Sony DVP-S9000ES Review (DVD-V, SACD & CD player)

[Scytales]

Hello to everyone.

This is a review and test of the Sony DVP-S9000ES DVD-V, SACD and CD player. It was released at the end of 2000 and cost about $1,500.

Presentation

The Sony DVP-S9000ES is primarily a DVD-V player only capable of multichannel audio output through digital S/PDIF or optical Toslink output. Is has no Dolby Digital (except for down-mixing surround sound in stereo for the digital outputs) or DTS decoding capability. On the analogue side, it only has stereo outputs (two in parallel). Besides DVD-V, it is able to play CD Audio and, above all, SACD (only their stereo content though, without any possibility to access to multichannel content due to the lack of digital output for DSD data).

This player belongs to the very first generation of SACD players from Sony, which was introduced with the SCD-1 in 1999. It uses Sony's own "Pulse Length Modulation" (PLM) digital to analogue conversion system. I described this system at length and the way it handles both PCM data and DSD data in my review of the Sony SCD-555ES, so I invite you to read it if you want to understand the technical aspects of the digital to analogue conversion with both types of digital signal. The only difference with the SCD-555ES (and, by the way, the SCD-1 et SCD-777ES) is that the DVP-S9000ES uses a integrated digital processor and DAC chip, the Sony CXD9556, instead of separate processor and DAC.

You may have noticed on the above pictures that the fit and finish of this player is lavish and that the built quality is of a very high standard. You can easily find pictures of the inside of this player on the Internet to see for yourself that the internal build quality is just as impressive as the external appearance. This is truly a high-end item.

Let's move on to the review !

I will do my best to adhere to the following general framework, when it is possible with the various test discs available to me:

1. Dashboard @ about 1 kHz, 0 dBFS
2. Frequency response related measurements
3. Noise and distortion related measurements
4. Linearity tests
5. Special tests
6. Disc readability tests

Concerning test discs, I believe I have the opportunity to inaugurate the new NTTY's pressed CD TEST. @NTTY deserves our warmest thanks for creating this remarkable testing tool!

This review will be divided in four parts.

In this opening post:
- Part 1: CD player measurements (PCM 16 bits @ 44.1 ksps);

In post #2:
- Part 2: DVD-V player measurements (PCM 24 bits @ 48 and 96 ksps);
- Part 3: SACD player measurements (DSD);
- Part 4: Comparison between the CD, DVD and SACD formats.


Part 1: Measurements of the Sony DVP-S9000ES as a CD Player

All measurements were taken with an Audio Precision System One+DSP SYS222A. Unless otherwise stated, the tests were performed with NTTY's Audio Technical CD. The Audio Precision was always been given the 30 minutes preconditioning period mandated in its calibration procedure and the device under test the 5 minutes mandated by the AES-17 standard.


a. Dashboards

The DVP-S9000ES gets two interpolation filters to choose from, designated #1 and #2. They can only be selected through the on-screen display menu. Unless otherwise noted, all measurements below are performed with the standard digital filter, ie. #1.

Keep in mind that the old Audio Precision System One has no dual analogue to digital converter per analyzer channel, hence cannot display a recombined representation of both the test signal and the distortion residual. Contrary to @amirm's reviews, you will only see the distortion residual with a “notch” on each side of the leftover of the test signal: this is where the analyzer band-reject filter has removed the test tone prior to the digitization and measurement of the residual signal.

The output level is in the vicinity of 2.3 V RMS. The levels of the two channels are very closely matched to within 0.04 dB.

Despite the presence of very low level power supply hum and slight high frequency spurious tones, the SINAD is noise-dominated.

Dashboards with the digital filter #2 (not shown) are almost identical, save for a slight decrease in the high frequency noise floor due to the earlier -3 dB roll-off point.

More interesting is to show a dashboard when a -6 dB digital attenuator is enable. It should be noted that plugging an old cathode ray tube monitor in one of the SCART video output slightly increases visible hum level notably around 50 Hz. Using the "Audio Direct" feature accessible through a front panel button or the remote control unit defeats the video output and almost all the additional hum noise. Overall, the effects of the monitor on hum level is really nothing to worry about.

I show the left channel only, because the only thing worth to notice is that we unsurprisingly loose about 1 bit of resolution due to the attenuated level. The THD decreases slightly.

