Advice on cheapo non-hifi

Need a) a DVD player and b) a discman-type-thingy

a) I've just been given a DVD disc, but have nothing to play it on. Have been toying with the idea of getting one for a while, but this would seem to be the trigger to doing something about it. Don't expect to be making a big thing about flash pictures, prog. scan etc - my TV is a 10 year old Sony 25" Trinitron (standard 4:3 aspect, but does have 16:9 mode detection). I intend to take a digital output to feed into the CDP input (supports BNC, XLR, glass optical, Toslink at up to 96kHz), so the most important thing is to be able to output PCM. DVD-A would be a bonus (does that then do downsampling to 96kHz?). Expect to watch the odd film, and probably a few opera DVDs, but I don't expect it to be a major part of my life, so don't intend to spend too much.


b) Something to listen to CDs on the move and in the car. I've just been given a Sony D-EJ360. Took the first one back because it was utter pants - could hear virtually nothing at anything less than full volume, and letting the AVLS kick in made it completely inaudible, which was actually a godsend as the quality of the sound was execrable. Even at full volume, anything less than a Don't really want to be doing with all this downloading/ripping palaver - simple disc off the shelf and into the gizmo does me just fine. Got a replacement and this sounds exactly the same - so it's either a seriously bad batch, or just £40 of juk completely unfit for purpose. So this time round I intend to get an exchange for something else.

Any reccos?

 

if you just want the cheapest go down to richer sounds and get one of their sub 100 quid specials but as with anything you pay for what you get. i'd go for one of the pioneer multi format jobbies. these are available for a few hundred quid and are pretty good at most things - plus you get to play any sacds you have.

portable music? i use minidisc so sorry no help from me there..
cheers


julian

 

I've got the Toshiba 220e. Does just the thing. Richers are definitely the place. Get a big brand one for about £80. You'll be very happy I'm sure.

 

Dunno about the spec, but Sainsbury's have got a DVD at the mo for £29 - haven't inspected it closely, just kinda noticed it in passing on the way to the beer section, but it doesn't look completely shoddy either.

Could be complete crap for all I know, but if price is the criteria, I'm guessing that'd be hard to beat

 

Hi Graham

About 4 years ago (in complete naivity) I went into a Sony shop and bought one of their top Discmans for 120 pounds.

Extremely dissapointed with the sonic results when I got it home, I went out and bought some headphones (30 pounds).

Things improved and now sound mediocre.

Basically, motto of the story I would say is buy some decent portable headphones, and then insist on trying the discmans in the shop.

Funnily, my friends Sony discman (1 year older and a cheaper model than mine) sounded better both with its own headphones and my fancy ones! - So there is some variation in model.

The portable Seinheissers look flavour of the moment for portable sounds...

Good luck
Chris

NB Cant help you on the DVD. I whack my DVD's through my X-box! (well, I wanted an excuse to buy an X-box, and ''it plays DVD's'' did the job!)

 

Looking at Richer Sounds flyer from last month, they were doing the Toshiba SD330E in multiregion format for £69.99. I know a few people with the earlier models who are extremely happy with them. And the Toshibas seem to get very favourable reviews. As for portable CD players, can't offer much advice as I use an iPod but RS seem to stock a few of the big name units such as SONY and Panasonic, might be worth having a look there.

 

For the DVD player it's a no-brainer: get the Toshiba SD330E from Richer Sounds. They were doing them for £50 Region 2 or £60 multi-region allthough going by BL21DE3's post it looks like they might have just increased that.

The RRP for them is about £130 so even £70 for the multi-region version is a great deal.

I bought one from Richers for £60 for the flat in London and it's excellent. It's without question the best budget DVD player there is and really makes the £50 supermarket specials (which are awful) redundant.

For CD portables I would say stick with Sony allthough you seem to have had some bad luck. Don't bother with the crap headphones that come bundled, get a pair of Sony EX71 "earbud" phones and you won't regret it (and the volume levels shouldn't be a problem with those phones either).

Michael.

 

Another vote for the SD330E DVD player. If you go into one of their branches and quote the price on the website, which is currently £59.99, they will sell it for that much. Thats what i did when i bought mine

As far as portables go, the Sennheiser PX200 folding headphones get my vote, i use a pair with my minidisc player.

 

Another vote for Toshiba!

