Best under $2000.00 : Denon,Marantz,Onkyo,Pioneer?

Hey Greg,
How long did it take your Onkyo DV-SP1000 to break-in?
What changes were there to the sonics before and after break in?
Thanks again, Ears, for everything!
Lanny

Lanny,
I would say about a 3-4 weeks to break in using all formats whith usually a cd/sa-cd running 24/7 when not actually listening to the player, or using it to watch a flick.
The soundstage grows wider and deeper whith 150-200 hours and the overall sonics remain much like stock whith everything improving somewhat.

The thing whith the sp 1000 is once you start listening to music, you don't want to stop, so I had very little time for it to break in whithout actual use.
Normally, I will listen to a digital source and then let it run 24/7 for 4 days, listen again ect,but the sp 1000 got my toes tapping like they had a mind of there own, right from the get go.
If I had to guess, I would say there is a 10% improvement in sonics across the board after 3-4 weeks.

This is the first digital source I have owned that sounded musical right out of the box besides my Modwright signature 9000 es which was already broken in when I bought it used.
In other words, I did not pay much attention to break in like I normally would as I was enjoying the music too much.

Greg

Did anyone look into the integra dps-10.5 Isn't this unit a beefier onkyo sv1000? DPS10.5 also has built-in hd scaler,is this worth $500.00 more than the onkyo unit?

Slacker

They are the same player other than external source upconversion of s video and composite video, bnc component out and the Integra has a 3 year warranty instead of 1year.

It will likely cost a lot more than 500.00 for these added features though as the sp 1000 is selling for 1650.00 from authorized online dealers and there seem to be no online Integra dealers.

The Integra has the same exact build and the European sp 1000 also has the external upconversion for 5k U.S.

The only difference seen in the internals are the toridial transformer has Onkyo on theres, and the dps 10.5 has Integra on there toridial.

Both use the same deinterlacer, same Wolfson 7819 dacs for audio ect.

Integra does have a more expensive 4k or so universal coming out that would most likely be an upgrade for audio though.

EARS,
How important is having a built-in HD scaler that the Integra DPS10.5 has.Also how would you compare this to the Marantz 9500 in the audio section and in the video section.
Just as information the Integra unit list for $2500.00. You can find Integra on Videogon and on Audiogon under the catagory Video.selling around $1700.00.

Slacker