Vote

A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none.

I HAVE YET TO READ A REVIEW GIVING ANY OF THE UNIVERSALS THE UNSTINTING PRAISE WHICH CAN BE EARNED BY INDIVIDUAL UNITS

No. I'll wait until software is available, until then there is no reason to get one.

When someone comes out with a decent multi-disk DVD-Audio player with a PMD-200 HDCD chip or two inside, I'll buy it. Short of that I'll just continue lusting for Shanling of China's products.

still too high prices and shy sound production compared with price

Multi-channel audio is a gimmick that has nothing to do with music. SACD and DVD-Audio have digital watermarking and copy protection which purposely distort the sound. Most recordings made are in PCM. Pro-Tools, the most popular recording program, doesn't support SACD nor DVD-Audio.

I'm looking forward to buying a universal player with one minor exception. The quality of the DAC has to be comparable with current single format offerings. Other than that, I'm all for universal players.

It's as close to vinyl as I've ever heard...(I bought the Pioneer dv-45a)

I purchased a Pioneer player. It's good having access to both formats now, no matter which one wins out. I do favor the Sony and Philips SACD after hearing several discs in both formats. I feel it's much closer to the anolog sound that I miss so much!

Yes, I'm interested. SACD (which I've heard) knocks the spots off regular CDs, BUT I'm sticking to two-channel for the foreseeable future (no space for extra speakers; any new-format player has to be really good at old-fashioned Red Book CDs, I'm not throwing my collection away; and vinyl is still incomparable!

Going with universal players should help out with the format wars, and encourage music lovers to purchase these superior to CD discs. Just remove copy protection, by not allowing recordable discs in these newer formats.

For the forseeable future 2-channel CD does a very satisfying job of providing a good listening experience and the variety of software available can't be beat.

Make mine CD/SACD /DVD-A audio only without DVD-video.

I have a Sony mini disc player (3ES) that will not play some of the discs that I have gotten. It will not read the TOC on the prerecorded discs. It will play fine on my personal. It realy pisses me off that I paid those blood suckers for my music only to have it not play on my home stereo due to copy protection.

When are they planning to release music that you acctually wanna listen to? And not a bunch of orchestral music or remakes of '70s rock bands?

The only "universal" player that affords me the sheer visceral and emotional healing impact of music is the turntable.

I had a multi disc DVD player once. Althogh it wasnt high end, it still had alot of problems. I think that when you add soo many features with new technology it creates the right enviroment for things to go wrong. Lets keep things Simple!

None of the options deal with the real issue: that excess video circuitry in players degrades audio performance. I would expect for the foreseeable future the best bet for those people interested in SACD/DVDA is two players, with zero video circuitry in the SACD player, to provide decent legacy CD performance, and a DVD Audio player that at least has a "video circuitry off" option.

...more software and lower prices for it.

I have a DVD-A and a SACD player. I believe the Universal player with digital out is the way to go.

Pioneer DV-47A

The SACD seems pretty cool, it has yet to prove its better then CD though. plus my cdp is hi-end, and 106db SN ratio. one thing about muti-channel music, is it will be hard for a person in to vintage audio, to incorapte it, I'd have to get a processor, then use my vintage amps and vintage speakers to use everything.

Not interested anymore. I got myself a Sony SCD-1 which sounds great with CD and SACD. It's a two channel purist type of product which suits me just fine.

Most of these player will set you back $1000 or more. That's the only thing that's stopping me from buying one now.

A good anologe system is the way to go. I own a sony 9000ES SACD player and its very nice. I still like my turntable better though.