With
the arrival of DVDs the interest of DD 5.1 has increased significantly over the last few
years. The first stand alone DVD players as well as the software DVD players only offered
to down-mix the 5.1 channels to stereo/Dolby Prologic or to pass it on to an external
decoder. With a quite significant number of people already owning a multichannel speaker
system (4 or 5.1) for use with a Dolby Prologic decoder or 4-speaker soundcard the market
for stand alone Dolby Digital decoders was obviously quite significant. In the last couple
years the competition for stand alone decoders has increased quite significantly to the
point where there are even many inexpensive stand alone DVD players offering 4/5.1 output
and many software DVD Players offering the same. The quality of software DVD players 4 and
5.1 output was relatively poor early on but today the quality has increased quite
significantly to impressive levels.
In this
tougher market Jazz Speakers decided to enter the market with 2 new decoders, the DE-005
and DE-006 Digital Audio Decoders. Just like most other companies trying to sell decoders
they have recognized they need to offer more than just basic Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding.
In Jazz’s case that “more” includes speaker balance, bass management,
dynamic range tweaking, 3 effect modes and perhaps most importantly, DTS decoding. Both of
the decoders offer the same features and quality and only differ when it comes to their
appearance. The price is also very similar with the DE-005 going for $139 and
the DE-006 for just $6 more, $145. In this review we will compare the two decoders to MidiLand’s
Dolby Digital only decoder ADS-2000
(also sold under the DigiTheatre Decoder name by VideoLogic).We will also compare them to software AC3 decoding
to a 4 and 5.1-speaker output on several sound cards when the sound cards are used with a
supporting software MPEG decoder.
The Jazz Decoders are available in Asia, Europe, Canada and Australia.
All content, design and work is ©
2001 - 3D Sound Surge Please respect the copyrights of the articles and writers herein. All copyrights are enforced by 3DSS.