Sony DVP-NS905 or Pioneer DV-656A

I've read some reviews, and from what I've been informed, Pioneer is the best dvd player manufacturer on the market, so that was my first choice, but I read some reviews of the players.

I undstand that the Sony player has a 108 MHz/12 bit D/A converter, which should improve the picture a lot.
The Pioneer is only 54 MHz/10 bit D/A converter, so does this make a big difference?

If it does, I can't really understand why Pioneer haven't improved this, since the two players were released almost at the same time...

Any suggestions?

- Smoking Gunn

 

The fact that the Sony has bigger/faster video DAC's doesn't actually mean it will produce a better picture if the DAC's in the 656 are man enough for the job.

Admittedly I've not tried either player, I had ordered a 656 but got fed up with waiting and went for a 747 in the end.

From what I could gather (this is all untested/unfounded), the Sony is arguable better picture wise, but the 656 does more (DVD-A).

Whether the picture actually looks any different depends what you will be watching it on. On a 14" portable you won't notice any difference, on a 32" widescreen, who knows?

The Pioneer does have component out if that floats your boat.

This hasn't really helped much has it?

 

No, not really, but my TV is a Sony KV-32FX66. And I was once told that Sony is not always what they pretend to be.

Eg. when they say 5 x 110 watt in their recievers, it could be 5 x 60 watt when you compare with compents from other manufacturers and so on.

I wonder if this also is the case when concerning D/A converters...

...

 

It's unlikely they would "lie" about the spec of the DAC's. It's very easy to spot that if you look at the chips used. However with output levels it's easier to fudge the figures.

A theoretical example:

Each of the 5 channels, when being the only channel in use, is capable of 110W, therefore it's 5x 110W isn't it?

However, when driving all channels, it might only be capable of 5 simultaneous channels of 60W, so it's only 5x 60W.

Both are correct, and yet also incorrect at the same time. But which looks better on paper?

 

and if you add 110W and 60W you get 170W!!! wow, i'm off to buy a sony, they rock