I am not ashamed to admit that in the last three years I have ended up buying four DVD players. The first one was the Philips DVD-761K, which after a year started to misbehave and would not play some of the DVD?s. In frustration (since I was not able to play the Diana Krall ? Live in Paris DVD) I had to get another one back in January 2003 which happened to be the Philips Q35.
I picked up the Q35 without any research as I was in a hurry. Q35 turned out to be a great player in the sense that it could play anything, being a multi region player. It is still functioning and giving good service. Q35 however failed my test of being a good or even acceptable CD player. It sounds like a mass-market run of the mill CD player with no character to back it up. I also have the LX8000SA which is essentially a CD/DVD/VCD/SACD player with 6 channels of audio and is doing the bedroom duty connected to the Philips PT-6361 29 inch Television .
The reason for my going for the Philips DVD-963SA was primarily to use it as an audio only player with option of watching the DVD concerts whenever I felt like. SACD happens to be its forte and that would make the player somewhat future proof (the way format war is going on nothing basically is). Before this player becomes obsolete lets consider what the current technology has to offer us.
FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS
SACD Stereo and Multi-Channel
Fully Separate Analogue and Digital Processors
HQ Progressive Scan with Faroujda DCDi
CD Up-Sampling to 24 Bit 192Khz
24 Bit 96kHz Audio Digital to Analogue Converters
13 Bit 108Mhz Video Digital to Analogue Converter
Dolby Digital and DTS Outputs
Dolby Digital and DTS Decoder Built-in
The technology that went into this player is very much state of the art (as of today from the consumers point of view) boasting a 13 bit Video DAC, unlike many others incorporated with 10-bit/12bit DAC?s. The higher bit DAC helps the player expand the colour palette to 8192 for Y, U and V signals. The progressive scan out put is the preferred choice if one has a TV with input capability for same. On the other hand it also is bestowed with a high quality up-sampling converter for audio only playback.
The video circuitry can be switched off with a button on the front panel for purer sound from CD?s and SACD?s (would put a smile on most audiophile?s faces). Another feature that I personally was very thrilled about was the tiny button at the back of the unit marked progressive/interlaced. This button comes in very handy when the TV is being switched from progressive to interlaced, the earlier models both had software switching which required the player to be switched on and you make the changes by viewing it on the TV.
List of Equipment used for evaluation of the DVD 963SA
Television: Philips Pixel Plus 9420
CD Players: Quad 67 CD Player, Marantz CD-63 Special Edition CD Player, Philips CD-Interactive Player CDI-205
DVD Players: Philips DVD Q35 Philips DVD 761K
VIDEO QUALITY
I was fortunate enough to have the latest test disc ?Digital Video Essentials? revised in fall 2003. I used it to set up my system before any evaluation was done. I did the test using some of my favourite DVD?s which I have watched on various systems and I happen to have a very good reference of, which includes, Diana Krall ? Live in Paris, James Taylor ? Live at the Beacon Theatre, Abyss, Lawrence of Arabia, Roger Waters ? Live in Berlin, Eagles ? Hell Freezes Over, and some others.
I noticed that the detail this player was able to extract from the source disk was far more than what I was used to with the Q35. The sense of atmosphere was added to most of the outdoor concert videos when the lights come on in the dark. The other thing I noticed was that the shadows had much more detail. On the James Taylor DVD, the texture detail on the stage flooring while the camera is being panned was amazing, I had not noticed it earlier even though I must have watched the DVD 50 times if not more.
Watching high quality DVD?s will always give you a sharper picture and good colours due to high resolution of the medium even if you are using an average quality DVD player, but badly executed disks will actually give you the real picture and give you a very good idea of how good or bad the the video processor is.
I used some VCD?s which I had purchased a while ago on my trip to far east and one of them being Sound of Music and the other a concert featuring Dave Grusin and Lee Ritenour Live. Both the disks on the non-progressive player were having irritating artifacts (jaggies) which was not very pleasant to watch. Even the Q35 having the progressive scan capability was not a big improvement on the 761K.
I switched it to the 963 with progressive scan engaged and the results changed; the artifacts were now hardly visible and the image was much more appealing. This means that the 108Mhz/13 bit video DAC was really working and showing a clear difference. The other two player?s were featuring a 54MHz/10 bit DAC. Its not just hype, the quality is there for anyone to appreciate.
AUDIO QUALITY
Being an audiophile I had to ask this question to myself, is this the player that can replace a stand-alone CD player? With the burning question in my mind I set out to test it as if it WAS a stand-alone CD player. Out of the box, the sound was good, but not as upbeat as my Marantz CD-63SE or the velvet smooth, higher end Quad 67 CD Player. The sound that was there led me to believe that the player has the potential to sound better once broken-in. After few months of use the player has come of age!
Dare I say the midrange is as good as the Quad 67 CD player, if not better. However the Quad 67 remains in the race unlike the Marantz CD 63SE. The high end of the Quad 67 was such that it made the player sound very civilized in the sense that it was sweeter. In comparison the 963SA is very open and probably has better resolving capability. Quad 67 was forgiving but 963SA is not. Now, this aspect of the unit again is a matter of personal taste. Some like it hot so to say! But certainly it is no sizzler.
I can also say that the newly acquired Rel Strata III gives a very good idea of what the player?s capabilities are at low end of the spectrum.
I ended up using my usual reference CD?s comprising of albums listed as follows:
Dave Brubeck ? Time Out,
Sting - Soul Cages, Brand New Day, Nothing like the Sun
Patricia Barber ? Café Blue, Companion,
Diana Krall ? The Look of love, When I look in your eyes,
Strunz and Farah ? Primal Magic,
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong ? Porgy and Bess,
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook ? Night Song, Mustt Mustt,
Alan Stivell ? Harpes du Novel Age, Renaissance of the Celtic Harp,
Vivaldi ? Four Seasons - Seiji Ozawa conducting Boston Symphony Orchestra with Joseph Silverstien,
John Williams ? Concerto de Aranjuaz
Continued in the comments section