To comply with the practice set by NTTY in his exceptionally thorough CD player reviews, here are dashboards of the two channels configured the same but at -6 dBFS (with the digital attenuator disable):

At -6 dBFS, the respective THD+N (inverse of SINAD) of the two channels are almost the same and are noise dominated, although the THD part decreases. The channels matching does not change.


b. Frequency response

Let's see how the two available interpolation filters of the Sony act on the player’s frequency response:

There is no difference in the output level, which is a good point, but the digital filter #2 is obviously a slow roll off type that restricts the high frequency bandwidth. There is no significant deviation of phase response between the two channels with either of the digital filters.

Another way to look at the effect of the digital filters is to trace the wideband response with white noise up to ultrasonic frequencies (in this case 85 kHz):

By comparing this graph to the equivalent one in the SCD-555ES review, we can see that Sony only provided one alternate filter out of the 4 available in its processor and that it is the filter named "Clear" in the SCD-555ES.

The DVP-S9000ES decodes emphasized tones at -20 dBFS from the Stereophile Test CD2 at almost correct levels:

Crosstalk evaluated with spot tones from the Denon Audio Technical CD is significantly different in the right to left than the left to right direction, but is very good good in both cases:

c. Noise and distortion measurements

Let's start with some Left/Right single point measurements about noise and distortion before proceeding with more graphs. All measurements were performed with standard Audio Precision tests.

The huge signal to noise ratio indicates that when it is fed with a digital signal containing only “Infinity Zero” signal, the DAC mutes its output. Therefore, dynamic range and quantization noise give a more realistic picture of the performance of the player with 16 bits contents.

Notable is the frequency accuracy, which is the best I have measured so far. This is all the more significant that the player is 26 years old and that close examination of its schematics shows that it employs two crystal clocks, one for 44.1 ksps based system (CD, SACD), the other for 48 ksps based system (DVD), that are selected depending on the disc type loaded in the tray, but without shutdown of the unused crystal.

The default digital filter has no headroom to reproduce inter-sample overs. Neither has filter #2 (not shown). But when the -6 dB digital attenuator is enable, the picture is different and the DVP-S9000ES has perfect headroom to reproduce intersample overs up to + 3.01 dBFS. Of course, for this you must accept a loss of resolution of almost one full bit (6 dB) as shown on the dashboard above. So, now is time for a comparison table alla NTTY showing the average performances of all the CD players I have measured so far. You can access to the relevant review, when available, by clicking on the highlighted device name:

Intersample-overs tests Bandwidth of the THD+N measurements is 22Hz - 80kHz	5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69 dBFS	7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25 dBFS	11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.01 dBFS	Headroom
Sony SCD-XA9000ES	-92.1 dB	-93.4 dB	-86.2 dB	+3.01 dB
Sony DVP-S9000ES (-6dB output)	-81 dB	-81.5 dB	-82.6 dB	+3.01 dB
Marantz DV-12S2 [1]	-76.7 dB	-76.7 dB	-32.4 dB	+2.01 dB
Pioneer DV-868AVi	-30.2 dB	-24.7 dB	-17.6 db	none
Sony SCD-555ES	-30.2 dB	-24.4 dB	-16.4 dB	none
Sony DVP-S9000ES (0 dB output)	-29.8 dB	-24.1 dB	-16.1 dB	none

Note :
[1] Due to the very aggressive noise-shaping of the Cirrus Logic CS4392 DAC's 5th order sigma-delta modulator the Marantz uses, the measurement bandwidth was restricted to 22 Hz - 30 kHz in order to exclude as much noise as possible.

To go further in the noise analysis, Audio Precision provides some standard tests to assess the performance of a CD player.

First test is to look at the FFT spectrum of an “Infinity Zero” signal from the Denon Audio Technical CD up to 80 kHz:

As the DAC is muted, this graph only shows the player's analogue circuitry noise floor. A slight hum can be seen, as well as extremely low level high frequency spurious tones of unknown origin. The hum must be related to the internal signal routing and circuit board design. A variation of this test suggested by Audio Precision is to restrict the measurement bandwidth to the low frequencies and to lower the sample rate in order to narrow the bin frequency width. That way, it is possible to see mains frequency interference and power supply related noise with greater resolution:

Notwithstanding hum components, the very low base noise floor that is flat down to very low frequencies should be pointed out. Bear in mind, however, that when the DAC is active, the base noise floor would be higher, up to the level of the quantization noise of 16 bits signals (more on that in Part 4 below). When I performed a test similar to those carried out by NTTY at 0 dBFS looking for spurious power supply tones (not shown), the level of the hum did not change at such a high output level.

