Sony 930 DVD Player

[neilalford]

I'm thinking of buying a new player to replace my ageing Sony 7700, a look at the Sony catalogue suggests that the NS-999 ES, is the obvious replacement, but I'm a bit skint at the moment so I was looking at the 930 from the bargain forum.

So question is, how good is this player, compared to the 999 (and the 7700) the main features it seems to be missing are; Delay Compensation for progressive scan (how bad an effect on lip-synching will this have?), seperate isolated circuitry for audio and video, plus the video DAC is only 12-bit rather than 14-bit.

I'll be running the player through a Panasonic PTAE-100 projector and a Denon AVC-A1D amp using the amps decoders for all the audio (except SACD if I ever use it), I'm guessing this will mean that any differences in CD audio will be pretty minor as all the player will be doing is streaming the data to the amp.

I also seem to remeber a website that did in-depth technical comparisons between the prog scan capabilities of different players, but I can't find it, anyone know what it is?

[Radiohead]

I can't tell you how they compare, but I have had the 930 for a week now and am very pleased with it.

Compared to my 4 year-old Panasonic DVD-RV60 (itself a £400 EISA winner in 1999-2000 and pretty good), the 930 is clearly better for video performance. Whether that's down to the 208Mz video DAC against the 54Mhz DAC of the Panny I don't know, but the 930 has far more detailed and colours are richer. Build quality is very good, with that nice aluminium front panel, and the remote is a pleasure to use. I don't run the 930 for prog-scan though, only RGB via SCART. sideshowbob of these forums uses the same projector as you and also has the 930 and seems happy with it. He went from a Pioneer player which again was a good player. I am planning on a PS screen at some stage in the next 2 years so have bought the 930 with that in mind. In terms of audio performance things are less obvious - the Panny was always a good performer, and the Sony is the equal of it. Having only watched some key demo scenes to test video performance it's hard to comment much more on DVD-V audio.

I bought an SACD yesterday (Miles Davis's In a Silent Way) and was very impressed. I use a Marantz SR7200 amp (£600), 5 B&W VM1's and a REL Q150E. Compared to the CD of the same album the 2-channel SACD was clearer and the horn notes particularly carried more weight. The multi-channel layer was simply stunning and the sound just filled the room. I have 3 more SACD's on order.

I don't use the 930 for CD playback as I have a fairly decent Sony player for that (confusingly enough also called a 930).

I got my 930 DVD from www.digital-point.co.uk for £222 delivered. A bargain IMO.

Your situation is a bit trickier as you have a costly DVD at the moment, so will tend to think of anything lower than the 999 as a backward step. The 930 is almost half what I paid for the Panny in 1999, yet outperforms it comfortably.

[neilalford]

That's all quite reassuring.

I cracked slightly before you posted and ordered the 930 from Digital Point (wanted to make sure I'd receive it before the weekend!)

I believe the Sony 7700 only has a 54MHz 12-bit DAC (though I can't find the exact specs), so the 930 should hopefully at least rival it for picture quality (even without Prog Scan). The main advantages of the more expensive players seem to be audio based and build quality but as I'll be letting my amp handle most of the audio work that probably wont make much difference.

I'll post my experiences of the 930 compared to the 7700 in a few days, I'm hoping I'll be pleasantly suprised, the 930 has 5 years of extra development on it so I would hope that means that with better technology, higher production volume and cost-cutting, that it will be a good rival to the 7700.

I will miss the :dork: factor of knowing that my player has all kinds of (probably unnecessary) audiophile tweaks and design features though.

[Radiohead]

Let me know how you get on Neal, I'd be interested to see how it compares to a genuinely high-end player.

[Spooky_uk]

me too as may be tempted in a month or so to retire my black sony 725 to upstairs and replace with a silver 930...

[neilalford]

Oh no, it's gonna be black.

Just got a call to say that they were out of silver ones but I could still get it delivered tomorrow if I had a black one, I couldn't resist. Mind you, none of my current gold/silver stuff matches anyway, so I guess it's not too bad, just put the doors back on my cabinet.

[Radiohead]

Today saw the delivery of SACD No.2 - Miles Davis's Kind of Blue.

Tomorrow should see Norah Jones's Come Away with Me and Pink Floyd's DSOTM.......

I'm after Beck's Sea Change as well but no one seems to have that in stock

:oh-hum:

[daveb975]

I currently have a Sony 900, which I am still pleased with, but I would be interested in getting the 930 for prog scan as I have just upgraded to a plasma.

Do you think that there would be much benefit in doing this, or should I look at a more expensive prog scan unit?

[neilalford]

Well, it's arrived and it's all set up.