The SD220e we have is great for the money

 

Search the net I did for me mum she ended up with a pioneer DVD player for £45 delivered, thisa player was RRP£120 and around £90-100 on the high street. Does just what you want think it was digitaldirectuk.com

P

 

Yep 330 Tosh, bargin and half, £35 worth of mods and the Dvd88 boys are sweating

 

all the Panasonic DVD players, and the JVC ones from the XVN412 upwards also support DVD-A, which Graham kinda hinted he may like although I'd say save up to £200 and go for a Pioneer DV565a and start enjoying DVD-As, SACDs as well as DVDs, Jpeg, mp3 cds etc etc etc

 

Thanks guys - phoned up the local Richers and reserved a 330E, but between then and getting there I convinced myself I really wanted DVD-A, and their offer of £99.99 for the Pioneer 656A for DVD-A/SACD was too good to miss. (BTW - they also reckoned that the Sony 360 was better than the Tosh if you - as I - don't have component input on your telly)

Unfortunately they didn't have any of those left at our local breanch , and I was too impatient to wait for a nearby one :cry:, so got their 565A for £148.95. (Actually 159.95, as this was the one model I didn't quote the net price at them, and didn't twig they'd charged more than I expected until I got home - but I'll go back in tomorrow and see if I can get some money back). They also didn't give me my free mug .

Not had time to sort out a digi-cable yet, so I'm running with a horrendous pair of RCA-RCA analogue freebies coupled with one maplins barrel and one RCA-BNC connector - but it still syncs up OK. So I'm now enjoying Pete and Dud attempting to fend off Betty Grable, Greta Garbo and Jane Russell - classic . Need to get a coupel od DVD-A and SACD discs now to see what they sound like.

Anyway, if anyone wants a DVD-A/SACD player for under £100, there appear to be 656As in stock at Bournemouth, Ealing, Holborn, Milton Keynes + several others I can't remember now.

As for the Discman - I've been checking a few reviews. There seem to be plenty (although possibly most from the US - where they seem to have a completely different model with the same ID) commenting on how great the sound and volume are. But then seen this set of reviews, which mostly seem to have the same experience as me. In particular, the 4th one down says that all Sony Walkmans have been doctored. Anyone heard anything about this?

Those EX71s look as if they could be good, so I'll check them out. I have a few other sony in-ear freebies, which are mostly pretty rubbish, and over ear ones which are better but too bulky. All seem less sensitive than the ones that came with the EJ360 though.

 

GrahamN, with regards to the 'doctoring' of the sony cd players, I know that the iPod software for the european market was modified to have a lower volume. So I suspect that this may be the case with other portable devices. Glad to hear you've got a DVD player though, hope you have fun with it .

 

Graham,

get yourself an iPod and iTrip for the car - then you can listen to a shuffled version of the entire Ring Cycle whilst driving round the M25.

Congratulations on your DVD player, and what a debut DVD ( one of my clients rues to this day producing it!) Why not try out the SACD capabilites ( I konw you need to borrow a pre but you might be pleasently surprised by the experience!)

 

got yourself a real bargain there... cheapest i'd seen the 565s for was £200 and a 656 for £100 is unbelievably good. think i'll stick with my 747a though, bought for £200

 

i also got my 565A at Richers not long ago, and have been very happy with it. The picture is great, even if the cd playing is not of a very high standard. Certainly beats or is as good as anything I've seen so far.

i haven't, however, tried SACD or DVD-A yet because i don't have any software to try them out. but as far as i can tell, this is a very nice little piece of kit (very thin too!) that is great value for money!

(out of curiosity, do you have to burn in dvd-a and sacd independently of cd playing, or does it work for all formats at once?)

:beer:
Jack

 

(Coelocanth-like this ancient thread rises from the murky depths)

Having put in an order to Father Christmas for these, I finally got around to trying them out in the last couple of days, and yes they are a major improvement! Worked fine on the train test with a string quartet disc (Oslo quartet playing Nielsen's 1st and 2nd, on Naxos), and just about coped with the tube as well. They couldn't keep out the sound of the busker at Bank station though! Didn't fare quite as well on Bruckner's 5th symphony on the way back (Celibidache on EMI), but still about adequate - although the opening was pretty much inaudible. May play around tomorrow with the different earpiece sizes. I still have to have the player at max volume for it to stand a chance though .

Anyway, I now know why Michael rates these earphones so highly.

 

But you do like to listen LOUD Graham

I use them on the plane a lot (which is probably noiser than train/tube) and I have to turn up the volume a bit but never to max levels. If you want better external sound isolation than the EX71s give you you'll have to stump up for one of the Etymotics ER6 or ER4P but they're $140 and $330 a pair respectively

Glad you like the EX71s generally though...I hate making recommendations that people end up not liking!

Michael.

 

You probably need to try the smaller earbuds, they need to go pretty deep into the earlugs for the best results.

-- Ian