Customer Reviews

Pioneer DV-578A-S DVD Player with DVD-Audio / SACD

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After buying a 30-inch widescreen Philips digital display, my nearly 4-year-old Magnavox DVD player just would no longer provide the quality I needed. Thus, I began the search for a quality progressive scan player that would take full advantage of my new TV.

After buying and trying ~$100 players from Samsung and Panasonic, which I both promptly returned, I expanded my mindset. I looked at the Harmon/Kardon DVD22, which costs a hefty $200 and this great Pioneer DV-578A, which clocks in ~$50 less. I decided to take the Pioneer home and I am completely pleased.

It has a rich, clean 480p image with ample blacks and no unwanted imagery or need for excessive adjustment of my picture to compensate. The on-screen menus are more comprehensive than any other player I've plugged in, giving you lots of control and adjustability based on your system. It is SACD compatible, but I've not tried any of those yet. It has the optical and digital coax outputs, as well as built-in audio outs.

If you're like me, a mid-level A/V nut who's not ready for the ridiculous prices of Denon and the whole HiFi Buys crowd, the Pioneer is a great choice for a DVD player.

I purchased the Pioneer DV578A player as an upgrading to my old Pioneer dv515. The main cause of upgrading is to play DVD audio and SACD formats. The player does it all perfectly. About the DVD video, the picture is surely more vivid and clear than my old DVD, considering that I use the S video input of my Samsung Tantus Digital 100HZ 29" TV. This TV doesn't include a component input to try the Pure Cinema Progressive scan ability of the new player.Also JPG photos play fantasticaly with it as a slide show.
About the audio, CD's sound great, also DVD audio and SACD discs perform with good fidelity. There's here one drawback. It's the subwoofer channel output which seems to be so much low on playing DVD audio and SACD discs using the 6 channel output of my digital receiver. The subwoofer itself is a Sony 100W active subwoofer producing great bass on DVD videos played on either new and old DVD player.Here's the trick to bypass this problem.
First the player must be adjusted to SMALL SPEAKERS and SUBWOOFER ON using the Initial Menu, and the subwoofer cut frequency adjusted to its maximum.
Second and the most important is that the digital receiver contains 2 different outputs: the first is the digital one, with the ability to play 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS encoded DVD videos through optical or coaxial connections, and the level output of the 6 speakers including the subwoofer must be carefully adjusted preferably using the Radio Shack analogue sound level meter. Also the analogue 6 channel output designed for DVDA and SACD playback must be SEPARETELY adjusted using the SLM (I use the Sound & Vision - Home theater tune up DVD by OVATION software)for speaker's calibration. It includes calibration tests for both 5.1 and 6 channel.
I found that the subwoofer must be adjusted to a level of 8-10db more than the main speakers on the analogue 6 channel output, while it's about the same level or only 2db more on the digital 5.1 output.
Now the problem is solved, and I can enjoy listening to the new audio formats with a reliable quality.
As a conclusion, The DV578A is a great universal player with an amazing affordable price comparing to other products of the same category. I'm very happy for owning such an amazing player.

While I love a good video, I bought this mostly for its audio playback qualities, and for the fact that it plays almost every kind of dvd/cd media format out there. I have a hi-end audiophile system, and the sound is the best I've ever heard, and I've had maybe 5 dvd/cd players in the last few years.

For $149 or so you can't go wrong!

I just went to London and was struck by the overwelming choice of hi-fi - note that I live in Brazil where most of it is minisystem... And I noticed this stylish player - the Pioneer DV-575A - that claimed that could play almost everything, from the obvious CD and DVD-video to SACD, DVD-Audio and DIVx.

Having bought it, I was very happy to see that SACD sounds much better than through multi-channed emulation from the stereo track. DVD image is great. Fast forward is very smooth. And as a bonus I managed to get a region-free unit that dispenses with remote keying. It just plays it. Also, it works seamlessly with PAL and NTSC discs.

I use an Infocus X1 projector, so now I can see all discs without having to think about where it comes from.

In summary, very happy with the performance and the features.

I bought this for DVDs, and the Hi-Rez DVD Audio and SACD.

So far I am impressed on all counts. I have played DVDs in Dolby EX, DTS ES, Superbit, as well as several DVD AUdios and SACDs. The picture is excellent and the Hi-Rez sound is awesome. You would have to pay more than 3 times this price to hear anything better, assuming you have equipment thats good enough...


