Denon A1 XV Prices in UK?

[alwyn]

I have a price from HK. for this unit of £1840 inc. shipping via Fed Ex. I wonderd if anyone had been offered any sensible price here in UK?

 

[juniper]

The only price I've actually seen this advertisaed for is £2,500 from Avland. I'm sure that doesn't fall within your definition of "sensible" considering the price you have been offered, although you will have VAT and duty to pay - not sure whether your price is inclusive or not?

 

[zeropoint]

With VAT, duties (it can play CD so attracts this duty,) and handling charges, the price works out not much less than the UK SRP of a multi-region machine.

If you then factor in lack of after-sales and UK (international?) warranty, I doubt the saving is worth it.

Also, you have to look out for regional tuning: I've heard from HQV reps, etc., that it's maintained that different countries have certain preferences, such as Japan likeing EE. I don't know if this translates to hardware/firmware variations - or even just different factory defaults - but it may be worth taking into account.

You've also got international shipping to worry about.

I would much rather buy a machine known to be fully UK specification, from a reputable supplier, with reliable support (including from Denon UK for future firmware upgrades,) and full UK warranty, than make a small saving.

Even with the saving, it's still a LOT of money, and the extra is for peace of mind on an expensive investment.

Better to keep things simple and pay a little more.

 

[KraGorn]

But why would anyone spend that much on a player whose manufacturer disallows warranty claims when it has been MR-ed?

 

[zeropoint]

It's MRed by a firmware update, which can easily be reversed such that the machine is reverted to it's original state - indistinguishable from an unmodified machine I would have thought. In which case I wouldn't expect a warranty claim dispute, especially if performed by an authorised dealer.

Denon issue the MR firmware update themselves so that the update is performed by dealers, so it would seem odd for them to refuse warranty claims on this basis.

 

[alwyn]

The point is that this unit is available in not only HK. but also in the US. in both instances the price in that country is far less than it is being asked in the UK. Take the US for instance the MAX. retail price is $3500 (£1860) plus taxes our is £2500 less tax £2125 thats a difference of £265 why should that be?

 

[Cwhelan]

Exchange Rates are good at present with the US!

Don't forget the import Duty.

CW....

 

[zeropoint]

The situation has improved a little. UK/US prices used to be on a Pound per Dollar basis, so the price would have been £3500.

Maybe the favorable USD/GBP exchange rate has helped lower the UK price, but the usual excuse for higher comparative prices in the UK are that it's an expensive and smaller market, so you don't get economy of scale advantages, etc.

Basically, they sell more, and more cheaply in the US, and have lower local taxes of, eg, 6-7%. Cheaper fuel, transportation, storage, and more customers with more available/surplus funds.

 

[zeropoint]

I think it would cost close to £2400 to import, if you include shipping, insurance(!), VAT, CD duty, customs handling charges, and anything else I've omitted. Saving £100 at most: not worth the hassle.

 

[KraGorn]

It's MRed by a firmware update, which can easily be reversed such that the machine is reverted to it's original state - indistinguishable from an unmodified machine I would have thought. In which case I wouldn't expect a warranty claim dispute, especially if performed by an authorised dealer.

Denon issue the MR firmware update themselves so that the update is performed by dealers, so it would seem odd for them to refuse warranty claims on this basis.

I'm sure I've seen several times people saying Denon have washed their hands of problems with machine blaming the fact they'd been MR-ed .. eg. playback problems with DVDs skipping, freezing etc.

Am I wrong? Have to say the XV holds some interest for me.

 

[zeropoint]

I'm sure I've seen several times people saying Denon have washed their hands of problems with machine blaming the fact they'd been MR-ed .. eg. playback problems with DVDs skipping, freezing etc.

Am I wrong? Have to say the XV holds some interest for me.

You may well be right, I've not heard that. Maybe these relate to hardware MR mods, where the machine is opened and chipped, which does rightly void the warranty. But, if you revert the machine to it's original state, or use the latest 'official' firmware update - assuming you can do that - then this would eliminate any side effect due to MRing, so there should be no objection to warranty claims.

In my limited experience, Denon do seem to be a fair/reasonable manufacturer who care more for their customer's interests than most others, and so will probably accommodate if they can.

 

[vonhosen]

I don't recall warranty claims for hardware defects not being honoured by Denon if that is what is being said

But they wouldn't guarantee software if it had been MR'd , they would only honour region of origin for that. I suppose that is a little understandable on their part as MR is against DVD forum anyway. They only supply them single region after all.

 

[KraGorn]

I can't say I recall what the problems were, but it stuck in my mind that Denon were reportedly refusing warranty claims because the machine had been MR-ed by their own dealer.

