klnc,
Saw you post and found it interesting.
Concerning your problem with gaps between the tracks, I can imagine that it is rather annoying. I can't imagine listening to a CD like "Pink Floyd - The Wall" and getting gaps between tracks... But, being a little skilled with computers, I know this is a common issue on CD-Audio burning on a computer. I know there is a trick to solve it, but as the Arcam solution is probably based on some software of that kind, I am not really surprised to hear it. What does surprise me is that this problem still occurs. If you're familiar with iTunes, you probably know that it includes a feature that allows to listen to music without any gaps... and even with the last few seconds of a track "mixed" with the for few seconds of the following track...
What I can tell from experience is that folks at Arcam probably read this forums as they sometimes post answers to some threads. And even if they don't read them, there are at least 2 or 3 Arcam resellers that will probably let Arcam know about the complaints they're reading here.
As far as customer service is involved, here's my own experience with Arcam's customer service. Recently, I bought an AVP700 pre/proc. I bought my unit used, on eBay. The seller was the original owner. He purchased his unit in Great-Britain and he sold it to me and shipped it to France, where I live. When the unit arrived, it turned out that the digital decoders (the so called DSP) were blown. After 10 or 20 seconds, all I got was a scrambled tone. I contacted the seller. He had lost the invoice. But he told me that the AVP700 had 2 or 3 months of warranty left. And, as he registered with Arcam, this could be confirmed by Arcam directly.
So I got in contact with the french representative for Arcam. He wasn't delighted at all having to service a unit bought second hand outside of France. So he mentioned a lot of fees : about 120£ to get the unit serviced.
Even though I would have had to pay the fees, the AVP700 still would have been a good deal (I paid 640£ for it, including shipping to France). But I decided to ask Arcam directly if the unit was still under warranty and if it was normal that the french representative was asking for such fees.
After less than 12 hours, I got a reply from Arcam saying that the unit was still under warranty and with a copy of a message sent to the french representative to ask him to be as helpful as he could.
Result of all this ? Well, tomorrow I am allow<ed to bring my unit directly to the french representative for Arcam. So, no shipping costs. And he said that, when I'll be there, we would both go to drink a coffee together... while the technician will service the AVP700. So, I have good hope to be able to bring home a perfect working AVP700 tomorrow.
So, as far as I am concerned : hands up for the english and french customer support for Arcam products.
Regards.
FRED