home MD hill.