And, to use the upsampling in the CD mode you have to turn it on each and every time...take out the CD, put another one in, no upsampling...that's another option you have to set through the menu....
Oh, ****--you're right! What a stupid design! Is there no way to lock all of your A/V preferences? Seems like it would make sense to have one, esp. since they have a dedicated "restore to factory settings" option on the preferences menu. This is so lame!
Anyway, I decided to compare the new Yamaha to my two-year-old LG DVD player (actually two years NEWER than the Yamaha, since the Yamaha was made in 2005), since I can easily toggle between the TAPE 1 and TAPE 2 settings to compare. I used the first track of John Lee Hooker's Chill Out (the first CD I found two copies of), and had the Yamaha set to x4 upsampling. Played both through my Yamaha CR-640 receiver and Boston Acoustics A60s. Didn't notice any difference between the two, even though there's no way my LG was set to upsampling (if it even has that option). The LG is a $70 MSRP DVD player, btw.
That said, both sounded really good to me, and I have no complaints. I guess people who have super-revealing systems and who are very critical about sound might notice differences between their CDPs and the Yamaha, but for folks who are a little more meat and potatoes, I think it'll do them just fine.
In appearance it looks better than I was expecting from the pics online, though the Yamaha badge does look a little cheap. The cons for me are the lack of FF and RW buttons on the unit itself and now this cussed lack of memory of audio preferences! (It remembers display dimmer preferences just fine, FFS!)
So, since I normally won't have a monitor hooked up to this player, I guess I'll be doing redbook without upsampling!
In the fine print it signs you up for a $12/month fee to be a member and automatically takes it out of your account. Buyer beware.:thumbsdn:
