CA 540D vs. others

[admin_exported]

Hi, I stay in India, here the CA 540D costs about 180 GBP. Unfortunately I cant test it before buying...so would be great if u guys can share your opinions.. My requirements are music:movies 50:50, and my total budget is about 200 GBP and I want the player to do both the jobs as well as possible (I do understand there will be compromises somewhere), First I had thought of acquiring the Panasonic DMP BD 30 but I found out that blu-ray content is prohibitively expensive in India and there aren't too many titles as of now, so maybe I will go for a blu-ray player after a year or so... I am sold out on the CA based on the reviews of it sonic quality, but I was wondering how well it compares as far as picture quality goes with some of the cheaper players, the ones in my consideration are: samsung dvd 1080P7/870 (60-65 GBP) Philips 5986K (60-65 GBP) Pioneer 696AV (125 GBP) CA DVD 99 (GBP 140) Denon 1740 (GBP 180) I was thinking whether getting one of the cheaper players with a cheap CD player would be better option? In this case I would be forced to buy the samsung or the Philips with maybe a yamaha CDX396 (130 GBP) Which one do you guys think is the best option? feel free to suggest other models..

 

[Anonymous]

Hi guys...would be grateful for your opinion, thanks in advance

 

[Anonymous]

Anyone????

 

[fr0g]

Strangely enough I have today brought one home to test (540D v2) (my local hifiklubben are very obliging). I want to upgrade the cheapy in my downstairs system, and have tried the Denon 1730 which they had cheap, and was horrible and plastiky, with a very noisy drive. I am just in the process of playing with the Cambridge, and so far so good.
Soundwise I am surprised. Its easily the best sounding DVD player I have tried (on CDs) (although I haven't tried that many), and the picture is very good. I forgot the remote, so I haven't messed around with settings yet.

I also think the machine 'feels' good - It's built well, and has a reassuring weight - not that this affects performance particularly, but it feels like a piece of hifi/av rather than a toy.

 

[Anonymous]

congrats on your purchase...keep me posted on picture quality..cheers

 

[fr0g]

[quote user="koushikp"]congrats on your purchase...keep me posted on picture quality..cheers[/quote]

Well I can only compare to my PS3, a cheap Sony, and a more expensive NAD (535). I would put the picture a little behind the NAD, but not much, and a littke ahead of the PS3 but not much. It looks great in my opinion, and I would happily buy one. The sound quality for me is BETTER than the far more expensive NAD, which I was surprised about.

I'm probably however going to try the slightly cheaper DV99 for the system it's going into...Full 1080P, SACD and DVD-A, AND a usb port for playing stuff off external HDDs. Not quite the level of sound quality, but (I haven't seen it yet) by all accounts a similar picture performance, and cheaper.