First impressions, it's far smaller and lighter than the 7700, though I was expecting this, I believe the 7700 weighs in at about 13KG, overall build quality is good but definitely not to the same standard as the 7700.

I set up both players and ran a sequence from the extended Fellowship of the Ring, Region 1. Overall the performance of the players is very similar, the 930 shows slightly more detail and has a much smoother feel, though I believe this is mainly due to the progressive scan, without PS I feel both players offer a very similar level of video performance.

I haven't had as much time to listen to the audio performance (plus I'm using the DAC on my amp rather than the onboard DAC, so it wont really give a fair comparison), for the films DTS soundtrack the performance again seemed very similar, however I did feel when listening to an audio CD that the 7700 had the edge, there was more noticeable noise with the 930 and the sound seemed slightly more strained. Rather suprising considering I'm really only using the player as a transport and everything between the disc and the amp will be entirely digital.

A quick look through the manuals makes the audio performance drop even more suprising, the 930 can pass a 96KHz/24 bit audio signal whereas the 7700 only passes a 48 KHz/16 bit (though its own onboard DAC is 96/24), though this could be dependant on the source material.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with the player, it doesn't have the same overall feel of quality as the 7700, from the remote, to the looks, to the movement of the disc tray it feels far cheaper, but performance wise they are on a much closer level.

I'll probably spend a few days tweaking the settings properly and listen to a bit more music, so I should get a better feel for the player after that.

[Radiohead]

Very interesting Neal, and about what I'd expect. Build quality aside it does show just how much video quality has moved on over the last 3 or 4 years.

Norah Jones' Come Away With Me arrived today, and the difference of the SACD over the CD is astonishing. The 2-channel SACD is much fuller, has far more depth and shows the CD the way home. The 5.1 SACD is even better.

[NikBorton]

daveb975: If you're interested in prog scan and not SACD, the 730 is essentially the same machine, lacking only the audio decoders. It should be quite a lot cheaper - I paid £135 for mine from dvdplayers.co.uk a few months ago.

[msvideo]

All this talk about progessive scan etc. does anyone know answers to any of these questions?

Is prog scan intended mainly for LCD or Plasma screens given CRT TV's are designed for interlaced pictures? Do some hollywood DVD titles come encoded in Progressive? or are they normally interlaced. Final question, whats better RGB scart or component. Will the Sony 930 output progressive on Scart and component (just thinking about buying the Sony 930 and a Panasonic TH42PW6B plasma

[daveb975]

Nik - Thanks for that - unfortunately they only do the 730 in silver and I wanted black. Question is, do I pay £90 extra just to keep my system matching?!

MSvideo - Progressive is not limited to plasma/projectors, there are now several CRT TVs that offer progressive inputs. The majority of screens with this capability are still plsamas or projectors, though.

I don't think that it is the encoding on the DVD that determines progressive scan - most DVDs will be displyed in progressive with a compatible set-up.

In general, you cannot get a progressive signal on the RGB SCART input. I have the Panny 6 plasma myself, and this will accept a progressive input only via component or PC (D-Sub) connections

[jon smith]

How does the NTSC and PAL progressive work on this? I have an NTSC progressive only TV and with my Harman Kardon I have to keep switching between progressive when I watch NTSC and interlaced when I watch PAL.

Does the 930 have separate set up for progressive so I can specify NTSC progressive and PAL interlaced without going into the menus each time I change region...

This sort of info on players is quite hard to fing out from any other source.

[msvideo]

There is no seperate setting for NTSC as far as I can see. When you enable progressive component output, you have to disable RGB scart at the same time. You do this from the menu, however there is also a switch on the back of the unit that allows you to switch between progressive and interlaced.

[grimley]

I've just ordered mine to go with a panny AE300 PJ - will keep you posted & i'll post piccys on my site when it's all set up..

[stranger]

Anyone know how the Sony 999es compares with the 930?

[neilalford]

Originally posted by stranger
Anyone know how the Sony 999es compares with the 930?

Well, I've compared the 930 to the 7700 (which is a predeseccor of the 999es) and it compares reasonably well for picture quality, overall I'd say it's slightly better due to the progressive scan, but the CD playback is definitely not as good (and that's using it purely as a CD transport). So I would expect the 999es to completely blow it out of the water for CD playback and be slightly better for picture quality.

[soulsaver]

How is it at playing dvd-r/+r?
My 725 is having trouble playing some disks which is annoying as my sister has a £50 player that players everything and I have a £750 that doesnt :mad:
Looking to buy a new player and this looks like it will do the job or maybe I might go for the cheaper 730

[KAC]

I've been using DVD-RW's in my 930 just fine.