Whew!!! It took a little while, but here's that DVD player review from the May 2002 Home Theater Magazine. Enjoy!


Pioneering the Peace
Pioneer’s DV-47A multichannel
SACD/DVD-Audio player takes
The bite out of the format war!
By Chris Lewis

I always knew the day would come; I just didn’t know how long it would take. How long would it take someone to break through the politics, the partisanship, and all of the other garbage that has become the so-called format war between SACD and DVD-Audio and gibe the consumers what they want and need; choice, in all available forms. The day is finally here, so fire up a Cuban, cook up a big, fat T-bone, or do whatever it is you do to celebrate. Personally, I’ll be uncorking a 21-year-old bottle of Wild Turkey and loading up some triumphant music—maybe my SACD of 1812 Overture or my DVD-Audio of Beethoven’s Ninth. Maybe even my 16/44 cut of Muddy Waters’ "I’m Ready." Hell, as long as all of those options are available to me on one player, I don’t care if it’s Britney Spears (OK, I take that back). The bottom line is that the consumer undoubtedly wins as the debate between SACD and DVD-Audio (at least, on the hardware side) moves away from the store shelves and back into the halls of academia, where it really belongs. The format war should’ve never existed in the first place. Thanks to Pioneer’s new DV-47A and, if I know my consumer electronics, other players that will soon follow—it doesn’t have to exist as it has anymore.
Some of you are undoubtedly thinking, why strike up the band now? Pioneer already has a top-shelf SACD/DVD-Audio player, as does Luxman. Even Apex has released an SACD / DVD-Audio / progressive scan player. Well, it’s relatively simple: Both the Pioneer and the Luxman were prohibitively expensive and only offered two-channel SACD (which is fine for now, but, once recording and mixing skills mature and start to unveil multichannel’s true potential, that opinion may quickly change). The Apex does offer multichannel for both formats but, in my opinion, performs very close to its $349 price tag. To me, the DV-47A is the first player that offers high-quality DVD-Audio and SACD playback in all their forms—and is priced at a level that is accessible to the masses. After all, it’s the masses who will ultimately seal the fate of both of these formats, one way or the other.
In addition to multichannel SACD and DVD-Audio playback, the DV-47A has progressive scanning, further enhancing its value. It also offers 24-bit/192 kilohertz digital-to-analog converters, bass management (in that you can set the crossover via speaker-size-settings), and CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and MP3 compatibility. There’s also a couple of tricks that attempt to make standard formats sound more "SACD / DVD-Audio-like": The Legato Link digital filter upsamples CD’s from 44.1 kHz to 176.4 kHz and DVD’s from 48k kHz to 192 kHz, and the Hi-Bit feature increases 16-to-20 bit wordlengths to 24 bits.
When demo time rolled around, I started with some high-resolution material, albeit in two channel (old habits die hard). I had little choice with the SACD rendition of Miles Davis’ classic Kind of Blue, which is stereo-only---and thankfully so. I’m not quite ready to hear Davis, Adderley, or Coltrane blowing from behind me. Even with the smaller stage, the sound was rich, full, and incredibly clean. The quick, high-frequency bursts that are a key component of Davis’ repertoire were silky, with a delicate balance of perspective that resisted forwardness and over-aggression but remained front and center, clearly distinct from the rest of the presentation. Again I was impressed by the soundstage depth that SACD and DVD-Audio can develop from a stereo image, without any superfluous processing techniques in the hardware or in the formats themselves. The only real editorialization I noticed form the system was on the part of my amplifiers (the Krell KAV-500 and two Aragon Palladium mono-blocks in front), whose sound I naturally know well. The Pioneer was clean and true, operating as an open window to the source.
