[DV79 + AVR300] owners

Radioactive__Man

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I have connected the co-ax optical out of DVD player to the DVD co-ax input of amp, and the analog stereo output of DVD [set 1] to DVD-A input of amp.

While flicking thru the inputs of amp via remote while a DVD is playing I get crackling throught my speakers when CD input is selected on the front panel, but the crackling is not present on all other inputs.

This doesn't strike me as normal, so could a fellow user with the same setup please try the above and see what you get please?

Both units are under a 10 days old from dealer, and the digital output of the DVD player is set to bitstream/6ch
 
I don't have the DV79, but why have you connected your analogue outputs of the DV79 to the AVR300's DVD-A inputs? If you're trying to get stereo sound, ie playing normal CDs in your DV79, then you should be connecting the analogue outputs to the CD inputs on the AVR300.
The DVD-A inputs on the AVR300 are for when you want to use a DVD player's built in decoder for DVD Audio discs or SACD discs (which I believe the DV79 doesn't support anyway).
 
2 reasons really,

I originally had the analog outputs from DVD player to CD inputs of Amp, which is when I 1st noticed the crackling. i.e. DVD playing fine thru amp but if I switched to CD input the crackling was there while the dvd played, but stopped when I paused the DVD

Moved it to DVD-A input to see if it still did it, and it does when CD is selected with no other source to CD inputs is connected, DVD-A input also engaged the Direct mode of the amp, which seemed more appropriate for 2 channel CD reproduction

Strange that neither the DVD nor AMP manual suggests via text or pics the optimal input layout for this straight forward hook up. I am not new to HiFi by a long shot and just wanting to use someone else with a similar setup as a sounding board on this one.
 
I've got the same setup with the DV79 digitial coax connected to the amp's coax DVD input and the analogue out from the DV79 connected to the CD inputs on the amp and I don't get the problem you are experiencing.

John
 
Hmm, not sure with this one. You could try the following to narrow down the possible causes:
- Disconnect the digital co-axial cable while playing a CD using the CD inputs.
- Use a different set of analogue interconnects.
- If you have another CD player handy, try that with the AVR300
- Or try the DV79 with another amp, if you can.
 
Only does it with a dvd, if I stick a cd in without anything connected to cd input [i.e. using dvd input] and then select cd input no crackling

Swapped the interconnect after chatting with dealer, no change so it is going back to store on Friday, where coincidentally an Arcam rep is visiting.

Not a good start really, brand new unit faulty out of box. Owned Cyrus kit for nigh on 8 years now and only had one failure last month.

Pity this could not be resolved with some input from an Arcam employee, just in case I have missed something obvious in set up/connection. I seem to be travelling back and forth to dealer every week these days for one thing and another [not all Arcam related BTW] :(
 
Well I've just finished an in depth inspection of my AVR300, and I have to say I hope this machine is not a typical reflection of Arcam quality !.

Luckily I had Z plugs on my monoblocs so was able to remove the non arcam kit from the equation, and use the AVR to drive front and centre speakers.

Setup is now:-
DV79 coax out to dvd coax input on AVR300
analog output from DV79 to analog CD input of AVR300
QED x400 to Mission 783
Qed x400 to 78C
QED sub cable to MJ REF100 [controlled via AVR300]
temporarily using a 3.1 setup till I re-route my rears, and AVR setup menu set accordingly

So back to the initial problem, crackling if selecting cd input on AVR if a DVD is playing, change all interconnects, removed sub cable crackling still present. Removed the coax cable completely and hooked the toslink output of the DVD to the sat toslink input on AVR and no crackling when CD input selected, so apparently problem is linked to coax input of AVR as suspected.

Decided to see how 2 channel music fared with just the Arcam running main channels, not too bad, clear enough but an unusual soundstage that I couldn't really quantify, turn it up past 85 and get the "output changeover click" mentioned in another post, however I can now here a strange clicking from my right speaker, turn it down listen again , yep still there, switch off swap speaker outputs at rear from left to right and vice versa, clicking now appearing on other speaker, so right channel on amp is not right, foolishly rest my hand on top of amp and nearly burn my fingers off, and now think to myself shouldn't a fan be kicking in before it tries to remove the top layer of skin from my hands?. As a parting shot the amps volume control dial now stops responding to manual volume control and the first 6 input leds are all lit up. A quick reboot seems to cure this little software anomaly, but I've had enough for tonight.

Well I am off to bed now, and the unit is safely unplugged from the mains supply, unit is going back to dealer Friday as stated, but after being an Arcam owner for little over a week I am now a little concerned at the amount of money I have just shelled out, and at this stage mulling over returning the whole lot and going back to my old Yamaha dolby decoder.

Maybe a good nights sleep and some re-assurance from a certain manufacturer will re-assure me that this particular unit is the exception to the rule, and I seriously hope there has been no lasting damage to my 783's.
 
