I consider myself a rarity in Australia, probably not among many readers of this article, but among the general public, I am (we are) pretty rare. I have had my Laserdisc player for about 5 years now and while my collection is modest by most standards (I have about 30 LD movies) I have an appreciation for the quality and superior video and audio that they offer over VHS Tape.

Having been stung by the lack of support for the Laserdisc format in Australia I was naturally reluctant to switch over to DVD when it arrived, it took me about 6 months to talk myself into it. Here I am, fully embracing the format (well almost, I still have my LD player and all the movies), and fully convinced of DVD's superiority over LD and obviously VHS.

The plan forward...

So, what was my old setup (about a month ago):

• Pioneer CLD-1850
• Wharfdale Modus Three Main and Centre speaker
• Wharfdale Diamond VI Rears
• Sony 4 Head Stereo Hi-Fi VCR
• Sony Prologic Receiver STR-D915

This is my new setup (including the old stuff I’m still using):

• Pioneer CLD-1850
• Wharfdale Modus Three Main and Centre speaker
• Wharfdale Diamond VI Rears
• Sony 4 Head Stereo Hi-Fi VCR
• Yamaha RX-V995 Receiver
• Kenwood DVF-5010 DVD Player
• Energy S12 Sub

On a budget of about $4500 I went from a not-too-bad Pro Logic (DPL) set up to a kick ass DD/DTS set up that blows me away. Now, I know, for a whole bunch more money I could have done a whole lot better but on a tight budget (and let's face it, who isn't on one) the choices I made were, in my opinion, the best.

Do your homework!

So how did I arrive at my decisions, let's start from the beginning:

The DVD Player

The DVD player was the first of the new stuff to be purchased (and as it turned out, the catalyst for the rest), and was more an impulse buy than anything else. I bought the unit from Chandlers in Tuggeranong (Canberra) for $1499, I didn’t really do any research before hand and my only regret is that I didn’t get a chance to check out the Pioneer DVL-909 (or DVL-919) before hand, I think, for the extra money (about $300 from www.dvdshop.com.au) it would have been a better investment and I could have easily sold my old Pioneer LD to make up the difference.

The 5010 is a solid unit, it has a good range of features, the GUI is easy to use and it’s multi region from the factory (a big selling point). It also has discreet 5.1 channel outputs and digital coax and optical outputs. My only complaint with the 5010 is the remote, it’s too damn small, I keep losing it, for $1500 I’d expect a bigger remote and jog shuttle, which it doesn’t have.

The day I got the 5010 I also purchased a few movies and borrowed a few off a friend (who has a Pioneer 505). After much screwing around and scene skipping I finally did a proper comparison with the only movie I had on both LD and DVD, ‘Starship Troopers’. I had the DVD running directly to the TV through the S-VHS cable and the LD running through RCA jacks via the amp (still the Sony at this stage), not an entirely fair comparison, but the LD doesn’t have S-VHS outputs so it’s the best it’s going to get. After flicking back and forth between LD and DVD it was quite obvious which format has the superior video quality and I saw my poor LD collection gathering dust in the months and years to come.

Oh no, what have I done!

However, with the side by side comparison running it became very obvious to my ears that LD, despite what I was led to believe, still had the superior sound quality. I figured this must be more to do with the DVD being forced to output in 2 channels rather than it's natural 5, and going through a prologic amp rather than a Dolby Digital. So I was initially a little disappointed, the sound seemed flat, lacked definition and the bass was almost non-existent. Remember, this was a side by side, LD and DVD on exactly the same amp, cables, speakers etc so it was a pretty fair comparison, sound wise anyway.

My first big mistake (for my future bank balance) was to borrow a friend’s Technics THX/AC-3 amp, a lovely unit with big gold dials and lots of pretty lights. I hooked it all up and played the wormhole scene from Contact (I had returned my borrowed copy of Starship Troopers) and the sound totally blew me out of my seat, up until that point I was pretty ignorant of what Dolby Digital really was, now I could FEEL it. I reluctantly gave the amp back that night, and my friend silently made a bet with himself how long it would take for me to buy a new amp, it took about a week.

I began researching this time, and I'm glad I did. I went through several brands, initially Onkyo , Kenwood and Sony , later Yamaha and Pioneer . My main source of research information was the very helpful Audio Review site (www.audioreview.com) and the IRC chat channel #DVD (on EFNET). My initial investigations warned me off Sony and Kenwood , unless I wanted to spend a lot of money, the Sony ES series is apparently excellent quality, but with the associated price tag. The set of Onkyo receivers I was looking at sounded great but lacked the features I really needed (see below), the Pioneers got very bad reviews at AudioReview and I was eventually swayed towards the Yamaha’s , more specifically (obviously), the RX-V995.

