Pioneer DV 656

The new high, is of course : DVD Audio. This was the over riding factor when I was looking to upgrade from my older Marantz CD player and Sony DVD player. I wanted a unit capable of playing standard audio CDs, plus the gamut of DVD media, and this puppy has played everything I've ever thrown at it. My old Sony couldn't even play multi region, let alone SACD or DVD Audio, so when I visited a friends and had a multi region DVD, DTS, DD5.1, SACD and DVD Audio demo, my musicians ears told me pretty sharpish that DVD Audio was *probably* the nearest thing to live sound I had ever heard. I worked in ... more

Experimenting with home entertainment products, I stumbled into a Comet store and started looking around. With an ongoing battle against market leader Sony, and thier overpriced machines, a new manufacturer was to favoured. The helpful sales staff reliably informed me that Panasonic now offer the best picture quality in the field, and Toshiba are currently leading the "cheap option" segment. I, however had my eye on a sleek, and curvacious Pioneer model. Looks: the Pioneer I decided to purchase was the DV656S-A DVD/Audio/Video/SACD player. It stands just 3" tall, and is plated in a dark silver ... more

With the two new digital formats namley SACD & DVD-A disks on the market that are capable of multichannel high resolution sound Pioneer have come up trumphs with this machine. The DV-656A is one classy performer and capable of playing just about any 5" shiny disk you throw at it. This means that if any of the new formats fails you will still be able to play them without scrapping your machine and or software, remember VHS & BETAMAX? The DV-656A is light in weight and the power supply is of the switchmode variety which does away with weighty mains stepdown transformers, thus reducing the weight ... more

Pioneer, a long time manufacturer of topquality homecinema equipment, has a reputation to uphold. Leading the laserdisc industry of yesteryear it developed many innovative designs on videocircuitry and today is among the best in DVD-performance. Thus Pioneer’s philosophy on performance is simple. State of the art processors and circuitry from their top of the line Elite-series trickle down fast to the more affordable machines. They will meet any pricepoint with the best possible configuration beating competitors in the same pricerange for your viewing pleasure. The DV-656a comes in fourth from ... more

Having read a glowing recommendation from the What Hifi Sound and Vision magazine in July 2003, I narrowed my choice of DVD players to 2, the other being a Marantz. Whilst the Pioneer does not have progressive scan, its ability to play a large range of formats (DVD-Audio, SACD, SACD Multi-channel together with DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW, CD, VideoCD and MP3 on CD-R) makes it an obvious choice for anyone who wishes to 'future proof ' their DVD player. The functions are very easy to manipulate through the online menu, the picture is superb, as is the sound. The player comes in Black ... more

This is the fourth DVD player I've purchased, and it has the best all round features of any player I've experienced to date in the under £500.00 catagory. Plays literally any disc you throw it's way; DVD Video / DVD Audio / VCD / SACD / CD / CD-R / CD-RW / DVD-R / DVD-RW and your own MP3 discs. Excellent features, including broad connectivity options at the rear / low noise / dimmable display / and the multi-region version helps make it a must buy for anyone serious about their DVD's. The OSD menu is quite good but I've used slightly more intuitive menus before - I'm really finding it hard to ... more