Another test uses the analogue analyzer to plot 1/3 octave curves of the noise with the same "Infinity Zero" signal. Although this method has less frequency resolution than the FFT analysis (the higher the frequency, the wider the noise bandwidth that each point of the curve represents contrary to an FFT analysis where each “bin” has equal bandwidth - that is why the curve obtained with the analogue analyzer regularly increases towards higher frequencies), it takes advantage of the greater dynamic range and the wider frequency response of the Audio Precision System One’s analogue analyzer over its ADCs.

Let's move on to distortion. THD+N vs frequency was evaluated with spot tones at 0 dBFS without dither from the Pierre Vérany Digital Test CD. First within a 20 kHz bandwidth (i.e. the audio band):

There is no increase in distortion in the bass, neither in the high frequencies, which is a good performance. The sharp downward slope of the curves above 10 kHz is due to the fact that the second harmonic at 10 kHz and above falls outside the pass-band of the test, hence there is no longer any harmonic to measure, only noise. The upward curves from about 15 kHz most probably indicates an increase in the noise (including quantization noise) or distortion due to imaging above the 22.05 kHz Nyquist frequency of CD folding back into the audio band when the player has to reproduce high frequencies at high level.

Second, here is the same test, but with a wider measurement bandwidth up to 80 kHz:

The curves are obviously dominated by broadband noise. Harmonic distortion takes over only with test frequencies above 5 kHz. Again, this is good performance.

THD+N in function of levels was also evaluated with the help the 999.91 Hz test signals from NTTY CD test disc. First with dithered tones (which gives a typical performance curve, because CD production is almost universally done with dither), and then with undithered tones (to see a truer picture of the level of performance of the player):

In both cases, the curves remain almost flat up to 0 dBFS, which shows that the THD+N is dominated by the dither noise or quantization noise, not distortion. That means that the DVP-S9000ES indeed produces very little harmonic distortion. This is compliant with distortion analysis from measurements made elsewhere that I have reported in this thread, where we learn that the Sony is one of the lowest distortion CD players ever tested. Nevertheless, the Sony DVP-S9000ES is not fully capable of 16 bits accuracy (-98 dB or so) due to its noise level, presumably the low frequency hum.

As the single point measurements showed, not only is the harmonic distortion very low, but intermodulation distortion also. Audio Precision's standard test to evaluate more qualitatively the SMPTE intermodulation distortion by looking at the digitization of the output of the analogue analyzer filter that removes the 60 Hz and 7 kHz tones to observe the actual distortion products confirms those numbers:

FFT of a -3.02 dBFS twin tones in a 23 kHz bandwidth shows very low even order distortion product (1 kHz) and sidebands as well:

The digital filter #2 lets some ultrasonic images of the twin tones bleed, but the in-band performance remains at least the same as with the digital filter #1 shown above:

The old 16 bits Burr Brown PCM78 ADCs of the Audio Precision System One probably limits the usefulness of an FFT of the multitone signal from NTTY's test CD. Moreover, the maximum FFT length that the System One is capable of restricts the bin frequency resolution in the bass. Anyway, here is the FFT spectrum of such signal, but from 100 Hz only:

d. Linearity Tests

I am happy to report that NTTY's pressed test CD from a glass master seems to ease linearity measurements with the Audio Precision System One. I wonder if the CD-R I used to use increases noise in the servo of the drive mechanism due to less than optimal reflectivity or other reading issues, which would impact the steadiness of the test signal. Anyway, both channels of the analyzer can now settle on readings down to very low levels:

I used the same scale than Amirm's for its own tests to ease comparison. The level at which the player's output deviates significantly from linearity lies somewhere between -110 dBFS and -120 dBFS. It is possible that the low level hum modulates the level of the test tone at the lowest level.

Here is an FFT analysis of the lowest level -130 dBFS sine signals:

Taking into account the averaging effect, the level of the test tone is shy of roughly 1 dB 'only' from the correct level.


e. Special Tests

Here is a capture of the waveform of a 997 Hz sine at -90.31 dBFS without dither from NTTY Test CD:

The three expected discrete voltage steps are clearly visible.