Next up was some multichannel fare, running the gamut from the SACD version of Jerry Goldsmith’s classic movie themes to the DVD-Audio mix of Queen’s A Night at the Opera, to the Big Band Christmas DVD-Audio (yes, I know what time of year it is, but a well-done mix is a well-done-mix). The Goldsmith disc particularly unveils SACD’s potential. It was one of the first discs to be mixed with SACD in mind form the outset---including proper miking for multichannel and the use of DSD throughout the recording and mixing process. It sounded brilliant, with perfect timbre and tonal balance and enough real estate to fill my large listening area with no effort whatsoever. The sweeping climaxes of the Star Trek theme teleported me (don’t bother, I’ll slap myself) beyond the normal dimensions of my room. The horns were especially clean, smooth, and not nearly as overly dominant as they can be.
The DV-47A was no less impressive on the DVD-Audio side. I’ve heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" far more times than I ever cared to but never in the DVD-Audio guise. I can easily say that this was the best I’ve ever heard this quality (although overused) cut sound. Say what you want about Freddie Mercury, but the man could sing, and that was a s clear here as it ever was. The mixers obviously took some liberties in terms of channel acrobatics with this pop piece versus what they might have done with an opera or classical work. There’s plenty of side-to-side and front-to-back movement, not to mention voices all over the place. It’s hardly textbook, but it’s undeniably entertaining. Hell, what was ever textbook about Queen---or rock-‘n’-roll, for that matter---to begin with? Once again, the DV-47A stepped aside and let the disc speak for itself, exactly as it is supposed to do.
As good a job as this player does with audio, video hardly receives short shrift. Eagle-eyed senior technical editor Mike Wood is the final word on the video around here, and he was as impressed as the rest of us were with the DV-47A’s performance. A quick run through Video Essentials revealed that this player offers sharp resolution out to the limits of the format and passes PLUGE (which is helpful for monitor calibration). We were also impressed with DV-47A’s 3:2-pulldown recognition (a skill that still escapes many players), and we liked how it handled the downconversion of 16:9 to 4:3 letterbox for use with a standard TV.
Of course, real world performance is what counts most, and for this we focused primarily on the DV-47A’s progressive-scan output. Saving Private Ryan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon deliver the kind of high-speed action we needed to judge the Pioneer’s stability, as well as plenty of color, balance between light and dark scenes, and other key material to put the unit through its paces. Just like its audio image, the DV-47A’s video image is stable, clean and dynamic. The dreary grays an browns of Private Ryan stood in stark contrast to the explosions of red, green, and blue in Crouching Tiger, but the Pioneer handled both with equal enthusiasm and attention to detail. Color saturation was almost always dead-on, and black-level detail was clearly evident throughout. I was pleased to see that the only motion jerkiness in Private Ryan was that which the director intended, and any instances of tearing or other border issues were few and far between.
The DV-47A’s peripherals are first-rate. The onscreen menus are simple to navigate and well executed, including a setup navigator that really couldn’t make it easier to adjust the basic parameters. The manual is one of the more-informative ones that I’ve come across. While the remote isn’t the most comfortable one I’ve ever used, it certainly does the trick. Aesthetically, the DV-47A is clearly underdone by Elite standards (no champagne finish or fancy wood side panels); however, if that’s what helps keep the price tag where it is, I’m all for it.
It probably goes without saying that I like this machine, and not just because of what it symbolizes for the future of both SACD and DVD-Audio. After all, what’s not to like about a unit that plays both high-resolution, multichannel formats, adds progressive scanning, and does all of it very well at a relatively affordable price? I know that some of you want me to say that it handles SACD or DVD-Audio better, just like you want to hear that one format is better than the other. All I can say is what I’ve said so many times before: The final judgment of quality for these formats lies in their software, amongst which there will be hits and misses from both camps. The fact that we now have the ability to choose between the two formats on the same player and can open our options up to the full spectrum of high-resolution, multichannel software is an issue I cannot understate. All of you nurses out there had better start puckering up---this war just might be over.


My hands are kinda tired, think I'll go home now.

-Jeremy