Hey there everyone. I've been looking for a DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio player for a while now and began to ask myself if a universal player is what really wanted. Sure you can play any disc you want to in it, but regardless of this you will allways have certain trade-offs for having this capability. The Denon line of universal DVD players have from what I have read both online and in magazines, become the defacto "reference" standard in all around quality as of late and according to Secrets(http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=112), have by far the most glitch free operation of any progressive player on the market, but you definately pay for that performance. On the other end of the spectrum Pioneer has made it's once ELITE-only universal player available via the DV-563a and Secrets also stated that it performs well, and even overcame the Chroma Upsampling Error that has been plaguing that line for years, as mentioned above. But one wild card in this has sprung up time and time again: the Sony DVP-NC555ES DVD/SACD player. I know that many of you may jump all over me right away because this player isn't universal, and I too was leary about even concidering it until I began to really lay out all the facts about what I truely desire from a DVD player.

My first obstical was the DVD-A/SACD compatability, so I looked hard at the two formats to see who was giving the consumers the most for their money. Now DVD-Audio discs as a rule are compatible with standard DVD players as either DTS or PCM stereo output, with the DVD-Audio portion accessable with a compatible player. I thought about this, also taking into account the average price of a DVD-Audio title at roughly $20-$25. Then I looked into SACD discs and found that they have steadily been coming down in price, where now one can pick up a new release from artists such as Heart and Peter Gabriel that are SACD Hybrid discs (they play on both SACD and CD players alike) for about $16. Due to this fact, I found myself leaning more and more towards SACD as my format of choice, so I went to the GOOD GUYS to put both formats to the test and I must say that from where I stood, and maybe this was just the selection of titles I listened to but DVD-A sounded kind of gimmicky, with lots of emphasis on surround immersion. This was sort of cool, until I listened to the SACD's. All I can say is DAMN! I was bowled over at how incredibly open, warm and natural the sound was. And when I listened to surround SACD material I was utterly mesmerised my the ingeniusness of the artists and mixers that had no doubt put much time and effort into making the exerience worthwhile and not a gimmick.

Well it was during this that I was first able to put the Sony DVP-NC555ES player to the test in person. Once I had heard how impressive this unit was I immediatelly wanted to put it's SACD prowess against another SACD player of similar caliber, so I chose the Pioneer DV-45a, which The Good Guys sells for $399. Honestly I would have to say that the Sony player sounded quite a bit better than the Pioneer and can now understand why Pioneer has reduced the price of this player. That is not to say that the DV-45a is a poor player, just that I personally found the Sony quite a bit better for my taste. And then I found out how stunningly the DVP-NC555ES's progressive video performance is! This little player is leaps and bounds better than it's predicessors the DVP-9000ES and the newer "flagship" model the DVP-NS999ES, with better audio performance than either of these two players, as well as finally eliminating the Chroma Upsampling Error, and having a very compairable build quality to boot. That doesn't mean that it does not have it's own downside, one being that it's a 5-DVD changer, and the other that it has a longer layer switch time of between 1.5-2.0 seconds, which could be a bit distracting, but concidering it's other attributes I believe these to be moot points. If I was able to afford a Denon universal player I would by all means be the proud owner of such a find player, but due to my budgetary limitations I believe my money will be best spent on the new Sony ES player.