All prices are in German marks unless otherwise noted.
At time of show report, 1 U.S. dollar is worth approximately 2.1 German marks.

Pioneer's room was chosen not so much for its exceptional sound (although it was quite good overall), but rather for the effective presentation in demoing various audio sources. Pioneer used their DV-AX10 "universal" digital player (which can play SACD, DVD-A, DVD-V, CD, CD-R and CD-RW) as well as high-end turntable. It was an opportunity for consumers to hear the format and hear how each compared. The speakers used were all Isophon Europas -- a brand we are not familiar with. The demo was conducted by Pioneer's Thomas Hintze.

First up was a two-channel comparison between CD and SACD. The difference was quite easy to discern. Doug Schneider thought the CD sounded "stunted" and "slightly hard" in comparison to the effortless sound of SACD. Jeff Fritz thought that the SACD had "better upper-midrange and high-frequency extension." It was also not hard to hear that SACD has increased resolution.

Following that, the comparison between vinyl, CD and DVD-A was made using Carmina Burana. Surprisingly, both Doug and Jeff thought that the CD sounded better than the vinyl. The DVD-A presentation of this music wasn't quite an "apples-to-apples" comparison though. Pioneer chose to present it in multichannel format, which resulted in vastly increased spaciousness with far great depth. Output levels seemed to be higher too. What we would have like to have heard was a two-channel comparison of DVD-A first.

After the audio, Mr. Hintze demonstrated a DVD-V with a live, on-screen presentation of an African recording artist with sound in Dolby's AC-3 format. The sound was good, not up to the standard of DVD-A (except here again we weren't able to compare exact cuts of music), but it did effectively demonstrate that well-recorded multichannel music can add a vast sense of spaciousness and involvement. Overall, this was not necessarily an ideal presentation, but it was the best and most comprehensive we've heard and seen so far.