Pioneer DV-45A DVD Player

Pioneer DV45A

For better or worse, there are two competing multichannel audio formats being marketed: DVD-A and SACD. For us, the consumer, that means we have to buy either 2 DVD players or a "Universal" player such as the Pioneer Elite DV45A. More about that in a minute.

The Pioneer is primarily a progressive scan DVD player. In that role, it sports solid build quality, an excellent picture quality and a functional, though somewhat awkward remote. This is not a "plug in and forget" unit, however. Though not complicated, you absolutely must go through the setup menus and make the selections that are appropriate to your home theater configuration.

When connected to a monitor that can accept the progressive scan signal, the results are spectacular. There is a slight pause during layer changes, but no worse than other DVD players I have owned. When using the Toslink optical audio out, sound is consistent and solid. It has both Dolby Digital and DTS decoders built in, but you will need to use the 6 analog RCA connectors (and have a receiver that has the corresponding inputs) in order to take advantage of them.

The remote has a joystick control that, at least to me, is a little awkward. I find that getting it to select the various options usually is a little tricky. However, with the many excellent all in one remotes on the market, that is hardly an issue.

Now for the frustrating part: the analog audio setup. DVD-A and SACD playback can only be achieved by using them. Now, before going into the issues I had during setup, I can assure you that if you follow my suggestions, you will be eventually listening to state of the art audio reproduction.

Just for the record, I am using the Pioneer with a Yamaha receiver, Klipsch (RF5, RC3 and SS3) speakers and dual SVS 20-39 subwoofers. That combination produced tremendous bass energy when playing DVDs and regular CDs with the SV45A. I should note that I was using the "standard" configuration of routing the .1 channel via subwoofer cables to the SVS speakers.

For years Telarc has produced some of the best CD recordings. Some might argue that they were a tad bass heavy, but that is the point. No one would ever describe them as "bass shy". I therefore looked with great anticipation to what their SACD's would sound like on the Pioneer. In a word: terrible. I even wrote them a letter which I thankfully did not mail complaining of the lack of low end response on them. What I discovered, after much trial and error, is a combination of problems when you try to use the Pioneer for SACD and DVD-A using the "usual" connection method for home theater.

For the impatient, I'll skip to the bottom line: to get the Pioneer to sound as good playing SACD and DVD-A as it does on DVD, I had to go into setup and tell it I had NO subwoofer, that the main speakers were large, the center and surrounds small, and I had to boost the output to +6db on the mains in the bass management menu. On the Yamaha receiver, I told it there was NO subwoofer, that the mains were large and everything else small. Finally, I disconnected the subwoofer cables to the SVS's and connected them via the speaker level outputs.

Was all that really necessary? Yes. You see, Telarc uses the .1 channel for "height" effects. By using the connection I just described, I forced all the bass to be routed to the SVS's through the mains. Suddenly, the "bass shy" SACDs were full bodied. The same was true for DVD-A. A recording of "Mannheim meets the Mouse" that was anemic suddenly had tight bass response.

So, the lack of bass is partly the fault of the Pioneer's bass management system, and partly the fault of the recording engineers. However, the connection arrangement I described solves the problem, and works just fine for regular DVD's. The .1 effects channel is properly derived and routed to the subwoofers via the mains.

Once properly connected, I can recommend the Pioneer without hesitation.