Photos by Tony Cordoza

Have you been waiting for the high-resolution audio formats, Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio, to get their acts together? Have you, like me, said, “Format war? Bah! No flippin’ way am I buying two more players just for these things! And it’s for major sure I’m not spending a grand or two on a new combi-player!”

Well, what you’re hearing off in the distance is the sound of your ship coming in, in the form of Pioneer’s sleek DV-563A. This $249 progressive-scan DVD player can handle virtually any optical disc you throw at it. That’s right, for one low, low price the new Pioneer plays multichannel (and two-channel) SACDs and DVD-Audio discs as well as regular DVD movies and CDs, plus other formats (click to see PDF of table).

FAST FACTS

KEY FEATURES • Plays DVD-Video and DVD-Audio discs, CDs, and Super Audio CDs • 2:3 pulldown processing for progressive-scan output • Onscreen setup and operational displays OUTPUTS component video (switchable between interlaced and progressive-scan), composite/S-video; optical and coaxial digital audio; multichannel analog audio (dual L/R front channels); Pioneer-brand unified remote control in/out DIMENSIONS 16 1/2 inches wide, 2 1/8 inches high, 11 1/8 inches deep WEIGHT 5 1/4 pounds PRICE $249 MANUFACTURER Pioneer Electronics USA, Dept. S&V, 2265 E. 220th St., Long Beach, CA 90810; www.pioneerelectronics .com; 800-421-1404

It’s not a very big ship, though. The player is barely taller than three stacked DVD cases, and its footprint is not much bigger than four laid out flat. This makes for a cozy front panel with a small but refreshingly uncluttered display. And the rear panel is packed with jacks, including the six analog audio outputs you need for multichannel DVD-Audio or SACD playback, plus an “extra” left/right pair for plain stereo.

Setting up the DV-563A was a snappy procedure thanks to colorful, easy-to-read onscreen graphics and a Setup Navigator that walks you through the key steps, resorting to good old text to explain many of the trickier bits. Nonetheless, there were a a couple of oddities that gave me pause despite my experience with these things.

For example, when you’re adjusting channel levels on the Audio Settings page, you have to save your changes for each channel by hitting the enter key on the remote while that channel’s screen icon is still selected — otherwise any tweaks you’ve made will be lost when you move on. Also, you must explicitly turn the subwoofer output on — its default setting is off.

Otherwise, I found the DV-563A very easy to operate. The remote control is nothing fancy and has no backlighting, but its layout is spacious, and key buttons are sensibly placed. I also liked the player’s onscreen Disc Navigator and Audio Settings menu, which makes it easy to adjust channel levels temporarily while listening to SACDs or DVD-Audio discs. There’s also a Video Adjust menu that lets you fine-tune contrast, brightness, and color levels, and store your changes to two presets.

Despite its bargain price, I expected the Pioneer player to deliver excellent images, and I was not disappointed. Playing dual copies of the Avia test DVD (and the one movie I have a dupe of) through their S-video outputs, I found no meaningful differences in picture quality between the DV-563A and my reference player, a superb all-format design costing almost four times as much. When I routed the DV-563A’s component-video output directly to my Princeton Graphics TV, a rotation of my usual reference DVDs — like The Fifth Element and Saving Private Ryan — yielded the superb detail and well-delineated tones of color and shades of brightness that I’m familiar with from topflight players.

The Pioneer DV-563A brought out the terrific resolution of Steely Dan's Everything Must Go on DVD-Audio

Of course, a big part of the DV-563A story is its high-resolution audio capabilities, and these proved very fine as well. The SACD classical sampler Super Artists on Super Audio is about as rigorous a sound-quality test as you’ll find, and the Pioneer player aced it. I heard the purity of tone that I expected on the dense piano chords opening the excerpt from the Franck Cello Sonata. Switching over to Steely Dan’s Everything Must Go on DVD-Audio, I was impressed by the terrific, lifelike resolution of flourishes like the mini tubular bells in the opening of “Godwhacker.” My only complaint is that the player’s bass-management settings change when you switch between DVD-Audio, SACD, and even regular DVD and CD (click to see "In the Lab" PDF for details).

HIGH POINTS Excellent audio and video quality. Sets new value mark for an all-formats player. Slim, space-saving design. LOW POINT Inconsistent bass management for SACD/DVD-Audio playback.

Bottom line: the Pioneer DVD-563A is one terrific value. I believe in the SACD/ DVD-Audio advantage — I think they do indeed sound incrementally better than Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. Any player that puts these intriguing new music formats in the hands of a wider range of listeners, and presents them so well — as this Pioneer player certainly does — wins my approval.