What do people make of the following equipment i'm about to purchase

Ravage

Hi all, i'm ordering the following from the UK and they should be sent out later in the week or next week. What do you guys think of the following?

Pioneer PD-F1009 301 Disc Hi-Fi CD Player

http://www.pioneer.co.uk/images/products/multicdplayer/pioneer/1011866559587pdf1007_detailpage.jpg

This is a slightly newer model of the more expensive 1007, which does have keyboard input but the 1009 does not suffer from the memory loss the 1007 has. I've chosen this over the Sony multi changers because i've read some bad reviews where the sony's can sometimes put the discs back in the wrong number.



The DENON DVD-700 DVD Player

http://www.denon.de/bilder/dvd/dvd700kgross.jpg

Pretty much a new dvd player, sounds great. Uses a new decoding chip so should be better than my dead Loewe Xemix player. Also the decoding is the same as in the new Denon DVD 1600 with the exception of the audio decoding, so i'll leave my amp up to that. (not fussed on the DVD-A or SVCD)



ATACAMA Equinox Hi-Fi Stand

http://www.atacama-audio.co.uk/images/product_images/equipment_hifi3b_equinox_lg.jpg

Next on my list is the Equinox Hi-Fi Stand from Atacama. This got some great reviews and fits my amp perfectly. Only problem is that the Pioneer CD unit earlier in this list will have to sit on the top of the shelfs as it won't fit inbetween them. (Going to put my amp on the larger bottom shelf)

Kali

Hmm while the Atacama unit is very nice, I've been thinking about the 5-shelf for a while myself ( have a look at http://www.beyondhifi.net ), I would be slightly wary about putting a large unit which could cause a lot of vibration on the top shelf.. both the cd and dvd players are grand choices imo, the only thing I'd point out is that the Denon (afaik) doesn't have SACD playback. While you may not be interested in that right now, with a 300+ cd collection I'm sure you'll be curious at some point in the next year if releases continue as is (especially if you've a nice amp/speaker combo)... I'd seriously consider the Philips 963SA (it also has amazingly good redbook playback for when the Pioneer mightn't cut it).

Ravage

Something I was concerned about and would like but quality is a higher issue for me was the SVCD playback, it would be nice. Now all the specs say the SVCD playback is not supported but i've read a review ( in german, but here is the babel fish translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.areavision.de%2Fhardware%2Fdenondvd700.shtml&lp=de_en&tt=url ) and this says that it does have SVCD playback.

So I think i'm going to risk it.

As for the CD player being on the top shelf, I am also a little wary about the unit being there, but I have no choice. I don't want to buy the Atacama Pro unit with the 4 spikes, its just too big and just a little more than I want to pay. Though it does have space for the CD player in between the shelfs.

I'm a little put off from Philips as I wasn't impressed by my Loewe and having it break down on me was great. (The Loewe of course is a rebranded slightly higher quality philips unit). It was Lyric Hifi that no longer exists now charged me €350 more than it was worth, That was one lesson I will never forget.

MartinHSabag

Why won't you describe what do you have at the moment and what is the budget for what you are looking for and maybe I can recommend alternatives ?

Ravage

My current setup is as follows:

Sony KV32FQ75, best 32" TV there was when I got it last year.
Denon 3801 amp
Kef 7.1 Home Theater speakers (aka Eggs)
Loewe Xemix 5006 (now dead)
Denon DVD 700 (arriving Friday)
Atacama Equinox stand (arriving Wednesday next week)
Philips Pronto RU950 remote

Going to order some QED speaker cable and Scart leads.

MartinHSabag

Hey nice TV (have the same one myself...:) ).
I like the HT2005 Kef set, these are the only satelite speakers I would get if I wouldn't be able to get bigger speakers....
Great AV Receiver.
I have the Pronto as well - great fun - let me know if you need any codes or screens/icons.
Regarding the Atacama - I heard they have nice stuff, never tried them myself, though.
Sorry to hear about the early dead of your DVD player....:D

What is your budget for a new one ?
If video is all you looking for , then just make sure you go for something that can be hacked to be multi-regional by the remote (and doesn't need to be chiped or something like that) that it reads all the formats you want (if you burn VCDs and SVCDs for example) that it reads MP3 (if you listen to them) etc.
As for the video just make sure the player has RGB (as your TV supports RGB through the SCART) - component wou;t be nice but not much use. most of them support S-Video anyway.

I personnaly wouldn't buy something very expensive as the differences in the video quality are really minor (even when I compared them on my projector and much more expensive projectors) so something like 150-200 Euros should do just fine with all that I mentioned above.
Allway go for a well known brand and not a tag brand cheap chinese player...

Someone recommended a multi-player (DVD-V, DVD-A, SACD etc.) - I personnaly wouldn't go for such - AS YET, as the prices Vs the avaliability of media is really bad and with no offence - the speakers you have wouldn't do justice or justify the format (I can go into details about the pros and cons of the multi-channel formats if you wish).

Good luck,

Ravage

Budget is s low as possible. So the Denon DVD 700 sounds great using a 12bit decoding chip i sould get better video quality than the Loewe.

The CD player is fine, I don't see how much difference cd players make when you output as optical.

One problem is that I have a Sky DigiBox (RGB Scart), now the Denon DVD player (RGB Scart) and an Xbox (RGB Scart) and as soon as I buy the cable RGB Scart for a game cube.
That's 4 RGB Scarts and as you know the Sony tv only has one RGB scart, doh.
So I've bought an RGB control box, about str£65 and got 5 out of 5 in What Video. Sounds like next to nothing in signal degregation. So I can't wait to see it.

MartinHSabag

Hi Ravage
"budget is as low as possible" doesn't help much
As you know it's all relative - what might be low for you might be a lot of money for another - a figure will help.

Number of bits and quality of picture is good on paper but in reality it's a totaly different story......
Yuo'll have to compare them side by side and decide - I'm using a cheap 200$ DVD player on a 100" screen and can't tell a difference between this one and one that cost 5 times more. I strongly recommend to check them and never buy based on specs alone and most defenietly not on how many stars it got on a magazine (have you ever read something bad about anything in those magazines ? I haven't and I read all of them - WHF, HI-FI+, HI-FI NEWS, ABSOLUT SOUND.....The magazines are good to as a news source but as far as recommendation - I wouldn't count on it).

Which CDP you were reffering to ? the DVD as a transport ? then I think you are right, although there are loads of manufacturers who make transports only as a product (reads the CD and outputs digital only to a seperate DAC - that's what I have by the way) and you don't want to know the prices.....I know lot of people who swear that they hear differences between transports...I haven't yet.