Post by Julien March 31, 2007 (11 of 35)
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The SACD player by McIntosh, by the way, reads CDs at four times the normal speed and SACDs at twice the normal speed, in order according to them to extract as many information as possible. I'm very curious about this one.
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Post by armenian March 31, 2007 (12 of 35)
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Julien said:
The SACD player by McIntosh, by the way, reads CDs at four times the normal speed and SACDs at twice the normal speed, in order according to them to extract as many information as possible. I'm very curious about this one.
All my audio electronics are McIntosh, so it was natural for me to consider MCD201, a stereo only CD/SACD player by McIntosh, after reading about its problems on Mac forum I gave up on that also, too many faliures despite continuous firmware updates by Mac. Another complain about MCD201, when it works, is the unusually noisy transport.
Another problem with problem players is my location, I live in Houston, the 4th largest city in US, no matter what I buy I will be dealing with home theater type stores, we have no audio stores in our town, which means if something goes wrong with my player I will have to deal with the manufacturer directly, these stores have no interest or know how to get involved in these matters.
Vahe
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Post by Julien March 31, 2007 (13 of 35)
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armenian said:
Another complain about MCD201, when it works, is the unusually noisy transport.
Then it is as I thought, since they spin it faster than the normally fast speed. That inevitably adds to the already hard to deal with noise.
By the way, what about Pioneer? I've never had problems with their components.
If you haven't already, you can also read the excellent list by Dvda-Sacd on the "13 million SACD players" thread (page 8), and search one by one.
(By the way, Zeus, I couldn't make a link to that page, even after copying the page it would send back to this thread)
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Post by stvnharr March 31, 2007 (14 of 35)
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Reliability of sacd players is really an unknown. Nearly every sacd forum has numerous reports of player failures. Most seem to be Sony or Marantz players, but there are others as well. Several things come to mind here.
1. There are many more Sony and Marantz players in use than others, and thus, failures are more.
2. Most failures are transport related, and most transports are made by Sony. Thus, brands other than Sony and Marantz also have reported failures.
3. The only other well documented well known failure is the Philips SACD 1000 chip failure. Philips gave it all up and quit this one. This particular player was used as a transport for a both Krell's first player, and Meitner's first player combo.
4. Most of the inexpensive, say $200-300 USD, universal players likely just get replaced with another cheap player if they fail for some reason.
5. Though many have had perfectly good operating cd players for 10-15 years or more, transport failures with cd players also happened. The Philips CD12 transport was subject to a nearly 10% failure rate. It happened to me too.
6. Hopefully as time goes on there will be some improvement in transport reliablility. As noted earlier in thread, sacd's spin much faster, and the tolerances are much much smaller than for standard cd.
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Post by tag1_uk April 23, 2007 (15 of 35)
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Well I've found CD players in general and SACD players in particular to be rather unreliable. I am actually thinking that the best long term solution is to go back to vinyl - at least the bearings, motor, stylus etc. are all user-replaceable parts!
I presently own a Sony SCD-XB940 (about 5 years old) and more recently upgraded to a Sony SCD-SCDXA3000ES (just bought 2nd hand, probably a couple of years old). The former is well known for having a flimsy disc tray and unreliable mechanism. I had hoped that the latter would be more reliable with it being in the Sony 'ES' range but this also has read problems - more especially on CDs than SACDs, funnily enough. It is sad to read on this particular thread that the Marantz players also have some problems. It is all rather sad - I do not want to buy a £100 CD player to treat as a disposable item every couple of years - it can't be too much to expect to be able to purchase an audiophile CD player at £500+ and expect it to last 6 - 7 years+? I certainly would begrudge spending a lot of money on a CD player now.
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Post by stvnharr April 23, 2007 (16 of 35)
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tag1_uk said:
Well I've found CD players in general and SACD players in particular to be rather unreliable. I am actually thinking that the best long term solution is to go back to vinyl - at least the bearings, motor, stylus etc. are all user-replaceable parts!
Playing records is a long term solution only with the objective of playing records of old recordings, and just forget about anything recorded after the late 80's.
Cd players are generally very reliable, and can last a long time. SACD players are slowly gaining reliability after the shortcomings of the first generation players.
I'm not sure there is really such a thing as a 500 GBP audiophile player. "Audiophile" players usually cost a fair bit more.
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The problem of reliability in electronics is a problem that has been going on for years. The main reason, and I may be wrong here, is that manufacturers do not want to invest a great deal in quality parts. The budget in audiophile equipment probably goes into those parts that matter more for sound quality than say the spindle motor or gears. Also, if the player doesn't last, you need to either have it repaired, or you need to buy a new one.
Since the audiophile market is so small, they want to make as much profit out of each unit sold. Parts is the most likely part for them to scrimp, since they want it to sound good in the stereo shop, encouraging you to take it home.
Here in Eastern Canada, there is more and more cheaply produced products all the time. Just check your local Wally-World (Wal-Mart). Imagine, DVD players for under $50! This may be a savings, but you will be buying a new one once or twice a year for the low quality that they are.
Not only is this a disgrace in terms of quality, but it is also bad for the environment. Believe me, the parts in electronics are toxic.
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Post by Paul April 24, 2007 (18 of 35)
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My SCD-1 is still going strong; I paid about $2200 for a used one and it has never given me any trouble even though I use it for hours, daily. I much prefer the top-load transport over the tray style but don't know off the top of my head which makers use that style other than Sony.
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stvnharr said:
I'm not sure there is really such a thing as a 500 GBP audiophile player. "Audiophile" players usually cost a fair bit more.
What does price have to do with it? An "audiophile" RBCD player is surely a contradiction in terms! :)
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Post by stvnharr April 25, 2007 (20 of 35)
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Polly Nomial said:
What does price have to do with it? An "audiophile" RBCD player is surely a contradiction in terms! :)
Cost has everything to do with it!
"Audiophile" disc players are generally those designed/made by small companies who try for the best performance possible. These players are priced. accordingly.
Disc players made by the large multinationals feature several models, all designed to a certain price point/profit margin and full of compromises in order to attain that goal. A top of the line product from these companies usually has quite good performance, and is priced accordingly.
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