Sony SACD Car-audio

[Rck60s]

what do you use for the center speaker for DTS?

 

[QUADradial]

Center speaker? What's that? I only listen to my own quad conversions. Well worth the money at under $200. I don't have time to listen to quad at home anymore, at least I can have it in my truck.

 

[Feirstein]

I have two of these units, one in my RAV4 with upgraded speakers (4) and my PT Cruiser with its 4 OEM speakers. Both units sound superb. I run them with the bass turned up on the lowest band on the multi-band EQ settings. I prefer to turn off the digital enhancements. Great multi-channel SACD disks continue to put a huge smile on my face. The DD and DTS tracks on DVD-A disks sound very good but don't give me the same huge smile. The radio and conventional CD sections are also top quality.

You would think this would be a huge seller, with its truly superior sound quality and power, but it still seems to be under the radar. I guess a close to $300 list price is considered too high in today's market of sub $100 units and all.

My kids now enjoy the single layer SACD disks in my collection but are truly pissed that they can't transfer some of the tracks they love onto their iPods.

Richard

 

[surroundophile]

I have two of these units, one in my RAV4 with upgraded speakers (4) and my PT Cruiser with its 4 OEM speakers. Both units sound superb. I run them with the bass turned up on the lowest band on the multi-band EQ settings. I prefer to turn off the digital enhancements. Great multi-channel SACD disks continue to put a huge smile on my face. The DD and DTS tracks on DVD-A disks sound very good but don't give me the same huge smile. The radio and conventional CD sections are also top quality.

Richard

Do you have your SACD section set to HQ or CD quality? If set to HQ, how do you provide bass management & a center channel? If you have it set to CD quality, are you sure you're getting multi-channel SACD (and not DPL II decoded stereo SACD or CD layer)? Because in the manual on page 19, it says "For playback of the multi-channel area of a Super Audio CD Set the Super Audio CD Mode to HQ", implying you can only get MC in the HQ mode.

Anyone else that has one of these...do you know? I'm just about ready to buy one.

 

[nightflight75]

I've got the MEX-DV2000. You can set it to 'STD' or 'HQ'. For HQ, you need a separate bass & center channel for 5.1, I think.

I use it in 'STD' mode. It definitely gives true multi-channel SACD in this mode. There's a setting for CSO on/off that splits up the center channel info into the front left and right speakers when on. Good for my 4 speaker setup. You can't turn this on in the 'HQ' mode. I think the bass just gets split up into all available speakers.

Fantastic unit for the price. I'd definitely recommend it. I'm considering getting a spare just in case it ever breaks....


-Andy

 

[joelhjones]

Hi,

I bought the MEX-DV2000 about a year ago shortly after the tip by highfidelity review.com. I just checked onlinecarstereo.com where I bought mine and it appears to still be available for $220.

I like the unit fairly well considering its reasonably low cost (paid like $280). Like most multi-format players it has its quirks and limitations.

It does decode DTS (quite well AFAICT). DSD is converted to PCM, choice of 44.1kHz 24-bit or 176.4kHz 24-bit. I use 44.1kHz because 176.4kHz imposes feature limitations. Only in 44.1kHz mode can I use its listening position soundstage optimization DSP feature, which I think quite effectively improves imaging in the fronts (with center channel downmixed) while in the drivers seat.

Joel

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

I've had this unit in my car for a while, and it's great to be able to do dts cd, sacd, and dolby digital from dvd and dvd-a in the car. However, as usual, Sony had to screw something up since they seem to be completely incompitent and can't do anything right. Try playing a regular CD of The Who Sell Out on it. Or Lou Reed - Rock and Roll Animal. The thing has an issue with gapless track changes, on these 2 cds it will sometimes completely skip a track at times. On other discs that have gapless track changes, there will be a slight hesitation. Not a dropout, but as if a few samples are repeated as it changes the track, not horribly noticeable, but just enough to be wrong and piss me off.

I've tested this in my friend's as well, and his also behaves in exactly the same manner, so it appears to be a flaw in the design, not just a faulty unit. I think we need to demand a fix for this.

 

[timbre4]

My kids now enjoy the single layer SACD disks in my collection but are truly pissed that they can't transfer some of the tracks they love onto their iPods.
Richard

Copy the SACD to CD then they can imprt tracks from the CD; happens here too.

 

[surroundophile]

Thanks guys for the replies.
I guess the manual is wrong (or maybe translated wrong).
I'll be getting one soon.

 

[longbranch]

I found the settings to be rather quirky, but mostly I had good luck with SACDs, DTS, DVD-A with some kind of standard movie format layer, etc; and all sounded great. I found that the radio reception was quite inferior to that of my stock radio though. I can't be sure that's the fault of the Sony, because the documentation for my factory radio states that radio reception comes from two sources within the car (2008 rabbit), and the radio selects the best one. I was only able to connect the standard Motorola connection to the Sony.

Alas, the Sony was stolen, and now I'm back to the factory radio.