Good performance from a budget DVD/CD multi-player

I bought this DVD layer for three reasons….

#1 - I wanted a multi-disc player that could play everything; DVD’s, CD’s, and more importantly CD’R and CD/RW and DVD’R and DVD/RW jpeg’s you name it. Basically I wanted a compact component in a secondary A/V system in a den and this unit can play pretty much anything and everything you put into it.

#2 - I have always had good luck with Pioneer components and wanted something that would be remote control compatible with all of my other Pioneer products. I was really happy to discover that the master remote from a 12 year old Pioneer AVR Receiver will actually control all of the functions on the DV-300K

#3 – Performance – there is no shortage of cheap DVD players on the market; however Pioneer still offers important performance features such as a 2:3 progressive scan; 12 bit video DAC, 24bit Audio DAC, output in true DTS and Dolby Digital formats. It’s the little details like these the offer video and audio performance that is noticeably superior to most of the inexpensive no name knock offs that this market segment is filled with.

In short this is a cheap combination DVD/CD player that still offers very good audio and video performance. It is one of the few players in the price range that offers a coaxial digital output with true DTS and Dolby Digital sound output. There is also component video output as well. For the money the performance is very,very good.

Downsides. It is very, very slow to power up and process whatever type of media format has been put in the player. Obviously many will note that it lacks HDMI and related “upconversion” for a few of us die hard audio purists there is no toslink optical output either.

Conclusion – For a budget based multi format DVD/CD Player there is a surprisingly strong level of performance in terms of both audio and video output. It’s also very nice to have both the DTS and Dolby Digital output and the coaxial digital audio output is rare in this price range.

As long as you are not working with the HDTV format and can get away with the lack of HDMI and related “video upscaling” for the money it’s a heck of a good buy. Definitely a nice upgrade to replace an older CD player or if you need something that can play burned discs you cannot go far wrong for the price given the Pioneer’s strong performance levels.