Yamaha DVD-S1200 DVD player. (Equipment).

Manufacturer: Yamaha Electronics Corporation, 6660 Orangethorpe Ave., Buena Park, CA 90620; 800/4-YAMAHA Price: $999 Source: Manufacturer loan

When I reviewed the Yamaha DVD-S795 DVD player back in issue 80, I made a point of indicating that "if you want to go upscale in the CD player department, get a DVD player." In an attempt to be fair, I qualified my views, and indicated that if an audio buff was absolutely and positively turned off by video it would not make much sense to get a DVD player. He or she would do more than well enough by getting a good, mainstream CD player. I concluded that if a person never, ever watched movies on his or her system, particularly if that system did not incorporate a TV monitor, it would probably be pointless get a DVD player.

OK, time marches on. I am now going to change my mind and emphatically state that from now on it makes no sense whatsoever to get a CD player -- period. This is the case, even if you never watch entertainment-style television at all, ever. The reason for this is that multi-channel music (with 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, and 5.1-channels) is starting to show up in a big way. Consequently, if you want the best in multi-channel music it makes sense to get a DVD player, particularly one that has the ability to play DVD-A program material. Personally, I no longer have a CD player in any of my three systems. Even my roll-around test rack uses a DVD player.

The Yamaha DVD-S1200 I am reviewing this time around has DVD-A capabilities, in addition to some upscale but standard DVD video-player features. For example, the player has a built-in DTS decoder in addition to a Dolby Digital decoder. Even discounting DVD-A, we are now seeing enough DD- and DTS-format DVD musical material out there for serious music lovers to take a long, hard second look at this already well-established format.

DVD-A, of course, is much newer than DVD video, and is in a definitely tentative stage of development (the chance of its survival is, as they say, up in the air). Moreover, it is currently locked in what appears to be a mortal format war with SACD. Current prejudices notwithstanding, everything I have read about SACD that was written by somebody with a level head and/or no vested interest in the hypothetical superiority of either format tells me that it should sound no better than DVD-A. I say "should," because to the best of my knowledge nobody has done a precise face-off between the two technologies. However, the level of either system's digital refinement means that they should both be subjectively perfect.

Of course, this will matter not the least when it comes to determining which of the two contestants will win this war. Indeed, there is no guarantee at all that even either of them will win, because as I have indicated in quite a few of my DVD-A music reviews both Dolby Digital at 448 kbps and DTS, in either the 754 kbps or 1509 kbps versions, appear .to have the potential to be as subjectively clean as DVD-A, and therefore also as SACD. I think most non-obsessive listeners will eventually come to this conclusion, and ultimately many of them will just say "so what?" to the super formats, and happily play the DD and DTS tracks on the surround discs they purchase.

In any case, it is a technological, musical, and economic fact that there are a number of new DVD-A transcriptions showing up. Therefore, those who are cautious enough about sound technology to sweat the details will probably want the very best performance possible, and one way to do this is to get a player that can handle DVD-A.

OK, this is where the Yamaha DVD-S1200 comes into play, because it can handle DVD-A, and does so very well. It also is one heck of a fine standard DVD player (it can output progressives-can video that itself can be optimized for film or video sources, making it compatible with HDTV monitors), meaning that it will also have exemplary abilities with alternative DVD musical material that is done in DD or DTS form.

The player itself is quite attractive, as is the case with all the Yamaha components I have seen. It is about the same size as the earlier DVD-S795, and it weighs in at just less than eight pounds. The front panel has the usual array of buttons and indicators, plus a special button to engage progressive scan and an indicator that comes on if the user selects that function. It also has a video on/off button that allows one to cut out the video circuitry if the program source has images that they are not interested in watching and also want to defeat in order to maximize the player's audioplay-back abilities. The front panel also includes a headphone jack and headphone level control.