The Sony DAC is perfectly monotonic, i.e. increasing digital codes produce consistently increasing analogue outputs at the lowest levels. Most probably this characteristic is no longer difficult to get nowadays, but still:

Non-monotonic DAC can also be revealed by another special test which was proposed by Audio Precision in 1991 to check the absence of modulation of the noise floor of D/A converters at different levels (Richard C. Cabot, Noise Modulation in Digital Audio Equipment, AES preprint 3021). This test consists of accumulating on the same graph a third octave analysis of the quantization noise after the removal of a low frequency test signal at different levels from -50 to -100 dBFS. Any change on the shape of the noise floor would signal a modulation of this noise in function of level. Audio Precision quoted experiments previously conducted at Dolby Laboratories that had shown that noise modulation of as little as 2 dB may be audible. Nowadays, this test may have no longer relevance with modern D/A converters, especially sigma-delta converters, but maybe it can still be useful to check ladder type converters. Here is a modern take on this test by accumulating FFT spectra of the different test signal levels:

There is no visible modulation of the noise floor.

Finally, I used special dithered signals made by NTTY on the model of the Pierre Vérany Digital Test CD, which contains unique (non-dithered) tracks to perform a peculiar test called "intermodulation by crosstalk". The theory of operation of this test is as follows: the channel under test plays a 5 kHz tone and the other channel simultaneously plays a 1 kHz tone, both at 0 dBFS. If there is a significant crosstalk between channels, the 1 kHz tone can theoretically intermodulate with the 5 kHz tone to produce on the channel under test a difference frequency of 4 kHz and/or side-bands at 4 and 6 kHz due to amplitude modulation of the 5 kHz tone by the 1 kHz crosstalk tone. This test was designed at a time when most CD players have only a single digital to analogue converter for two channels for cost-savings reason. These CD players had to demultiplexe the left channel from the right by routing the output of the single DAC alternatively to each one of the two channels at twice the CD sampling frequency.

There is only very low level of intermodulation by crosstalk in the right channel. After compensating the effect of the notch filter, the IMD products lie at less than -120 dB under the test tone.

f. Disc Readability

To end the first part of this review dedicated to CD replay, I have used the famous Pierre Vérany Digital Test CD2 to check the ability of the Sony DVP-S9000ES to play damaged discs or disc pressings that are not compliant to the Red Book (RB) specifications. The criteria of failure on a test is either glitches, warping of the output waveform or an increase of THD+N from the nominal value. As NTTY obviously uses the same disc to perform its own tests, I will borrow his table:

Test Type	Variable parameter(s)	Results
Variation of linear cutting velocity	1.4 then 1.2 to 1.4 m/s in 0.05 m/s steps	All tests passed
Combined variations of track pitch and velocity	From 1.2 m/s to 1.40 m/s combined with 1.5 µm & 1.7 µm pitch	All tests passed
Variation of track pitch	1.5 µm to 1.7 µm in 0.05 µm steps	All tests passed
HF detection level	Variation of the pits/lands ratio from +2 to +18%	All tests passed
Drop-outs tests	0.05 to 0.2 mm (RB spec.) and 0.3 to 4 mm (non-spec.)	All RB spec. tests passed - Pass to 1.25 mm Fails from 1.5 mm
Combined drop-out size variation & minimum track pitch	1.5 µm + 1 to 2.4 mm	Pass to 1 mm Fails from 1.5 mm
Successive drop-outs	2x0.1 mm to 2x3 mm	Pass to 2x1 mm Fails from 2x1.5 mm

(To be continued in message #2)

 

[Scytales]

Part 2: Measurements of the Sony DVP-S9000ES as a DVD-V Player

All the following measurements have been done with the Rohde&Schwarz/Burosch Professional Test DVD-V with 24 bits@96 ksps stereo test signals or NTTY's DVD version of his test CD burnt onto a DVD-RW with 24 bits@48 ksps test signals.


a. Dashboards

The following dashboards was made with the monitor plugged in the player's video output. If you compare with the CD dashboards, you can see the inconsequential increase of hum around 50 Hz due to the monitor. Anyway, the distortion pattern is the same as with CD replay. It's only that the lower quantization noise floor of 24 bits signals unmasks more of the distortion products:

The level difference between the two channels and the matching between channels remain the same as with CD.


b. Frequency response

The frequency response and interchannel phase deviation obtained from a glide tone signal at -20 dBFS show nothing particular, except of course the higher bandwidth due to the higher sample rate:

Here are the responses of the two digital filters with white noise:

The responses of filter #1 is just scaled to higher frequencies compared to 44.1 ksps signals. The response of filter #2 at 96 ksps seems to be almost identical to that of 44.1 ksps, which is somewhat unexpected.


c. Noise and distortion measurements

As is the case with CD data, the DAC obviously mutes its outputs with infinity zero signal, making the signal to noise ratio unrealistically high. But the dynamic range measured with the converter alive and working thanks to the low level -60 dBFS tone is markedly improved compared to the 16 bits depth signal.