Below is a table which is as close as I can come to the mad scribblings I made on all the product spec sheets which helped me make the decision to go for the Yamaha . I firstly read every (yes, all of them) review of each receiver I was looking at from AudioReview.com and wrote down the respective ratings for each one, anything below 3 didn’t even get a look in. I then wrote down all the pros (+) and cons (-) of each unit, taking into account features, sound, opinions of people I'd spoken to (on #DVD) and of course, price. Here's the table:

The table pretty well explains why I made my decision. I'm pretty sure that if I could have stretched the budget I would have gone for the 2095, or even the DSP A1, but a budget is a budget and I had to stick to it to be able to afford a Subwoofer at the same time.

I personally don't put much value on actually listening to a unit in a store environment, they have different speakers (probably better), different setup and different environment. I really don't see the point of standing in a shop and listening to a system since it’s likely to sound completely different when I get it home.

Gone shopping...

Anyhow, having said that, at lunchtime one day I went to a local Hi-Fi shop (Miranda Hi-Fi), knowing by this stage, I wanted the 995. They had a 995 on display but not hooked up to a system, they played a demo of "The 5 ^th Element" for me through a RX-V795 (still a Yamaha , different species), and I was pretty impressed, but you know my opinion on in-store listening (see above). By this stage I'd done enough research on the 995 to know it was what I was after, and this listen to a different, but somehow related unit was enough to convince me.

During the afternoon I did some basic research on Sub woofers, I didn’t really intend on buying anything that day but having spoken to some people on IRC about what was good in Sub, for the price, the Energy S12 same out on top. I went back that afternoon for a listen, and some twist of fate had an S12 on special for $200 off retail, I did the usual haggle, back and forth thing with the salesman/owner. I walked out of the store 15 (or so) minutes later with a Yamaha RX-V995 and an Energy S12 12" Subwoofer under my arm (figuratively speaking of course).

Bringin' it home...

The day I got the gear home I plugged it all in pretty much the same configuration as I had the old Sony hooked up, I actually ran out of inputs on the back after the LD, DVD, Playstation and VCR went in so the Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo will have to use the front ports if I ever feel like dusting them off. This surprised me a little until I realised that the input count in the spec sheet actually includes the inputs on the front, but that’s ok, they’re there is I ever need to hot swap any new piece of equipment for trail runs etc.

"Whadda ya mean it's green!#!"

I had a couple of problems when I first ran the system as a whole, the first, and worse was an obvious colour "staining" that I could see on the TV when the amp was displaying it's default "no input source" blue screen. A big green blotch appeared in the top right and bottom left of the TV screen. I had to assume it was the new amp causing this since I’d never seen it before, I wasn’t sure if it was an poorly shielded cable somewhere, the power supply in the amp or the metal plate in my head causing the interference. I rotated the TV (it’s too damn heavy to lift) on the spot and the further from the amp it got, the less green appeared, so it was obviously the amp.

I went back to the shop where I got it and explained the problem, they knew about it and put it down to the massive power supply required to run the Yamaha , "fair enough" I say, I'll buy that (I already had ;) and went home that afternoon and relocate the amp to the other side of the cabinet, the extra 20 cm the power supply moved away from the TV fixed the problem. Luckily my main speakers are shielded and shouldn't suffer from the new proximity to the mini-nuclear power station inside the Yamaha.

The other problem I had was with my existing LD player. It wasn't until I got the DD receiver that I realised the LD wasn't outputting a DD signal, no big deal, concentrate on the DVD collection instead. However, what am I supposed to do with the existing LD collection? Watch them in Pro Logic mode, which still kicks ass with the Yammy over the old Sony , or get it converted for $150 (plus $150 for the RF Demodulator), but that's a story for another day. I'm happy watching/listening to the old LD's in DPL for now.

Settling in...

I have now had the unit up and running with DVD, LD, VCR and Subwoofer for about a week. I couldn't be happier with the amp and new sub, the DVD is performing admirably and my neighbours probably wonder what the hell is going on in my house at night, with the rumbles, explosions and yelling (and that's before I turn the system on).

My advice for young players? Do your research . The only piece of equipment that I'm not 100% happy with (the DVD player) I didn't research before buying. That is more to do with me being a chronic impulse buyer than anything the Kenwood is lacking but I would recommend at least a visit to Audioreview.com and other related sites before making any new equipment purchase.