The rear panel is a bit more upscale than some lower-echelon players. It includes both optical (Toslink) and coaxial (RCA) digital connections, two sets of composite-video outputs, an S-Video output, a two-channel analog output (you can use this to hook the player to the standard CD inputs on your preamp or receiver), and the six analog outputs (L, C, R, LS, RS, and subwoofer) that you would hook in to a processor or receiver that can deal with them. Those outputs handle any DVD-A material you might play, and they also output analog signals from the player's on-board DD and DTS decoders with standard DVD sources (the earlier DVD-S795 did not have the DTS decoder), should you desire to use those decoders instead of the ones that would normally be found built into your processor or receiver. The back panel also has the connection for the supplied, detachable AC power cord.

I should indicate right now that this player is made for Yamaha by Panasonic (this was also the case with the DVD-S795), and it incorporates all the amenities that the more upscale Panasonic players include and that many lower-priced ones do not. For example, like the DVD-S795, the DVD-S1200 incorporates a plethora of picture fine-tuning features that will come in handy for those with super-grade TV monitors, be they direct-view, rear-projection, front-projection, or even LCD front projection. Being able to fine tune in such a way allows one to maximize performance with seriously large-screen, HDTV-quality sets, even if the player itself is not an HDTV item.

Additional adjustments include the ability to fine-tune contrast, brightness, color, gamma, video noise, horizontal sharpness, vertical sharpness, tint, and black level. The set even has a feature that allows you to check the video bit rate as the disc plays. Granted, adjustments such as contrast, brightness, color, and tint can also be done by your TV monitor, but being able to do it with the player allows you to adapt its output to the optimum settings that the set will have for other sources.

The remote control on the DVD-S1200 is on the small side. Most of the buttons are also small, and I feel that its layout is not quite as good as the one that came with the DVD-S795, or with my own Panasonic DVD-120. The latter two controls have the stop, pause, play, skip, and search buttons up at the top, where they are easy to use with one-handed (one thumb) operation. The newer control has those important buttons at the bottom. This makes them awkward to reach, and on top of that they are among the smallest buttons on the control.

In its defense, I will note that having the buttons at the bottom makes it less likely that the user would accidentally hit the top-mounted power or open/close buttons during spirited use of the play, stop, and pause functions in a darkened room. And since this remote has no illumination feature, use in a darkened room can be tricky. However, in further defense of its layout, the newer control has a set-up button that allows the user to rapidly access the assorted player menus. This is important in a player that has as many set-up options as this one. Some upscale players make it a bit awkward to get to such menus.

Also to its credit, the control, like that that came with the DVD-S795, was not one of those universal jobs that have so many buttons and multi-component functions that you end up trying to confusingly operate the DVD player while the remote has somehow slipped into one of its receiver-operating or TV-operating modes. Yes, I am not a big fan of programmable remotes that end up doing more to confuse a user than assist them, and the Yamaha remote avoids this situation.

When I first got this player, I shoehorned it into the installation in my living room, with the intention being to compare it to the now discontinued Panasonic DVP-A120 player that is normally in use in that system. (The Panasonic listed for $400 when it was new.) The living-room system currently has an Onkyo TX-DS787 receiver and an array of NHT ST4, SC1, and SB3 speaker systems, plus a Hsu VTF-2 subwoofer. Consequently, it is fully able to highlight the performance attributes of a good input source.

I will say right now that as best I can tell, the two players' Dolby Digital, DTS, and PCM audio functions appeared to be identical in terms of musical and home-theater abilities. The differences were nil. I also compared the on-board DD and DTS decoders with the ones in the Onkyo receiver, and again the performance was subjectively the same. In terms of audio, we have reached a plateau with players that are hard to beat.

The player also has a "virtual surround" mode (VSS), that allows it to somewhat simulate a surround-sound speaker installation, but with only two speakers playing up front. This system works decently with the dual speakers one might have in a typical stereo-sound TV monitor, although why somebody would purchase a DVD player of the Yamaha's quality and plug it into just a TV set is beyond me.

With video, things were also a dead heat between the two players. The Panasonic probably has its video settings defaulted to what will be optimum performance for a player connected to a direct-view set. When I adjusted the Yamaha for the best performance in its direct-view mode the picture was a clone of what the Panasonic could deliver, at least on the 27-inch Samsung monitor I use in that system. It was this way, even when viewing the image from two feet away from the screen surface. This was the case with both movie material (I have duplicate copies of a few movies, which allowed for rapid-switchover comparisons) and with the Avia test disc, which allowed me to determine that both players could comfortably get out to past 500 lines of resolution. Beyond that point, the TV set's own limitations were the determining factor.