THD+N vs. level shows an improvement of 24 bits depth coding over 16 bits depth, but not much (pay attention to the fact that the vertical scale goes lower than with 16 bits signal!):

The Sony DVP-S9000ES is less good than the Pioneer DV-868AVi, which was released four years after the Sony.

The FFT of the SMPTE residual shows a lower noise floor compared to 16 bits data. There is lower second order product (60 Hz) and no third order product (120 Hz) in the left channel, which explains the discrepancies than can be read on the above table.

The CCIF intermodulation spectrum:

Multitone is identical to CD replay, but to repeat the point, this test is limited by the Audio Precision System One's own resolution:

d. Linearity Tests

The Sony's DAC linearity does not change with 24 bits data:

Part 3: Measurements of the Sony DVP-S9000ES as an SACD Player

Measuring an SACD player presents two challenges.

The first is the lack of availability of proper test disc. Only two test SACDs designed to assess performance of disc players have ever been made by Sony and Philips and they have been out of print for a very long time. The only available SACDs with some more or less useful test signals that are procurable are designed to set up stereo or multichannel Hi-Fi systems, not to measure the performance of DACs or disc players. Nevertheless, I will try to make good use of the test SACDs that are available.

The second is the high level of out-of-band noise generated by the sigma-delta modulation. This out of band noise may upset wide-band analogue audio analyzer. The Audio Precision System One does not escape this problem. Thus, the measurements I am able to perform are limited for now, but I will proceed to work on the challenge.

For this part, I can use only one test disc: the stereo area of the Denon Audio Check SACD. This disc has no 1 kHz or so sine tone at the nominal 0 dB SACD level, but it gets several sine signals at -16 dB SACD that are precisely aligned with the level of PCM sine signals at -16 dBFS. It is thus possible to calculate the nominal output level of the Sony by measuring the signals at -16 dB SACD and adding 16 dB to the measured levels.

These levels at 1 kHz, -16 dB, are 364 mV RMS left and 366 mV RMS right in SACD mode and 362 mV RMS left and 364 mV RMS right in CD mode. The differences in level between the two modes are only 0.05 dB, which is sufficiently low to consider that the output levels are the same. Adding 16 dB to this output levels in SACD mode gives an output level at 0 dB SACD of 2.297 V RMS left and 2.299 V RMS right. Practically speaking, same levels as in CD or DVD-V replay mode.


a. Frequency response

The frequency response was checked with a glide tone signal from 5 Hz to 30 kHz at -20 dB SACD from the Denon disc:

It is possible to explore the response much higher in frequency with the pink noise tracks of the Denon SACD. It is well known that a 1/3 octave analysis of pink noise should show a flat response. Let’s check that with the Audio Precision analogue band-pass filter:

The usable frequency response extends to somewhat 55 kHz with a gentle roll-off. From 55 kHz, the response tilts upward. This is where the noise is no longer pink in nature: it is the shaped quantization noise typical of DSD that overcomes the pink noise. From about 70 kHz, the combined digital and analogue low-pass filters of the DAC and the player output stage begin to roll the shaped noise off. This response is similar to that of the Sony SCD-555ES, but the regular multiple feedback active output low pass filter of the DVP-S9000ES is a bit less efficient to remove the ultrasonic noise than the 555's potent two stages generalized impedance converter (GIC) output low pass filter.

Another way to view this pink noise, though in a more restricted bandwidth, is with an FFT at the maximum sampling frequency the Audio Precision System One is capable of. Moreover, as the Denon Audio Check SACD pink noise tracks get signal on one channel only at a time, we are going to see what is actually on the muted channels:

As you can see, the pink noise effectively extends to about 60 kHz before it is overcame by the shaped quantization noise. The very low level tones between 10 and 20 kHz on the right channel can also be seen on the other FFT spectra in CD and DVD modes. They are probably the product of interfering signals inside the player. The more interesting thing is that the quantization noise is also visible on the muted channel. That means that the silence is actually an analogue mute signal and that the DAC of the player stays alive with this DSD signal, contrary to what happens with a PCM "Infinity Zero" signal.

