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Here is a review from Guide to home theater about the new Marantz 9600 reveiver. At $2,099, the DV9600 is Marantz’ flagship “universal” DVD player. You can read about this player’s many features in the Specifications section of this review, or on Marantz’ own website. Some of the more significant ones are:
• Two i.LINK (IEEE1394) ports. These provide a direct digital audio connection for the audio from DVD-Video discs, SACD, and DVD-Audio, if the AV receiver or pre-pro at the other end is similarly equipped (some are, including some Marantz AV receivers, but most are not). Marantz has also equipped this link with their Jitter Free Transfer System (JTFS), which the company claims removes jitter in the bitstream when the player’s i.LINK port is connected to another JTFS component.
• The player’s v1.1 HDMI connection will also carry multichannel digital audio for both DVD-Video and DVD-Audio (but not SACD) to a compatible audio component.
• As an upconverting player, the Marantz will play DVD-Video discs from its HDCP compatible HDMI output in your choice of 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. The component output offers 480i and 480p.
• The player offers a wide range of audio and video setup options and controls, including four types of noise reduction, three Sharpness and Detail controls, Chroma Delay, and up to 200 msec of AV Sync delay.
• The player also provides two settings for its HDMI output: RGB-Normal and RGB-Expand. The former is the one you want. It provides a brightness range of 16 (black) to 235 (white). In this setting the player will display both below black and above white.
• On a confusing note, the manual (pg.6) makes a reference to a DVI output, and one of the menus provides a grayed-out option for such a connection. The player does not have a DVI output.
• The DV9600 includes chroma error compensation for those still bugged by this artifact.
• The DTS decoder is compatible with DTS discs of up to 24-bit/96kHz resolution.
• The analog multichannel outputs provide channel level settings, distance settings, and bass management for Dolby Digital, DTS, DVD-Audio and SACD. You get these adjustments for SACD only if you if you choose PCM for Super Audio CD Play in the Audio Setup menu. This converts SACD’s native DSD coding to PCM (no digital signal processing can be performed in the DSD mode). I evaluated the player’s SACD performance in the PCM setting.
• The headphone jack is equipped with Dolby Headphone, which operates with all sound formats except SACD)
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