Well my Arcam DV-137 died again. Second time in less than a month and I have only had it since late Jan. 2007. Emailed my dealer and Audiophile Systems to let them know that I will be sending it back and do not want another one. And the movie I was watching when it died is still in the player.

I am leaning towards buying a Marantz DV7001 for my universal player for my SACD's and DVD-Audio. Their site has it listed for $799.99, which I am sure I can get it for less. I am leaning towards the Marantz because I owned the SR-7000 receiver and it was awesome. No problems, sounded fantastic. Gave it to my brother when I upgraded to the B&K AVR505 S2.

Then I want to get Toshibas second generation HD-DVD player the HD-XA2 so I can get into the HD World. On their site, it is also listed for $799.99 plus you get 5 free HD-DVD movies.

So that is basicall two players and 5 HD-DVD's for the price of the Arcam. Now don't get me wrong, the Arcam's video and audio were amazing but it does not do me any good with it breaking down all the time.

I will get a Blu-Ray player late this year when the second and third generations come out and the price drops and that will take me out of the format war.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
PDS

My dealer went to bat for me and was able to procure me a DV139 to replace my DV137 at a minimal of cost to me. So all works out in the end and from what I have been reading on AV Forums the DV139 is amazing. My dealer promised it to me by the weekend and I will spend the weekend listening to music. Just ordered Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and Elton Johns Madman Across The Water SACD's. I am drooling.....but I think the first SACD I will play will be Dark Side of the Moon. Then Sunday night..."The Incredibles will be on my JVC HD-56FH97 True 1080p HD-ILA Projection TV with a B&K AVR505 S2 Receiver. My speakers are Snell Type-EII for my fronts, Snell Center Channel, Boston Acoustic In-Ceiling for my surround and a Velodyne sub.....c'mon Friday......

All's well that ends well.

I am interested in your take on this upgrade. I have looked at both Arcam players at a dealer and was impressed with what I saw but felt it was way too expensive, esp the 139, what with hi def formats now available. I have a 65" Mitsu DLP TV with 1080p resolution which makes me curious regarding how the 139 does on your TV in 1080p mode, as well as sound quality improvement.

Have you considered a Denon (2930 or 3930)?

I am interested in your take on this upgrade. I have looked at both Arcam players at a dealer and was impressed with what I saw but felt it was way too expensive, esp the 139, what with hi def formats now available. I have a 65" Mitsu DLP TV with 1080p resolution which makes me curious regarding how the 139 does on your TV in 1080p mode, as well as sound quality improvement.


I will have it probably by Thursday or Friday and will let you know what the picture quality is. The picture quality of 137 was phenomenal as was the sound. I think I got one that was built on a Friday after a liquid lunch. My dealer said I am the only customer that he has sold an Arcam too that has any problems.

As far as high def....I can now wait for the prices to drop before I wade in. I was more concerned about playing my current DVD's (500 and counting), SACD and DVD-Audio.

Have you considered a Denon (2930 or 3930)?


Yes I did consider them, but now that I can get the 139 for a steal I will try that one, but if there are any issues at all my dealer said I can return it for a full refund and try something else.

I went through two 137s before getting the 139. Very happy with the upgrade. Definitely scour the earth for DVD-A and SACD. Some amazing ones:

Beck: Sea Change
Talking Heads: Remain in Light & Speaking in Tounges
Donald Fagan: Morph the Cat

I went through two 137s before getting the 139. Very happy with the upgrade. Definitely scour the earth for DVD-A and SACD. Some amazing ones:

Beck: Sea Change
Talking Heads: Remain in Light & Speaking in Tounges
Donald Fagan: Morph the Cat

Thanks for the tips and am looking foward to the 139. Have you had any issues? How long have you had it?

Don't like Beck. Now Jeff Beck is a different story. Blow By Blow on SACD is awesome.
Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road sounds amazing. Dark Side of the Moon, wow.

Received Frampton Comes Alive on DVD-A last week and listened to it before the 137 crapped out, exeptional.

Just ordered Mike Oldfield "Tubular Bells" The theme music for the Excorcist (that sounds creepy enough in stereo can't wait for 5-channel) and Madman Across the Water by Elton John on SACD.

I also purchased a Jazz Sampler SACD but did not get a chance to listen to it.

I demo'd a 137 and this weekend a 79....I couldn't get either to show an image with dvd's HDCP. The screen is blank. I can play non-HDCP dvd's without a hitch and non-region 1 dvd's too. I tried running a short cable run of 6 ft to two projectors the Mits 3000 and the BenQ 8720....both displayed a signal without any problems.,.....it's when I run it through the long cable run (even with signal booster) that I get a blank screen. Must be due to the player not being able to acknowledge the projectors are compliant due to the length of the cable. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas...I am all ears.

Ron

PS: Sorry for hijacking the thread.

I've had no issues whatsoever with the 139 (bought it in Nov or Dec). This weekend I watched The Good Shepherd, and it looked great.

On the classic rock front, Allman Brothers, Stones, and Led Zepplin all have good hi-res disks out, but the ones I've mentioned above are natural for the surround format IMO (as is DSotM!). If like Steely Dan, try Morph the Cat...

rboster: I'm running a 30' HDMI cable to my AE900 projector, and I've had no video sync problems with my 137 and 139.

I recently got Denon 2930ci from Tweeter at $612 which I consider a steal even though I already have a Blu-Ray player. Denon replaced my aging Pio Elite universal. I went for this Denon because I was always impressed with their audio/video quality. This new player will take care of my DVD-A/SACD collection going further. And as expected the pq is stellar, audio quality is impressive as well.
Having said that, I always felt Denon mechanics were less than stellar. I had a pretty bad experience a few years back with the Denon 2910 which kept rejecting many of the discs I had that played nice on other DVD players. I exchanged three of those players until i finally gave up and got the Pio Elite which had no problem reading my discs. I just discovered something similar is happening with this new Denon.

