I hate to do this to our good friends at Crutchfield, but a deal is a deal. Just browsing their selection and came across this:

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S...3DVDA7&o=M&a=0

It says on the top that it is on sale for $499.95, which would be an awesome deal, but at the bottom of the page, it lists a different price of $299.95!.

I would like to jump on this deal myself but seeing as my receiver doesn't have 5.1 inputs and the fact that I have to pay for my books in a few weeks, I just can't swing it for something, that I don't really need.

But, I hope this helps others.

I hope it works.

~Jon

[Edited by WhoreNun on 02-13-01 at 08:58 AM]

Thanks. I grabbed one at $309.90 shipped. I have a friend who may want it. If not, I can return it.

thank got one coming on friday....

It's a good deal, but it's not an error. Panasonic just discontinued the DVD-A7 and lowered the retail to $399.99.

One word of warning.

Make sure you have the six channel inputs on the back of your reciever for external decoders as you cannot connect DVD Audio players using digital coax/optical cables except to use as standard CD or DVD players. The DVD Audio decoding needs to be done in the DVD Audio player and then sent as six channels to your receiver. As of now there are no recievers that can do internal DVD Audio decoding.

Also note that you really need full range speakers to play DVD-Audio discs, unless your receiver/preamp applies bass management to its six channel input. Most (all?) don't. This means that you'd be sending full range signals to potentially not full-range speakers. And that'd be not-so-good.

Pretty much the only thing keeping me from getting this player is the fact that my pre-amp doesn't have 5.1 channel inputs.

By the way, you'd be able to playback 2-channel DVD-Audio tracks just fine even if you don't have a six channel input. Not having done too much research, I have no idea how much 2 channel DVD-Audio software is available. My guess is: Very little.

-Steve

I think the players downmix to two channel.

Sorry about the confusion. I saw that the retail price was $1000 and made a mistake. But, it's still a good deal.

~Jon

No problem at all.

You even put a "?" in your subject line. You're completely flame-proof.

What I want to know is this:

What happens to dealers who are sitting on 5, or even 1 or 2, of these things? They presumably bought them for dealer cost of around $600.

This is one reason why manufacturers offer rebates rather than announcing large price drops. My point is that I'm sure there'll still be a lot of places trying to sell these at $800 or $500. So at the very least, people reading this are now armed with The Truth. And that's A Good Thing.

Panasonic is offering price protection for the dealers on this unit because there is still a lot of the units out there. Basically, this means that the dealers will get credit back for the new cost, even thought they were purchased for a higher ammount. This is a pretty standard practice in electronics, computers and car sales.

i bought this dvd player from clutchfield on monday ,today cant find the page on there web site and the link above does not work,,,odd but i got my confermation # so hope it comes thru...its the dvda7 panasonic ..all other web site sell this model for around 600.00 dollars

Just tried the link too.
I think Crutchfield pulled this one from their website for a while.

just received it ,great looking dvd player ,great sound

toohard,
So how are you connecting this DVD-A to your HT system? 6 channel out?