YAMAHA DVD-S1500 DVD Audio/Video SACD Player Review

CD92, a reader of this blog and a friend, has kindly contributed a review of YAMAHA and PIONEER’s low-priced slim-line SACD players, which we will be publishing in two parts. The author has long had an interest in the YAMAHA DVD-S1500, but as it is a product aimed more at general consumer electronics retailers than at Hi-Fi enthusiasts, it has been difficult to find an opportunity to audition it, despite the curiosity.

The YAMAHA DVD-S1500 has a slim, unobtrusive design, and what makes it particularly interesting is that it is an OEM product from PHILIPS. Attractive SACD players in the under-¥100,000 range are few and far between, so for simply being able to play SACDs, something like this might well be good enough. And as its name suggests, the YAMAHA DVD-S1500 also supports DVD-Audio. At a street price of around ¥35,000, that seems rather reasonable.

But enough preamble — for those of you considering a purchase, please read the review below.

The defining characteristic of the SACD format, to use a visual analogy, is the absence of any dropped-frame feeling, and the way it makes the inner state of a performer and the surrounding ambience easier to grasp. As for SACD and next-generation audio formats in general, it seems to me that — unlike the era when CD took hold, when each manufacturer had time to cultivate its own philosophy and sales approach — they have been swallowed up by the sheer volume of DVD player production before any of that could happen. As a result, given the wide range of source quality and channel counts involved, there is a sense that manufacturers have been uncertain about where to place their priorities and how to pull everything together.

Indeed, in the SACD player feature in Stereo Sound No.154, various critics write of their own hesitations and uncertainties on the matter. Against that backdrop, the YAMAHA DVD-S1500 is the one player that, after listening for several months or more, never grew tiresome. The system used to evaluate the YAMAHA DVD-S1500 is as follows.

· Integrated amplifier TEAC A-1D
· Speakers NHT SuperOne
· CD player for comparison ARCAM CD92

The YAMAHA DVD-S1500 gives the impression of having been tuned with CD (PCM-based) playback as the priority, and the fact that even with CD one can sense something of the spatial and temporal atmosphere is worth noting. That said, with SACD playback, the bass rhythm tends to lag slightly behind, which is a limitation one might expect at this price point.

As it happens, the DVD-S1500 is manufactured by PHILIPS. It responds to PHILIPS remote control codes on a learning remote, the digital board carries the PHILIPS logo, and the audio board bears the words YAMAHA OEM. There are also reports that it can be made region-free by remote control alone.

The tonal character differs quite noticeably between the stereo audio output and the front L/R of the 5.1ch audio output. The manufacturer apparently intended the MAIN L/R output of the 6CH DISCRETE to be the higher-quality option, but it has a shop-floor demonstration quality to it — a tendency to boost the upper-mids and lower-mids for immediate impact. The more straightforward tonal balance is actually found in the MIXED 2CH L/R output. In the default settings, however, the front L/R of the 5.1ch audio output produces only a surround-processed signal even during CD playback. There is a certain operational awkwardness and looseness in the build in places — and in that sense, too, it feels rather European.

On the operational side, the remote control lacks dedicated fast-forward and fast-rewind keys. In terms of reliability, recordable DVD compatibility is limited to DVD-R/RW in Video mode only — VR mode is not supported. DVD-R read performance is also somewhat lacking, so those who make heavy use of a recorder should take note. Furthermore — and this may be a unit-specific issue — when the room temperature drops into the teens Celsius, and particularly below 10°C, a high-pitched oscillation noise can be heard from the power supply section during standby.

Although it is a PHILIPS OEM product, the sonic character of the DVD-S1500 does not feel particularly deliberate in any direction. At the very least, there is none of the intention one senses in the PHILIPS CD940, CDR560, or AZ6826 — that concentration of energy in the midrange, or that deliberate extraction of shadow and rhythm, like drawing with a 4B pencil. Equally, there is no impression of any particular character having been intentionally suppressed. If anything, the experience is one of being able to listen for a long stretch at first, and then gradually noticing, almost by surprise, that the music’s expressive qualities have been quietly revealing themselves all along.

On a technical note, one distinctive feature of the DVD-S1500’s circuit design is that a dedicated crystal oscillator for audio is placed close to the audio DAC itself. In most DVD players — even those claiming next-generation audio support — the common approach is actually the opposite: the audio clock signal is derived from a video-side crystal oscillator on the video circuit board and then sent to the audio board. ※ Written by CD92

Regrettably, the DVD-S1500 is not really PHILIPS sound, is it. Come to think of it, it is being sold as a YAMAHA product, so it has presumably been tuned as an OEM unit to sound like YAMAHA. Even so, I find myself quietly hoping it might sound better than the Pioneer DV-545. The IEC inlet is the standard detachable 3-pin type, so simply swapping in a decent power cable at that point ought to bring out a reasonably solid, substantial sound. And it seems to be something of a gap-filler of a machine — region-free, PAL-compatible, able to play just about anything. There was a MARANTZ DVD player with similar qualities, if I recall correctly — the DV4300, perhaps? The appearance was vaguely similar too, I think…

※ Next time: a review of the universal DVD players Pioneer DV-S757 and DV-600.