We can check that the -6 dB digital attenuator also works with DSD data by performing the same measurement when the attenuator is active:

The level of the pink noise has effectively dropped by 6 dB, whereas the audio noise floor and the shaped quantization noise on the muted channel are different. The shaped quantization noise on the muted channel now begins to rise earlier, inside the audio bandwidth, and masks the previously visible high frequency spurious tones. If I am not mistaken, the digital level control can only be performed inside the Sony CXD2751 SACD decoder chip that equips this player. Presumably, the noise-shaper that remodulates the DSD stream after it is scaled down by digital computation is responsible for this early rise of the shaped quantization noise.


b. Noise measurements

To compute the signal to noise ratio, one must measure the noise floor in the audio band when playing an analogue mute track and refer the result to 0 dB SACD. Bear in mind though, that 0 dB SACD is not the maximum signal level that SACD is capable of: as I have explained on another thread, the SACD audio specification allows short term peak excursions at +3.1 dB SACD.

Unfortunately, the System One analogue analyzer cannot measure reliably audio band noise level of DSD signals because its front-end seems to be disturbed by the out-of-band noise level. So, instead, we can have a look at the noise floor in the audio band with an FFT analysis, which works fine:

Bear in mind the noise floor now incorporates the remaining in-band quantization noise in the DSD signals and any noise introduced by the digital to analogue converter, and not just the noise floor of the analogue output stage as is the case with an 'Infinity Zero' PCM signal due to the muted DAC.

I do not yet have the means to evaluate the distortion performance of SACD players due to a lack of a suitable test disc. My kingdom for a Sony Tentative test SACD or a Philips Super Audio CD DAC Test Disc! But you can read the result of some tests on a DVP-S9000ES in SACD mode in the survey I already referred to above.


Part 4: Formats Comparison - CD (16 bits) vs DVD-V (24 bits) vs SACD (DSD)

As we have established that the output level of the Sony DVP-S9000ES is practically identical whether it reproduces a CD Audio, a DVD-V or an SACD, I propose to compare this formats by overlaying on the same graph FFTs of very low level sine signals to evaluate the respective resolution of these formats. NTTY's test CD and DVD and the Rohde & Schwarz DVD-V all share either -100 or -130 dBFS test signals. Unfortunately, the Denon SACD has no very low level test tones, just analogue mute signals. However, I have seen FFTs of -80, -130 and -140 dB DSD signals from an SACD test disc in many player reviews published by the Italian magazine Audioreview, whose laboratory happens to use an Audio Precision System One. I have never noticed that the noise floor of SACD players changed depending on the level of the test tone. So, a comparison of the quantization noise floor with low level PCM signals and DSD silence signal seems fair to me.

Let's begin with a logarithmic view of -100 dB PCM test tones and DSD silence:

Please ignore the level of the test tones: they are not exact due to the absence of any windowing, which was not used here because only the broadband noise floor is of interest. It is my understanding that what is showed here is the limit of the behavior of the Sony DAC with any of this format. The same measurements on a linear frequency scale show more clearly the hierarchy between all these formats:

The limiting factor of the Sony's low level resolution is the quantization noise of the source signal and the level of performance of its DAC when it handle those signals rather than the player's analogue noise floor. Though there is a significant discrepancy between left and right channels, the Sony DAC system fares better with DSD input than PCM 24 bits input.

Let's now see what happens with even lower PCM test tones (-130 dBFS), first on a logarithmic frequency scale (beware of the different vertical scale than on the above two graphs):

Interestingly, at that level, the 16 bits signal with rectangular dither noise floor almost merges with the 24 bits signal. All the other test signals behave the same as above.

Finally, here are the same measurements on a linear frequency scale:

The 24 bits signal has just a slight edger over the 16 bits signal with rectangular dither.


CONCLUSIONS:

The Sony DVP-S9000ES is a very well built player. Its overall performances in CD mode is excellent, even if it is not the lowest noise design. As a DVD-V player, it is limited in capabilities and its performance metrics are clearly not up to more recent players. As an SACD player, it appears to be a good 2 channels performer, but it cannot handle multichannel SACDs.

