LEVESQUE: Thanks for the heads up on the 79avi. I had hoped to make a decision before September but you never know. I'm definitely not there yet. Do you know at what price point it will be? I think the Pioneer Elite 59avi originally listed for $1599 so it has come down a lot this past year.
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I just went back over two head-to-head reviews of the
Pioneer DV-59AVavi and the
Denon DVD-5900, (the predecessor to the
Denon DVD-3910).
Thomas J. Norton in Ultimate AV Magazine (September 2004 review) clearly preferred the sound of the Pioneer on both SACD and DVD-A for it's greater clarity and improved bass. In his review of the
Denon DVD-5900 he said his initial impressions on DVD-Audio and SACD were good. He then went on to say,
"Nevertheless, I didn't find the sound to be fully involving. Everything was clean and highly listenable, yet just a little too sweet and bland, with less inner detail and dimensionality than I expect to hear from a high-resolution format such as DVD-Audio. The bass response was satisfactory, but nothing out of the ordinary.
When I switched over to the Pioneer DV-59AVi, there was no getting around it: the Pioneer simply sounded clearer, had a much stronger bottom end (I'd matched the players' output levels as closely as possible), and, overall, simply produced more of what I expect to hear from hi-rez audio. The same turned out to be true with SACD, whether I used bass management (which, remember, results in a conversion of SACD from DSD to PCM) or switched to Source Direct."
Norton said that CDs on the 5900 sounded very good
for a DVD player:
"The Denon's CD playback was pristine: clear, open, and detailed. I had no complaints at all. High frequencies were airy, mids were clear, and lows were deep and tight. The imaging was solid, with a convincing sense of depth. The sound was at least as rewarding as I've heard when routing the digital outputs of a good DVD player through a top-class pre-pro.
For listening, he used the Denon's analog outs and set the main speakers to small and the low pass to the sub at 80 Hz. In a companion review of the
Pioneer DV-59AVavi in the same issue he again noted his preference for the Pioneer on DVD-As and SACDs (also using the analog outs):
They sounded highly detailed, with fine depth and soundstaging; solid, tight bass; and an open, clear top end that some (not I) might find just a bit elevated.
In contrast, Shane Buettner in The Perfect Vision (September/October 2004 review) said almost exactly the opposite. In his review of the two players, he gave the
Denon DVD-5900 higher marks for its audio performance.
"With SACDs, the Denon’s over-built nature paid off with a bigger, deeper soundstage, better bass foundation, more midrange focus, and a sound that was both more relaxed and detailed. More low-level details were revealed on the Denon.
On CDs, things evened up some. The Denon showed a somewhat softer, more laid-back presence region, while the Pioneer’s lightness in the bass translated to a brighter, livelier midrange sound that I’ve long associated with Pioneer players. The Denon wasn’t much deeper in soundstaging than the Elite, but the Elite seemed to better delineate detail between front and back, and had a snap and dynamism that I liked.
With high-rez PCM, the tables evened even more dramatically with the players sounding far more alike than different. This makes some sense, as there’s less processing of high-rez PCM signals with both players. The primary difference between the two was again in the bass foundation, which the Denon has and the Pioneer lacks."
Although he did seem to somewhat prefer the Pioneer's sound on CD's, he again noted the difference in bass.
So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, who do
YOU believe?
