Arcam DV88+ or DV89?

[grumps]

I have recently purchased a Plasma Screen (Panny TH37PE30) with which I am very pleased. However my Toshiba RDxs30 DVD/HDD recorder does not output progressive scan and I feel that now having a progressive plasma I should invest in one that does. I see that Creative audio have some great Arcam bargains, and having an AVR100 and CD72. know the quality of these are both going to be good. Which one should I go for? Is the DV89 worth the extra £100?

[dwette]

Get the DV89 if you want DVD-Audio capability. Otherwise, get the DV88+ if DVD-Video is all you need. I don't think there are any other differences.

[Ikki]

£100 for DVD-A. Makes you think.

It's a simple choice:

Watch movies, listen to CD: buy DV88+

Watch movies, Listen to CD and DVD-A: buy DV89

I have to say that the PQ of the Arcams is much better than the £100 - £300 DVD players that I have seen (IMHO).

[JIT]

The DV88+ is superb on my 42" RPTV and i also use it for CD playback now via the analogue outputs.

[dwette]

Just today I added the SiI504 progressive scan upgrade to my DV88Plus and now it looks even better.

[zAndy1]

Yeah but how much did it cost in total? I've just got a Panny TH37PE30 and the Panny DMR-E85 dvd recorder. The nice thing about the dvd recorder is you can set it to output progressive scan for any incoming source signal i.e. I now have Sky in progressive scan just by routing it through the recorder. And believe me it does make a difference! Hope that helps. You get a very nice PAL progressive dvd player , a dvd recorder , decent cd player and the benefit of PAL progressive on sky etc for £500...

Cheers,
Andy

[grumps]

Thanks for all the feedback guys - one more question though - do you think the CD playback on either the DV88+ or DV89 would be better than my CD72?

Thanks again

Grumps

[john R1]

go for the dv89 i did, i no your choice in dvd-a is limited but i now have a few discs and find the multi-channel sound worth the £100 extra for the player + the extra phono leads etc

[Polecatpete]

Has anyone compared one of these players to the DV79? Was looking to maybe get one but wasn't sure which way to go... I would use it only for movies.

Thanks guys!
Rob

[hazard]

Originally Posted by grumps

Thanks for all the feedback guys - one more question though - do you think the CD playback on either the DV88+ or DV89 would be better than my CD72?

Well I have both, and I can't hear any difference between them.

The only reason I still have the CD72T is just that it's designed to play CDs so it's a little more user friendly.

I'm talking about very minor details here, e.g. quicker to load a CD than the DV88+, CD text, shuffle & repeat (never bothered to check if the DV88+ has these!)

Plus, as you can see from my signature, I have become obsessed with collecting black boxes

For what it's worth, I have a DV79 and thought CD performance was a bit lacking, so picked up a 2nd hand CD72T ; it's much better for playing CD's (as you might expect I think)

[Sweden]

DV88 Plus audio performance

In my opinion the DV88 Plus is better as a CD player than an Arcam CD72 (which is a very highly regarded unit, multiple Award winner etc) and not quite as good as the CD82. It is the first DiVA DVD player that I am really happy to use at home as a CD player, which suits my wife as it saves a box on the hi-fi stack.

John Dawson (Arcam)