Later on, I transported the player to my main system, where it could be compared to a $300 Sony DVD-S360 player and to the $1800, "THX Ultra" certified Onkyo DV-S939 player that I reviewed in Issue 86. This system currently uses a Yamaha DSP-A1 processor amp, reviewed in Issue 72, plus an array of Allison speakers (IC-20 mains, custom center with Allison drivers, and four Model Four surrounds), and the Hsu TN1220 and Velodyne F1800 subwoofers that I reviewed in issue 67.

Here, the Yamaha's video abilities helped it to pull ahead of the Sony. Although the latter had resolution measurements with the Avia test disc that nearly matched those of the Yamaha (about 500 lines vs. about 475), it had a noticeably softer picture with some video movie sources than the Yamaha. (This softness may relate to the Sony's ability to downmix an anamorphic image to letterbox form quite well, because the movies that were A/B compared were anamorphically squeezed.)

In addition to the softness issue, the Sony also could not be optimized for best performance with the Sharp LCD projection set that I use in that room (reviewed in Issue 66). The Yamaha could be optimized, and as a result it exhibited slightly better shadow detail and contrast than the Sony. Remember, however, that we are talking about an image that was eight feet wide on a front-projection screen.

Against the Onkyo, things were not quite so cut and dry. Sonically, there were no differences to speak of. Both players could deliver the musical goods with true authenticity, be the source CD, DVD video, or DVD-A. Audiophiles will be winners whichever player they purchase, and since the Yamaha lists for $800 less than the DV-S939, it obviously wins the bang-for-buck audio contest against the Onkyo.

In terms of video performance, it was also probably a toss-up. I switched back and forth with duplicate movie copies, and as best I could tell the Yamaha and THX Ultra certified Onkyo were qualitatively the same. I also came to the same conclusion when comparing their performance with the Avia disc. The Yamaha may not have quite the heavy-duty appearance of the DV-S939 (and heft, too, since the Onkyo weighs over three times what the Yamaha does), but it holds its own in terms of performance, and does so for 5/9ths the price. Of course, I have to again note that my Sharp projector tops out at a bit under 500 lines and does not have the picture-quality capabilities of some of the latest projection sets available (such as Yamaha's own DPX-1 projector), and so there was no way for me to compare the players with the very best in video monitors.

My final evaluations involved the CD Check disc that I use to evaluate potential tracking abilities with blemished source material. (Robert Thompson and I have both evaluated this disc and it is available from Digital Recordings, in Canada; stock number DR-2002.). The best performance I have encountered yet with this disc involved players that could play out to level four cleanly. (No players in my experience have been able to deal satisfactorily with level five.) The Yamaha nearly matched this, with some noise on level four, and clean performance on level three.

Interestingly, when I tried this disc with the Panasonic player, it was superior to the Yamaha on level four, but skipped more than the DVD-S1200 did on level five. The earlier DVD-S795 Yamaha matched the Panasonic with this test, which tells me that the difference between players of this caliber is likely due to sample-to-sample variations. Also interestingly, the Onkyo player in the big system could only track cleanly out to level three, with some mistracking on level four, and severe mistracking on level five. Both Yamaha players were therefore superior to the Onkyo with this test.

To be fair to all parties, I need to point out that I have a Pioneer DVL-700 DVD/LD player in my main system (reviewed in issue 66) that can only track level one cleanly, and it sounds as musical and movie-picture good with pristine source material as the other players. The test disc only deals with the ability of players to handle defective material and not the ability of the units to deliver clean digital sound from clean digital sources.

For all intents and purposes, the Yamaha DVD-S1200 should be able to hold its own with the best DVD players available, both in terms of sound quality and picture quality. It is smooth operating (the drawer mechanism is as smooth running as that of the Onkyo, and definitely more refined than that of the Sony), and extremely attractive in design. Those in search for an upscale player that is genuinely upscale and also flexible in terms of its set-up features will be hard-pressed to find a unit that surpasses what the Yamaha DVD-S1200 offers.