The 563a also downconverts SACD to PCM (if you want bass management) as do all units in extistence to date, so ignore the previous reviewers comments on this issue. And this player has the proper 80hz crossover frequency for subwoofers, that the previous model did not.

Later on I will get a $1300 Denon 3910 Universal player to go with my $1200 Denon reciever, but for the money this little player sounds very nice indeed!

I just bought this player because my old Hitachi wouldn't play anything with a high digital content (Star Wars ep 1&2, Monster's Inc, Spiderman etc..) or any of my homemade dvd-r's, which was very frustrating. I read a lot of reviews of this and similar products and I finally decided to give it a try and I LOVE IT. It has played everything I have put in it. Star Wars ep1&2 have never played so beautifully, my dvd-r's made on my imac play flawlessly with no skipping or garbled sections (I have used expensive 4x Apple dvd-r's and Compusa's 1x cheapies and they both played great), jpeg cd's work great and you can even put them on slideshow mode to watch your pictures like a movie. I haven't tried any SACD's (I don't own any) but I thought the audio was great on all of the dvd's I tried. The player itself is small and compact and makes almost no noise at all.

I bought one at Best Buy and picked out a number of SACD and DVD-Audio disc to take home and try out the new machine. Well on a few of the disc it was very nice but on some there was a horrible popping on some tracks (not just between them). I went back to the store where they had the machine set up as a demo and I was surprised that it didn't have the same problem. I then realized that they had it playing through 2-channel and had not used the 5.1. When set to 5.1 it had the very same problem. I'll be taking it back and saving some more money for the Denon.

I just purchased this player and could not be more pleased. The picture quality is fantastic and I can play SACD's, DVD-A, DTS discs, DVD+R. I had purchased a Toshiba SD-3960 but had to return two of them as they didn't work. This is so much superior that I am truly amazed. I payed $149.00 and for the money. it's a terrific player. Admittedly, I'm not using this player strictly for SACd's, it's my main DVD player and the picture is wonderful, true colors, crisp images, nice blacks, truly enjoyable.
I haven't had problems playing SACD's like the previous review. Really, can't recommend this player more! I'll never purchase Toshiba again now that I've seen the quality of this player.

Pretty much everything that could be said about this player has been said in some of the other reviews; however, I noticed some innacuracies. First, the SACD does play in 5.1. I had a bit of confusion playing Michael Jackson's Thriller album. Without reading very carefully, it was difficult to determine that it was a 2.1 mix. This labeling issue can lead a person to believe that the player is faulty when in fact it's the mix of the disc. Some discs have both stereo and surround mixes. This may also have been a cause for confusion. The player does have a setting allowing the user to define to which format the player will default. I felt that was a nice feature given that tastes vary among listeners. It can cause confusion, but that's why we read our instruction manuals :).

With regard to the conversion, there are internal menus that you can set to PCM; however, the true encryption can be set as well.

Overall, I've loved this player for what it is. It's given me access to all the formats that I want. The richness of some of the mixes produced for both SACD and DVDA formats have brought tears to my eyes. Music genres that I otherwise don't enjoy (i.e Jazz) become a moving experience. It moves the listening experience away from hearing music to feeling music. It's unfortunate that these formats did not take off. Most people simply prefer convenience over quality.

My one gripe with the player itself is that it doesn't have any sophisticated channel management or bass control other than the selection of small or large speakers (hence the 4 star rating). For me the channel controls for the 5.1 inputs on my receiver were able to correct this. It took some odd and perhaps aggressive tweaking, but it was time well spent. This player can't be beaten for the price.

I picked up a unit from Best Buy, and it worked swell for about 26 days.

For some unknown reason, the audio playing from DVD-Audio discs suddenly sounded as if was coming from underwater. The odd audio only occurred in 5.1. When playing the same DVD-A discs in stereo, the audio sounded normal.

5.1 SACD discs played without a problem, as did DVD-Video discs. From some of the other reviews, it appears there are those that didn't experience any problems.

If you desire to purchase this unit, I'd advise buying it locally in case you need to return it if turns out to be defective. I had to return mine and ended up purchasing a Sony DVD/SACD changer instead.