Sony MEX-DV1000 SACD

A single DIN disc player with AV outputs in stereo. It has no screen of its own and can be operated either via an OSD (on screen display) on an accessory monitor or via the front display. The unit comes with a 39 button remote control and you need it to access a lot of the features this heavily equipped deck comes with. It can cope with all the usual recordable and rewritable CD and DVD formats and reads MP3 and AAC and WMA files. Its really unusual nature is the SACD ability which gives you access to a slew of especially audiophillic recordings with dynamic range far in excess of regular CD up to a whopping 120dB. For the low price above, you can play these recordings with more resolution than even the top price Pioneer ODR CD decks can muster. There is a front 3.5mm microjack auxiliary input socket and a microphone socket to the rear. There are also connections for a wired remote control system or CD changer. The unit was tested with the corded RM-X55M marine remote control as well as the wireless Infra red remote the unit comes with. There is no microphone supplied but the unit has a collection of features for playing Karaoke CDs and DVDs: Things such as vocal cancellation and echo, with independent level controls. There is also a vocal cancel function to leave room for your own voice. The flip down face is not motorised and the eject button is found inside the unit once flipped open.
– 4 x 52w (MOSFET Power IC)
– Drive SII chassis
– Karaoke ready with vocal cancel, mic level and echo level control
– 13 segment FL display
– Front Aux in
– One RCA out @ 4V
– Seven band EQ7 equaliser
– DVD Video, ±R/RW, VCD, SACD, CD-DA, R/RW; CD-ROM; will play DiVx; WMA; AAC, MP3, jpeg images, Dolby Digital but although it says ‘no dts’ in the manual, it does.
– FM/MW/LW RDS-EON SSIR-EXA tuner with automatic bandwidth control and best tuning memory
– RM-X166 39-button remote control supplied
– Flip down removable faceplate with hard case supplied
– Walkman control ready by optional adapter
– Signal to Noise Ratio 120dB
Review by Adam Rayner
The most comprehensive disc playing device in car audio today.
It plays CD and DVD but is also equipped with SACD or Super Audio Compact Disc ability, the proprietary Sony-Philips format that was supposed to take over from CD. First DVD-Audio came along to spoil the party, then both suffered lower and lower sales with DVD-Audio initially beating the heck out of SACD. Now, however, Blu Ray disc has beaten HD DVD literally to death and the new DTS and Dolby True HD and Master Audio lossless surround codecs have obviated all that have gone before.
So what we have here is something of a retro god but nevertheless one of the coolest in car decks ever made. For one, there are some really excellent SACD discs out there. The whole SACD thing was also about producing a fabulous 5.1 music disc and while many SACDs are recorded in 5.1ch with the two channel down mix as an also-possible default, the DV1000 cannot play the multi-channel area on the SACD layer of hybrid discs as it has only a single stereo RCA output. Pity.
SACD was not a �codec� you could buy included within an AV receiver, but rather something that discs and players were equipped with, creating the output with six channels of RCAs. Much like some DVD decks with Dolby Digital and dts decoders on board and Blu-ray players that can decode lossless 7.1 material, they have a six RCA cluster to output the one set of music via a multi-channel amplifier and an active subwoofer.
These days most SACDs you will actually find in shops if not in the specialised areas online, will be hybrid specials. Down from £21 at HMV, I paid £9 for double disc dual thingy by Depeche Mode called Playing the Angel. It comprises one Pal DVD which will play two channel dts or Dolby Digital despite the manual stating baldly that it won’t play dts music. The unit even has a tiny dts logo that lights up as against the Dolby Digital one when it is playing that kind of disc. It also has a hybrid SACD/CD disc in the box. You have to tell the player what layer to play via the remote before firing it up.
Also, we all sing along in our cars but most of us rely on our voice being hearable to ourselves by reflection of sound from the windows. This deck has a full on Karaoke function! Something that sold better in Japan I gather, you hook up a microphone on microjack to a socket on the rear and you can set the relative mic level versus the music, call up a choice of levels of echo to make you sound like Perry Como and control your own voice level versus the music – or mix it in. There�s even a function that cancels the vocals on recordings you already have! Karaoke was huge and very serious stuff for grown ups in Japan but seen as a bit of fun here. Nevertheless if you tell me you never sing like a fool in your car I will call you a fibber, so the whole sing along thing needs to be tried.
I’ll admit to letting you down a tiny bit here as I didn’t sing through the deck as I had no microphone but I might be able to use the one from a self EQ equipped CD player I have about the place, so we’ll see but in the meanwhile I can tell you that the unit does get pretty hot and weighs a bit as there has to be some real chippery tucked in there to do all the stuff it does.
CD playback is clean and sweet, with no trace of horrible transport noise getting into the RCA output but when I turned the unit off, configured it to play stereo SACD and then slapped the hybrid SACD from the Basildon Boys in the deck, I was astonished. I have heard SACD before but only boring discs and the Depeche boys went from eighties syntho pop to stadium electro rockers and use a lot of mad distortions and odd guitar effects and synthesisers too. With a massive dynamic range of loudness and clarity that SACD is brilliant at. It simply shat on the SQ of all but the Clarion HXD2 that I so loved and was so exotic. Huge snappy sound with enormous depth of imagery and detail. Yes, the real audiophile experience is only had with those relatively few mad end recordings but you can play DVD and CD and MP3 and AAC and wow – I could mess around for WEEKS to give you the entire in-depth rundown on how good it is with each format and disc flavour but in these USB and iPod days, this bizarrely cheap and fabulously comprehensive multi-format disc player is like finding a Phutney-Creech Land Yacht at the local car front. Gloriously ornate, a bit old fashioned yet fucking sumptuous!
Scores too low on the tough non-intuitive makee-learnee RTFM factor and the fairly ordinary display to get any Talk Audio awards flags but it is a ten for SQ, Features and VFM, so I really would check it out but first go see Amazon to find what SACD stock they have and remember that unless you have multi-channel SACD capability in the home (some cheap Sony all in ones have it) then you won’t get to hear the wonderful multi-channel SACD recordings – just SACD stereo.
But SACD sounds gorgeous.
Sound Quality 10.0
Appearance/Display 6.0
Ease Of Use/HMI 6.0
Features 10.0
Value For Money 10.0
Overall rating 8.4