Arcam FMJ DV139 discontinued!

Damian1978

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Hi chaps,

Just took a look at Arcam's support page to see if there are any updates for the BDP100 and it now appears as their only video spinner and the DV139 is now listed as discontinued.

Hmmmm....wonder if they will get a sudden drop in price???
 
Well it is also listed under their discontinued products..

Obviously Arcam are changing their market group it seems as has been discussed on other threads recently!
 
Well it [DV139] is also listed under their discontinued products..
Obviously Arcam are changing their market group it seems as has been discussed on other threads recently!
Given that Arcam now have no player for the multichannel SACD and DVD-A audio formats, this would indeed seem to be the case.
 
Hmmm....I wanna cheap DV139 :)
 
So you sent the BDP-100 back then?

I was trying to sell me 139 (here in Holland) and nobody seemed to want it for a reasonable price so I took it off the market. I'm kinda glad I did now, It does everything I want it to do really :)
 
Not quite.

Arcam are visiting me briefly tomorrow where I hope they will see the BDP and AVR are slightly iffy. If not.....its all going back for something.

Just a shame that it looks like that Arcams last properly engineered disc spinner :-(
 
I wonder if I'm being a bit naiive in wondering if a new multi-channel hi-res audio disc player might be on the cards for release soon? (a rhetorical question)

Being still very happy with my DV137, I'm not actually thinking of buying a replacement, but would like to think that a player that is multi-channel SACD and DVD-A capable would be available again soon - and that Arcam haven't deserted these formats.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if one appears sometime in 2011. However, even it only has the addition of analogue outs and SACD and DVDA it will still probably be in at least the £1500 mark (the cost of the 139 some years ago!) and probably nearer £1,800. Is there a market, realistically, for such a player at that price?
 
Being still very happy with my DV137, I'm not actually thinking of buying a replacement, but would like to think that a player that is multi-channel SACD and DVD-A capable would be available again soon - and that Arcam haven't deserted these formats.

I'd be very surprised indeed if Arcam haven't deserted DVD-A and SACD. If they'd wanted to, I'd have thought they could have added DVD-A support to the BDP-100 fairly easily; it's just a bit more software and a license for the MLP codec. I think hi-res multichannel audio is going to be relegated to streaming solutions rather than discs in the future - multichannel FLAC and the like. DVD-A is already dead, and SACD is very much an enthusiast-only format. It's probably not worth Arcam investing in a player for them any more; I doubt they'd make back their investment.

So much as I'd like to see a multi-channel hi-res audio player from Arcam in the future, I realistically can't see it happening, I'm afraid.
 
I'd be very surprised indeed if Arcam haven't deserted DVD-A and SACD. If they'd wanted to, I'd have thought they could have added DVD-A support to the BDP-100 fairly easily; it's just a bit more software and a license for the MLP codec. I think hi-res multichannel audio is going to be relegated to streaming solutions rather than discs in the future - multichannel FLAC and the like. DVD-A is already dead, and SACD is very much an enthusiast-only format. It's probably not worth Arcam investing in a player for them any more; I doubt they'd make back their investment.

So much as I'd like to see a multi-channel hi-res audio player from Arcam in the future, I realistically can't see it happening, I'm afraid.

With the Hi quality audio that Blu-Ray offers, I would love to see all multi-channel stuff re-released on BR in some manner
 
With the Hi quality audio that Blu-Ray offers, I would love to see all multi-channel stuff re-released on BR in some manner

Only of use to us AV9 users if there's multi-channel analogue outs though. :facepalm:
 
Only of use to us AV9 users if there's multi-channel analogue outs though. :facepalm:

Not necessary...

Please correct me if I am wrong, but the most time consuming stage is re-mixing the original recordings from 2 channel into 5.1 channels.

Once you have this; putting the music through the codec to convert it into one of the new lossless sound formats is pretty straightforward?

Adrian
 
Please correct me if I am wrong, but the most time consuming stage is re-mixing the original recordings from 2 channel into 5.1 channels.
OK, I'll correct you. Leaving aside the non-classical re-release market, which accounts for a minority of available SACDs, the major effort is making the multichannel recording (typically 5.0) in the first place.
 
Hopefully Arcam might have a successor to the DV139. Arcam in the past had always two models released, one of them a DIVA and the other an FMJ model. Ie the DV137 and DV139, or DIVA DV79 and FMJ DV29 etc. Will they keep up the tradition and launch an all singing all dancing blu ray player (BDP-200 or call it what you like) next year.
 
Hopefully Arcam might have a successor to the DV139. Arcam in the past had always two models released, one of them a DIVA and the other an FMJ model. Ie the DV137 and DV139, or DIVA DV79 and FMJ DV29 etc. Will they keep up the tradition and launch an all singing all dancing blu ray player (BDP-200 or call it what you like) next year.

Yes, but they've now killed off the DIVA range altogether.

They may well release a more fully-featured BDP-200 at some point, but I'd guess that all it would involve is adding the 7.1 channel outputs. They aren't about to tool up for a clean sheet BD player design at this point, so all any additional product would be is something spun off the BDP-100 platform, and if the BD drive used in that isn't SACD compatible (i.e. capable of reading an SACD watermark), then it's already a dead end as a high-res audio player.
 
then it's already a dead end as a high-res audio player.

Don't forget that there is a small, but potentially larger, shift in a high-res audio from DVDA to Blu-Ray Audio. Some classical music releases are now available in blu-ray audio format (only a few but there is talk of more to come as a possible longer term replacement for SACD as well as DVDA).
 
Don't forget that there is a small, but potentially larger, shift in a high-res audio from DVDA to Blu-Ray Audio. Some classical music releases are now available in blu-ray audio format (only a few but there is talk of more to come as a possible longer term replacement for SACD as well as DVDA).

