Although the DVD-A music available right now is mostly elevator music, I was immediately struck with the amazing quality. Even with just a mass market receiver and modest speakers, the sound quality approaches high-performance CD equipment. The attacks on steel string guitar are crisp and clean. Voices are smooth. I could not hear any harshness.
Piano is very lifelike, perhaps because there is so much more recording signal there.
Moving between audio tracks using the A-10 felt like a very expensive CD player. It seemed to take a bit longer moving between DVD-A tracks than moving between CD tracks, but I can put up with that. The reason for this is that many receivers will take two-channel stereo and automatically decode it with Pro Logic to give surround sound. 5.1 or two-channel coming from the disc. It is DSP that takes the 5.1 sound and attempts to create the surround sound sensation from just two speakers or even with headphones.