General Asylum: REVIEW: Technics by Panasonic DVD-A10 DVD-A/V/CD player CD Player/Recorder by Chris Wynn

I think that it would be unwise to judge the DVD-Audio format based on the performance of Technic's DVD-A/V player, so I will try to focus on the player rather than the format. I recently had the opportunity to evaluate the DVD-A10 player. I used the Technics DVD-Audio demo disc featuring multi-channel and two-channel Jazz and Classical recordings from Universal music. The incompetance and disinterest of the electronics store's staff insured that it would not be possible to listen to the Technics DVD-A10 player in it's full multi-channel glory, so my listening was done with the player restricted to the output of the front left and right channels. I tested the DVD-A10 in the exact same set-up as that in which I evaluated Sony's SCD-1 SACD player. The set-up featured Sonus Faber Electa Amator speakers, Thule amplification, and MIT and Monster cabling.

It was immediately obvious that the player was not audiophile friendly, as it was impossible to get the player to play multi-channel mixes in stereo. Perhaps it would have been easier if the player had also been connected to a video monitor. In any case DVD-Audio does not appear to be a true audio product, if a video monitor is a requirement to acheive true stereo from multi-channel recordings. Most of the classical tracks were multi-channel, while the majority of jazz selections on the demo disc were strictly two-channel. All featured the high bit and sampling rates that characterize DVD-Audio. The two channel tracks lit the stereo light on the bottom left of the player's front plate, and were by far the most musically succesful of the two formats (stereo vs. multi-channel front right and left signals). The player stubbornly refused to configure the multi-channel mixes for stereo (which would have been indicated by the lighting of the stereo indicator light from the multi-channel recordings). The results were musical images that sounded decidedly flat and poor soundstage depth and cohesion. String tone (my ultimate hifi test) sounded dry, scratchy, thin, wiry, and decidedly unnatural. Orchestral dynamics sounded squashed and the presentation lacked any kind of image depth or layering.

Though proper multi-channel configuring might have helped soundstaging and imaging, I am not sure that hearing the DVD-Audio classical demo tracks in multi-channel would have improved the dry, nasal, weedy quality of the strings. I am not sure the lack of convincing string harmonics, string body, and natural note decay would have sounded any different in multi-channel, but I will reserve judgement.

The two channel (only) track of Debussy's "Clair de Lune" for piano, sounded noticeably more successful, but surprisingly the overall fidelity was not as successful as that of many budget CD players. The DVD-A10's chief failing (in stereo) was a tendency to stretch and warp musical images. The piano tone of the "Clair de Lune" performance sounded pitch accurate, but the the acoustic image of the piano sounded bloated, really enormous, and unnatural. I noticed "image bloat" with all of the stereo tracks. Images seemed to lack the precise focus that budget CD players are capable of creating.

Vocal images sounded very upfront (bordering on unpleasant), but this may have been the recording. The soundstaging in the various jazz pieces was not as three dimensional as it could be, but all these pieces sounded smooth and unfatiguing, which may reflect recording techniques.

The jazz demo tracks sounded so smooth that I began to have doubts about the player's ultimate treble extension. The final test track, however, called "Dancin Cymbals," laid these doubts to rest. The cymbal piece displayed excellent, finely filagreed treble extension that sounded very, very realistic. Yet, I still detected the kind of treble "etching" that is common with CD (and noticeably absent from the sound of SACD). Overall, the "Dancin Cymbals" piece demonstrated the DVD-A10's improvement with treble extension, as compared to CD. I heard more air and fine detail, but, what I will call for lack of a better word, the "PCM" quality of the sound remained, representing an incremental improvement over CD, but not a quantum leap. The sound remained identifiably CD-like, and did not strike me as being as harmonically rich and sophisticated as SACD, but this might have just been the recordings.

I was disturbed by a loud, obvious "blip" that preceeded the beginning of each musical track. Moreover, the player's track cueing and track search seemed laboured and difficult. Switching between tracks seemed to stress and aggravate the player, which was demonstrated by much popping and clicking.

The sound of Technic's DVD-A10 player was far from a revelation. I did not hear the kind of refinement and musical fidelity from the DVD-A10, that I heard from Sony's SCD-1. Moreover, the DVD-A10 lacked the sophisticated musical "architecture" and sophisticated imaging and soundstaging of Sony's SCD-1. In fact, the Technics player makes the Sony seem decidedly "revolutionary" after all, especially given the DVD-A10's inability to match the fidelity of the most basic CD players. I was not impressed, but I cannot help feeling that this player should not be used to assess the quality of the DVD-Audio format itself. Better players will come along, and they will be better able to tell the full story. For now, DVD-Audio playback remains a work in progress.

REVIEW: Technics by Panasonic DVD-A10 DVD-A/V/CD player CD Player/Recorder Review by Chris Wynn at Audio Asylum