I suppose it depends on how good the rest of the equipment is when trying to review something as state-of-the-art as the Marantz DV-9500.  There's no point in getting a $2499 DVD Player and sticking it on a 66cm Palsonic Widescreen, you just ain't going to see any difference between the DV-9500 and a Woolies $59 special (well not much anyway). We tested the picture quality on a variety of screens and found, once you hit 106cm and larger, that the difference between "ordinary" DVD players and the 9500 is quite noticeable.

The $2499 DV-9500 is the latest in the Marantz line up for 2005, it plays most formats, DVD, DVD-A, SACD, CD, CD-R, VCD 2.0, SVCD, MP-3 and a few others, lacking only in the WMA and OGG departments (if you have a need to play compressed formats, get a cheapie) The specifications say it doesn't support DVD+R/RW but that's incorrect as I tried a couple of DVD+R discs with no problems whatsoever. Audio quality is almost reference standard with CD playback when using its internal DAC's, there's a separate power supply just for the analogue circuitry and a dual layer bottom plate to minimize vibrations. Using our reference CD (Sheffield Lab CD-13) the sound played via a Yamaha Z9 and Paradigm Signature S8 Speakers was detailed and transparent - certainly outperforming any dedicated sub $1500 CD player we've heard. It's a little more difficult assessing the multi channel SACD and DVD-A modes as the ear often plays tricks when being assaulted from all angles but one can only assume the quality is virtually as good as it (currently) gets - it sure sounded good to us.

The video output is sensational, the DV-9500 uses a ADV7314 D/A converter running at 214MHz/14 bit. When we played a DVD using component cables into our Marantz HD 50" Plasma the resultant picture was good but not significantly better than any other good DVD player in the $1500 - $3000 range, that all changed with the signal feeding through the HDMI cable - suddenly the picture came alive, there was a vibrancy we hadn't seen before with more detail in the blacks than I though was possible with a plasma screen. The differentiation between this unit and other players becomes even more dramatic when played through a projector with HDMI inputs (even the modestly priced Panasonic AE-PT700 showed great improvement)

One set up we didn't expect to improve upon was the picture on a standard definition 106cm plasma (Marantz/Pioneer/NEC) panel. The picture quality using HDMI vs. Component just gobsmacked us, Craig said it looked 100% better with HDMI but he does tend to exaggerate -  I figure around 35-40% improvement. Certainly enough to justify the price, especially if you intend using the DV-9500 as your primary audio source.

There's not too much more I can say about this one, without going to dedicated $2000 plus CD players, its unlikely you'll get a better CD player and in terms of DVD and multi channel audio playback I can't think of anything at even twice the price which would shame it.

I've ordered mine!