If one pays £2500 that's just a tad unacceptable. And what is with Denon anyway, they produce the MR firmware, their dealers install it, don't tell me the DVD Forum doesn't know they're the source of it.

Crazy strategy, I don't know why people buy their equipment on that basis.

 

[zeropoint]

And what is with Denon anyway, they produce the MR firmware, their dealers install it, don't tell me the DVD Forum doesn't know they're the source of it.

It's probably a technical point - they can't manufactur MR players (except maybe in Australia where it's mandatory I think,) but they can provide the means for a second party - dealers - to mod players on customer request.

I believe most major manufacturers do this, such as Pioneer, Yamaha, Panasonic (until some enterprising folk managed to mod a common remote to do it,) and I suspect most others too.

These days there's less call - if any - for chipped players (maybe the reason for the recent demise of Techtronics) as most players seem to feature flash-roms upgradeable via cd-rom.

Maybe manufacturers have latched onto the idea of unofficially sourcing the MR mod, so they can control it thru their dealers, and avoid possible problems with warranty claims involving players modified elsewhere.

 

[KraGorn]

Maybe. Reading threads on here about Denons there seem to be more than a few problems with these machines, more than seem to get thrown up by other brands no matter what price, and MR-ing seems to be a common theme .. or at least, Denon blaming MR-ing for them.

If Denon don't want to know and you're forced to rely on the dealer, then you're depending on that dealer still being around should you have problems, or you're screwed .. would YOU risk £2500 on that basis?

 

[zeropoint]

If you want cutting edge performance then there's often an element of risk involved. If you prefer to play safe, then there are tried and tested solutions, but performance, although very good, may not be the best. Denon appears to attract a lot of enthusiasts looking for the best. Since they're demanding users, invariably, even the slightest problems are detected and criticised, perhaps disproportionately, because of such high expectations. Generally though, those same problems, and others worse, may be found in the competition. I find as many or more problems reported for other manufacturers, but they don't receive such intense, pedantic attention. On the other hand, by way of compensation, the performance of the Denons, and feature set, tends to be better than the competition. Also, Denon seems to listen to customer more, and incorporate their suggestions, and provide good support issuing firmware updates to correct problems, whereas support for competition is often woefully lacking, even totally absent.

 

[Rob20]

Has anyone actually bought this machine yet. Would be interested to hear how it performs. £2,500 is a staggering amount of money, (maybe not for the technology), for most people. Still, if you have a 42+ screen or large projector with a min 720p native res I'm sure it's amazing. I wonder what upscaled dvd material would look like in 1080p on Sharp's 45" lcd. Would be interested to see that.

 

[Rob20]

Or has it been reviewed anywhere?

 

[vonhosen]

DVD-5910

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all&type=DVD+Player&manufacturer=15&maxprice=0&deInt=0&mpeg=0#DenonDVD-5910%20(DVI/HDMI)

 

[Rob20]

didn't realise that the player went by a different name. cheers.

 

[zeropoint]

It's a little early yet. Apart from Secrets review (one of the most influential) there are user reviews of the 5910 at AVS forums. However, it's (A1XV) not yet available in the UK, not even announced on Denon's UK site yet, last time I looked - although announced in Italy, Germany, & France. Also, it's only just been released in Canada, shortly followed by US, although the Far East have had it for a while longer. So far, there aren't even many user reviews, and some of those are previews of pre-production models. You have to comb the net, and be cautious about what significance you attach to what you find. The only reliable one I've found is Secrets, who basically judge it to be the best for SD-DVD video regardless of price.

 

[inzaman]

To warrant a price tag of £2.5k it has got to be something special hasnt it, tbh if i was looking to spend £2.5k on a dvd player i would be more inclined to go the Crystalio and SDI modded player route.

 

[KraGorn]

Well, for one thing the Denon should be a damned sight simpler to set up . External scalers seem to need a course in video processor theory in order to configure them optimally. Also, the deinterlacing is arguably the best around, no macroblocking for them unlike the Crystalio (and DVDO?), though sadly they're not using the Realta for scaling.

 

[Rob20]

I'm interested to see how sucessfully the HVQ chip scales dvds to 720p, 1080i, 1080p.

 

[zeropoint]

I'm interested to see how sucessfully the HVQ chip scales dvds to 720p, 1080i, 1080p.

Denon chose the DVDO chip to scale the video, while the Realta (HQV) chip deinterlaces and performs video processing functions such as DNR, etc. Apparently, the latter is an improvement on Terranex's $60,000 3RU processor

You probably already know, but the A1XV doesn't output 1080P.