Your last sentence was confusing. Are you saying the 2930 is starting to refuse to play discs like your 2910 did?

I've had no issues whatsoever with the 139 (bought it in Nov or Dec). This weekend I watched The Good Shepherd, and it looked great.

On the classic rock front, Allman Brothers, Stones, and Led Zepplin all have good hi-res disks out, but the ones I've mentioned above are natural for the surround format IMO (as is DSotM!). If like Steely Dan, try Morph the Cat...

rboster: I'm running a 30' HDMI cable to my AE900 projector, and I've had no video sync problems with my 137 and 139.

Received my DV139 Friday night and hooked it up. Put in Ice Age 2 first. HDMI out at 1080P to my JVC HD-ILA HD-56FH97 TV...unbelievable picture. Listened to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road SACD and Frampton Comes Alive DVD-A....the sound is amazing. I am so glad I was able to upgrade to the 139.

Saturday had a party at my house and put in Finding Nemo. Everyone thought I had HD-DVD or Blu-Ray it looked so good. Later on after my family left my brother and I put it through it's musical paces. From Black Sabbath to Jeff Beck to Robin Trower. The house was shaking and the sound was amazing. Though I have a feeling my neighbors won't appreciate it this summer when the windows are open...

Am now a satisfied Arcam customer and convert. It's looks so good it is doubtful I will even bother getting into the HD format war at all now. Just shopping for DVD-A' and SACD's

I've had no issues whatsoever with the 139 (bought it in Nov or Dec). This weekend I watched The Good Shepherd, and it looked great.

On the classic rock front, Allman Brothers, Stones, and Led Zepplin all have good hi-res disks out, but the ones I've mentioned above are natural for the surround format IMO (as is DSotM!). If like Steely Dan, try Morph the Cat...

rboster: I'm running a 30' HDMI cable to my AE900 projector, and I've had no video sync problems with my 137 and 139.


I have had some issues with my 139 the last few weeks. All my music CD's, SACD's and DVD-A's play perfectly. It is with DVD-Videos that the problem arises. The first weekend it played fine then the second weekend I had trouble playing some discs. The machine would lock, the picture would become unstable, it would flicker turn all kinds of weird colors with snow and ultimately I had to hard power it off then on to get the disc out. Sometimes the disc would play right after that but mostly not.

Sometimes a disc would play fine one day and screw up the next. I even tried unhooking my HDMI cable and running only component with 139 main audio out set to analogue and still the same issues.

One weekend it would run great...the next it would not. Some discs I can't even get to play at all and then some would play great and then not. For instance this past Sunday. Put in Pan's Labyrinth brand new out of the case. Played great.

Then after that tried to play Monster House and could not.

I noticed also if I switched the input on the TV while I was watching a movie the machine would start doing the same thing.

Any ideas or help or anyone with the same issues.

Any updates on this?

Any updates on this?

First my dealer had me check my speaker size settings and switch everything to large. I had the center and in-ceiling as small. Still the same issues.

He then had me unplug everything from the 139 and start hooking everything back up one at a time until the problem resurfaced. I did all the video connections without any sound connections hooked up first.

I started with the composite video to the TV. It worked fine, no lockups or weird colors or snow.

I then unplugged that and hooked up the component video. Again no problems.

I unplugged that and hooked up the HDMI....same problems.

I unplugged that and hooked up all the sound connections. 5.1 for my SACD, CD and DVD-A. Coaxial for Dolby Digital and DTS and optical for my VCR-DVD-Recorder.

I again hooked up the composite with the sound and again no problems.

Same with component video.

Unhooked that and put the HDMI back in...same problems

I have run the 139 all weekend with component only, watching movies, concert dvd's, listening to cd's, sacd's and dvd-a without a hitch. I have switched inputs on the tv, sound on the receiver and anything else I can think of and the unit ran great.

My dealer is going to call JVC to see if it is an issue with their end of the HDMI and he is also going to let me borrow a better HDMI cable than the one I had. He is also going to speak to Arcam to get their input.

But what I have gathered it seems to be an HDMI issue, either the cable or the JVC.

Will keep this updated as I find out more info.

The Denon DVD-5910ci is nice.

The Denon DVD-5910ci is nice.

LOL :p

Well the DV139 is going back....it can no longer read the SACD layer of most of my SACD's, won't even play Blow By Blow...says its a bad disc...this is after playing it for the last three months and this is on top of the HDMI handshake issues.....fed up with the unreliability of the Arcam products...that's three high end players in less than 8 months that have broken down...the cost is just too high for something unreliable.

I had the Pioneer DV-578A for my first universal player....think I paid $150.00 at Best Buy....played anything I fed it for two years (ex. took in divorce), without any problems whatsoever....

So I am returning the Arcam to my dealer for store credit and will be purchasing the following to replace it.

Toshiba HD-XA2 - For upconverting and HD-DVD's

Pioneer DV-46AV Universal player - surround sound SACD's & DVD-Audio also a backup for video for the Toshiba

Marantz SA8002 - For CD's and Stereo SACD

Will also be upgrading some cables and such.

So for the price of one I get three plus better cables......

Will the sound be as good as the Arcam....probably not but in my small house it won't make that much of a difference as long as the players play when I need them to which the Arcams didn't

Will the video upconversion for standard DVD's be as good as the Arcam...will let you know when I watch the Toshiba...but from what I have been reading the Toshiba is supposed to do a great job on upconversion....plus I get 5 free HD-DVD movies to watch on my JVC 1080p...

When all the new gear is installed and running I will give my opinion on what I think.