Maybe the longer term format won't be based on optical media but HD lossless download. Linn no longer produce a CD player maybe others will follow.....

Avi
 
Maybe the longer term format won't be based on optical media but HD lossless download. Linn no longer produce a CD player maybe others will follow.....
This seems to be quoted out of context regularly - you've even managed to mix the contexts (HD / CDP). To make it clear, Linn have not ceased production of HD (SACD / DVD-A) players, but only of pure CD players - players incapable of playing SACD / DVD-A layers. That is a decision that makes a lot of marketing sense , even without all the hype about downloads, and rather left me wondering about the CD17's target market. The Linn Unidisk player - same feature set as the DV139 - is still actively marketed.

---

There also seems to be an illusion of BD's potentially replacing SACD, but the BD design has carefully ensured it's unlikely to happen. There are two architected reasons that speak against BD's replacing SACD:
1) The industry's biggest concern is copying / ripping. SACD prevents this with PSP, watermarking + encryption. BD doesn't.
2) SACDs are almost invariably hybrids, unlike BD or DVD-A. With BD-audio you have to upgrade all your kit, including your bedside or car player, in order to be able to play the disc. Who's going to buy a BD when the SACD hybrid is just as good and more flexible, and hence who (other than 2L) is going to manufacture two separate discs?
 
Does this convert to LPCM prior to DAC as the Arcam does ?
I assume you're asking about DSD. I am not aware of any universal player (or A/V processor/amp/receiver) that doesn't. In addition the Linn Unidisk 1.1 only supports analogue output of SACD & DVD-A.

At this stage in the game, a universal player without BD support makes little sense, and these are available in various price categories. The consequent drop in sales is presumably the reason Arcam ceased production of the DV139. What's disappointing is rather that Arcam's BD player is not a universal player.
 
What's disappointing is rather that Arcam's BD player is not a universal player.

My thoughts precisely. I have nothing against buying a BD player as such, but a non-universal BD player has little interest for me at present, and the fact that BD (unlike SACD and DVD-A) is not backwards compatible, is only slowing down my consideration in adopting this format.

I was quite surprised to realise that in my music collection, I actually have 5 different audio-only formats - all of which can be played on my DV137. A player that can cope with all of these (which include SACD and DVD-A) and BD would be an attractive proposition.
 
Very much agreed to the two previous posts. Is there much involved in adding a 5.1 multichannel output, DVD audio and SACD functionality to the existing design of the BDP100? Think of OPPOs 93 and the 93 Special edition which has all features the Arcam does not posess.
 
Is there much involved in adding a 5.1 multichannel output, DVD audio and SACD functionality to the existing design of the BDP100?

Yes.

You need a specific SACD-compatible transport to read SACDs - standard DVD and BD drives cannot read the SACD watermark. If the Broadcom chipset doesn't support one of the very few SACD-compatible BD drives, then that's it - that architecture simply can't do SACD.

The 5.1 channel outputs involve adding 4 more channels of audio DAC and the necessary output amplifiers; not rocket science, but a pretty major hardware change nonetheless.

You'd have to pay the relevant license fees to Meridian and Sony for the MLP and DSD codecs, and implement them in software or hardware - I believe proper DSD decoding requires a custom hardware chip, but MLP can be done in software.

In short, adding DVD-A to the BDP100 probably wouldn't be too hard, as it's mainly a software upgrade, but the format is dead, so there's very little point. Adding SACD would involve major hardware changes, and while (unlike DVD-A) the format is still supported, it's a lot of money to invest for a comparatively small market, so I can't see Arcam doing it.

If you really want a universal BD player, buy an Oppo - the Arcam is very unlikely to be significantly better at CD, DVD or BD replay anyway.
 
I assume you're asking about DSD. I am not aware of any universal player (or A/V processor/amp/receiver) that doesn't. In addition the Linn Unidisk 1.1 only supports analogue output of SACD & DVD-A.

I was referring to player based DAC.

The Oppo 83 has a user selectable option for direct DSD to DAC without pre conversion to LPCM. Also a number of audio processors provide an option for direct DSD to DAC over HDMI.

I don't know what design of decimation filter Arcam use to create LCPM. I also don't know how Arcam's "LPCM" version compares to a high res LPCM download for a given title.

At this stage in the game, a universal player without BD support makes little sense, and these are available in various price categories. The consequent drop in sales is presumably the reason Arcam ceased production of the DV139. What's disappointing is rather that Arcam's BD player is not a universal player.

I can only guess at Arcam's motives. Certainly there appear to be a number of manufacturers offering universal support or at least SACD support on their BD players.

Avi
 
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I was referring to player based DAC.

The Oppo 83 has a user selectable option for direct DSD to DAC without pre conversion to LPCM. Also a number of audio processors provide an option for direct DSD to DAC over HDMI.
Now I'm confused. AFAIK, although the Oppo 83 has an option ("SACD Output") for indicating whether to send DSD or PCM over HDMI to a connected processor, its internal DACs are "PCM-only" DACs. For analogue outputs ("player based DAC") the Oppo 83[SE] converts to PCM.

I am also not aware of any audio processor with native DSD to delta-sigma DACs, all processors I know of supporting DSD over HDMI convert to LPCM internally first.

I suspect the reason for using PCM internally is also to profit from the channel mixing, bass management and speaker delay logic already present for DVD replay, without needing to incorporate DSD versions.

As far as the Linn Unidisk 1.1 is concerned, I answered that it "only supports analogue output of SACD & DVD-A", meaning that it does not support any output over any digital connection.
 
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