Best 'Budget' DVD Players

I bought a Toshiba 210e a couple of months ago - quite impressed with both audio and video.It was purchased from Costco for £130(£30 voucher was used!).Cheapest i've seen it in the high street for, was £190.I would buy a decent A.V.lead, although the one out of the box is ok.

Cheers Ceri.

You should be able to find a Pioneer DV-535 for sub 200 quid now I expect. It's a very, very good player for the money and surprisingly decent with CD. I demoed mine against my CD3.5 and an Arcam Alpha 1. The DVD player was quite musical but a little wooly and bass light - not very far behind the Arcam though. The CD3.5 blew it away but nevertheless the DVD player was quite listenable.

Its sound quality on DVD video replay is excellent.

Regards
Steve

FWIW, my friend's lower end Toshiba DVD had the transport die on him twice. He's banished Toshiba and is now looking for a replacement.

Jez,

Its a different kind of world in this market. Competition, the constant announcement of new features and formats and the frequency of model replacements means that end-of-life bargains can always be found. I recently bought a Sony DVP725 from the local House of Fraser store for £250 reduced from £500. This was a well respected player, solid build quality, excellent sound and visuals and loads of connectivity on the back.

With the arrival of Dolby Digital/DTS in the household I decided it was time to update my 10 year old (and now faulty) Dolby Prologic A/V amp. Again, shop around, loads of bargains. I ended up with a beefy Yamaha for £400 from Richersounds currently being sold for £650 from places like Audio-T.

Allan

If it were my money, I would get either the Toshiba SD210E from Richers for UKP190, or (my preference) the Pioneer DVD-444K from Superfi for UKP 200 (I think).

The Pioneer looks better, and has excellent all-round performance, but on picture alone the Tosh takes it - plus it has a component video output for if you get a TV that can handle this in the future (far and away the best connection method).

An outside chance goes to the Sony NSDV400, but I think you will struggle to get one in your price range.

Scott

Thanks, I went looking for the tosh but it seems that they are all bought up following their 'best budget dvd' award in one of the home cinema mags. I ended up getting the Sony NS400B jobby with:

"Integrated Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder
CDR/CDRW compatible playback
Virtual surround sound
simulates a surround sound effect without the need for rear speakers (Oh yeah, right).
On screen display
DTS compatible output
compatible with digital theatre system surround sound.
5.1 channel audio outputs"

A bit more than I intended to pay, but seems worth it. Movies sound great through the briks, not tried the cd etc yet.

All of the DVD player i have seen opened use a switching power supply with a connector to the main board.
It should be easy to replace this evil with a linear DIY power supply "a la Naim".
Has anyone tried it?
Does it improve sound and picture?

I am sure it does, but how far?

Emmanuel