Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
Chung wrote:

Is iLink emerging as the digital connection standard for hi-rez? How
much do players with iLink outputs cost now? I wonder if manufacturers
have to pay any license fees to incorporate iLink.

Pioneer's ilink players start at $900 MSRP IIRC,

In Europe the VSX-2014i (1099 Euros list price) is the cheapest
model with i.LINK (if you see references to the VSX-1014 having
i.LINK, that was a typo in their web page). The other two models
are the VSA-AX10Ai-S and VSX-AX5i-S.


http://www.pioneer-eur.com/eur/produ...omy_id=6 2-98

The American models with i.LINK seem to be the VSX-55TXi, VSX-56TXi and VSX-59TXi:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...046362,00.html
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...728213,00.html
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...448491,00.html

According to froogle, the VSX-55TXi costs about $900, the VSX-56TXi $1000
and the VSX-59TXi $2500 (online prices).

Those are all AV receivers, not disc players. Btw, the DV47ai price I
quoted ($900) appears to be a street price; MSRP is $1200 US.


while Yamaha has a model coming ou soon at the $750 price point.
That'll be the least expensive one out there.



I am suprised by that. The most recent models (Yamaha RX-V 1500 and
Yamaha RX-V 2500) which cost about 900-1100 euros don't have i.LINK. If
Yamaha keeps the same release schedule of the last couple of years, the
next round of models should be the RX-V 460, 560, 660 and 760, probably
in the next summer, and it would be a bit strange for that range to get
a feature that the higher range doesn't have.

Again, I am referring to a player, not a receiver.


Do you have any more information about that Yamaha model ?

See Yamaha's website, also reports from CEDIA.


Sony also has models with i.LINK, IIRC.

as of Aug 2004, one player, one receiver (and of course the player only
does SACD, and not DVD-A)


Denon started with their own link (it uses a RJ45 plug, but I don't
know if it has anything to do with Ethernet), but now has also models
with i.LINK.

But IIRC their digital outs only do DVD-A, but not SACD!

So far Pioneer seems to be the only ones who have players + AVRs that
will do it all (though I'd bet they convert DSD to PCM for any digital
processing).



--

-S If you're a nut and knock on enough doors, eventually someone will open
one, look at you and say, Messiah, we have waited for your arrival.