dvd vs cd?

I would get a quality DVD player. If you buy a separate CD unit, you'll probably have to live with mid-fi DVD sound. The Pioneer 37 is a quality CD and DVD player. Some say it's a little too soft, but others says its very musical and listenable. The audio on the DVD-V side is very good. It's shortcoming is that it doesn't support the next wave in high resolution sound. I bought the Sony S9000ES. It has great CD and DVD-v audio sound. I think its the bargain of the century. It also has SACD and progressive scan video. If you prefer DVD-Audio, you can buy the Rotel at the same price as the Sony, or spend a little more on the Toshiba or Onkyo.

I disagree IMHO. Try the Meridian 596 or the Muse 9 sig. I just went from a Wadia 850 and a Marantz DVD (7000) to the Muse. Both units are outstanding on both video and audio. I was amazed at how much better the video was on both units. The Meridian might-again-might be slightly better on video, the Muse is a awesome cd player. Beats my Wadia easily...and it's a pretty good unit itself...

I have made several previous posts on this topic, and haven't drawn too much ire from others. I do not personally believe that it makes good sense to buy a CD player given the technology changes that are taking place. I recently replaced my Rega Planet CD player with a Pioneer Elite DV-37 and I am extremely pleased with its audio quality (which I think is better than the Rega Planet). You can get the DV-37 for around $650-700, and it's a great buy at that price. The DV-37 not only provides progressive scanning for DVD's, but also has a 24/96 output jack for use with an appropriate pre-amop/processor.

I guess the answer might just be "maybe". My gut feeling, based on experience, is that in the under $1500 U.S. price range, a DVD player is definitely the way to go, above that I can't really comment. I really wonder how many people are doing "serious" comparisons of DVD to CD only sound in that under $1500 price range. I sold an Arcam Alpha 8SE about 7 months ago because my RCA 5223P DVD player was the equal of it, if not downright better. I'm not going to say that all the RCA players are great because I haven't heard all of them, and they have changed their newer models. But over on Audioasylum, there are guys who are very strong proponents of the Samsung 709 DVD player (a model a few years old like my RCA, and their praise is limited to the 709 only, not the other Samsung players) who say its performance betters the Arcam Alpha 9, a pretty highly thought of CD player. RCA, Samsung? Not exactly high end names. The other great advantage of a combined DVD/CD player is that when you tweak it (power cords, damping, isolation etc.), you get better performance in both domains, audio and video, which is pretty appealing to a guy like me who's cheap!