This end the review.

I hope you find it interesting.

 

[NTTY]

@amirm : for your kind consideration to go home page

@Scytales : what a review! I know how much time this requires, and so thanks for that!

Very nice CD/SACD/DVD player! Obviously, Sony never got one wrong, and we now have tested quite a few!

Interesting overlay view of the low level test tones, especially at -130dBFS (16bits & 24bits). I’ll have to analyze that lower noise effect in digital domain.

 

[amirm]

Wow, that is like 100 times more work than I put in my reviews! Promoted to home page.

 

[TheWalkman]

Impressive job, Scytales. Thanks for all the work!

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I bought one of these in the early 2000's and used it exclusively to play SACD's. Needless to say I had a very limited library. Moreover most of the DSD offerings of Sony proved to be upsampled decades old performances from their library of PCM recordings. So Super Audio CD was never all that Super,

When you consider the early 2000's were also around the time really good DACS like the Benchmark Mark 1 were making their appearance , and that they could output native LPCM digital streams to DSP/EQ units like the Tact RCS 2.0. to perform sophisticated DSP room and speaker correction -- something "Super Audio CD" could not do, because copyright overlords said no--the handwriting was on the wall from the day the format was introduced.

But the Sony was a tank, and could play DVD's as well, though not multichannel. So I kept it a while, but wised up about it's limitations as both an audio source and as a DVD source, Sold it around 2006. Ultimately it was obsoleted by better ways of playing both digital audio and digital home theater. Had a cool remote though. A cool looking piece of gear, lacking a real use case in today's consumer digital environment. Guess it could still be useful if you still play CD's.

 

[Roland68]

@Scytales
Great review, thank you very much.

The DVP-S9000ES is also one of the treasures in my collection.

 

[Scytales]

Wow, that is like 100 times more work than I put in my reviews! Promoted to home page.

Amirm, you have already done 10,000 (or is it 100,000?) times more work than anyone else to educate the public!

Thank you for placing this review on the homepage.

 

[Haskil]

Well done, Scytales, for this thorough and rigorous review.

If you'd like to test three more Sony players, I have some in my luggage : a multichannel CD/DVD/SACD player, a stereo CD/SACD player, and a multichannel CD/SACD player. Just let me know, and when you're free, I'll bring them over in my car !

 

[Gremlins]

I wish sony comes back to Hi-Fi components, Sony Can make state of the art eletronics

Why did they left Hi-Fi segment?

Components such a ES TA N1, EA T1, TA E88 etc etc

Thanks syctale

 

[Count De Money]

manufacturers should be quivering in their boots knowing this guy can review their components

 

[HalSF]

I too bought this beloved beast in the early 2000s and still use it regularly for CD and two-channel SACD, alternating with my Oppo 980H.

The quirk of not playing CD-R discs is sort of hilarious.

 

[daniboun]

Tear down

 

[bigLP]

I owned this player and the 999es that followed it. I still have the 999es. The 9000 had transport and disc reading issues as I recall. Mine would not play the different layers of hybrid sacds. The remote was awesome as others have said. 999 read discs(including cd r as I recall) more reliably for sure. The two sounded different. 9000"richer", 999 "cleaner",

 

[aagstn]

I wish sony comes back to Hi-Fi components, Sony Can make state of the art eletronics

Why did they left Hi-Fi segment?

Components such a ES TA N1, EA T1, TA E88 etc etc

Thanks syctale

I wish that too, but unfortunately it isn't happening. They are handing what they had left to TCL it seems.
Excellent review. I was a fairly early adopter of DVD and remember looking at this player, but waited for the next gen of Sony players to get some of the early issues ironed out.

 

[ErVikingo]

I have had 2 since they came out. Great player!

 

[Scytales]

Tear down

I assume the first picture represents an American model, as the chassis is connected to the mains safety grounding pin (upper left corner).

Curiously, this grounding arrangement is not mentioned in the relevant service manual.

The chassis of the players sold in Europe is not linked to the safety earth.

 

[Gremlins]

I assume the first picture represents an American model, as the chassis is connected to the mains safety grounding pin (upper left corner).

Curiously, this grounding arrangement is not mentioned in the relevant service manual.

The chassis of the players sold in Europe is not linked to the safety earth.

Eagle eyes