Mate, don't despair. I can imagine how you're feeling. After having spent a lot of money you just want everything to be working perfectly, but sometimes ***** happens.
Initially I was quite disappointed with my purchase of the AVR300 too, as I felt that after having it for a few days it wasn't quite worth the price I had paid. Especially when the similarly specced Denon 3805 can be had for around £750 (over £500 cheaper).
However now I've grown used to it and wouldn't replace it with any of the other amps. I know that overall it is the best amp in it's range, maybe still not worth it's asking price, but that's a choice you make.
I have a replacement unit as the previous unit had a fan that came on after 20 mins of turning on the unit and never went off even though the unit was only warm to the touch. If your unit is running too hot under normal use then more than likely it is faulty. You should find Arcam's service second to none. My unit was replaced the next day after my dealer contacted Arcam, with a brand new model.
When you get your replacement make sure it has the latest software version (2.90 at the time of writing) as my replacment unit was 2.84 which has a problem playing DVDs in DTS ES 6.1 mode (where available)- there's no sound. I had to upgrade the software myself.
Best of luck and don't worry, I'm sure Arcam will do their best to sort out your problem.
 
My Dealer [HiFi Corner] has been impeccable so far, as regards sorting things out when they go wrong.

Trouble is, this was a new venture for me away from Cyrus and it is not a good start, dare I say a lack of confidence in product is already starting to dwell on my mind a bit.

I believe a new replacement unit is being arranged, hopefully this will be available for pickup this Friday and will perform as expected, so I can get on with enjoying my new kit.
 
Just some thoughts after using DVD79 and AVR300 at home for 3 or four days after previously owning Tag Mclaren Kit.

DV79 picture quality fantastic and better in fact than Tag DVD32R! This goes for Prog scan and component signal. More detail and cleaner picture too.

However.............

AVR300 mixed feelings. Cooling fan runs almost continually and is driving me nuts! No on screen graphics when playing DVD in Prog scan (what are they thinking of)! No RGB to Component conversion within amp, this has just cost me dearly for an external converter!

General:- Both units have very poor response to the remote controls (angle and speed of response). AVR300 display can be dimmed or extinguished but not the DV79, whats the point in that??

Early days yet but am already considering returning the lot and purchasing something different ( Linn Unidisk SC and 5125 amp). The only thing stopping me at the mo is the cracking Pic quality from the DV79 but is that enough.

:rolleyes:
 
JetJockey,

Noisy cooling fans was a fault on the early AVR300s. The demo one I had was very bad in this respect but the one I actually bought doesn't have this problem - I've had it for 2 weeks now and the fans haven't come on at all yet.

As for the DV79 - I've got to agree on the picture quality, it is superb. In fact, it's 'too good' at times - shows up the CGI on Star Wars Ep 1 & 2 far more than my previous player. :rolleyes:

John
 
JetJockey, see my reply to your other post ref menu and dimmer on DV79

To all other potential owners, now that I have the demo AVR300 on loan, I am prepared somewhat to wait out the problem a little longer. Quite simply apart from the niggles of the slow remote responses, immature software and poor out of box performance on my AVR300, the picture from the DV79 and the musical performance of a "proper" AVR300 is what I was expecting and dare I say, more for the amount of money I have spent.

Picture Quality when hooked up to a 50" DLP RPTV was nothing short of breathtaking using PS output, I too watched some snippets of SW trilogy and it took me right back to that silly open mouthed child many many years ago. Not one, in home film watching experience has previously managed to have that effect on me. And I haven't even used HDMI yet :)

Sound quality on CD from the AVR300 hooked up to a pair of 783's again leagues ahead of a similar Yamaha AX1 setup from 2 years ago, when I 1st setup my AVR300 I was using a pair of monoblocs for main speaker driving, now admittedly that particular amp has since been proved to be faulty, and I will have to wait for the monoblocs to come back from MonoX upgrade to do a like for like compare, but currently just the AVR300 and speakers is more than acceptable for decent listening sessions, so they may go up for sale ultimately, and go towards the as yet unavailable good enough Plasma to warrant upwards of 3K for my hard earned.

It is unfortunate that you have to travel such huge distances for your kit, and it can only magnify the problems you are experiencing, but rest assured like me when you see that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, it may offset the fact that you do indeed expect better quality out of the box when spending these amounts of cash.

I can only compare and comment on the experiences I have had over the years of owning predominantly Cyrus kit and other makes of HiFi/HC equiptment, and apart from a very recent fault with a DVD8 and a RPTV, all that equiptment has been perfect out of the box and worked flawlessly under my ownership.

Dare I say, a bit more time testing every unit before shipping may have went a long way to minimising the faults and concerns expressed in these very forums. To me an AVR300 with "apparently" input bleedthrough to CD input, no working fan and ultimately failing right channel amplification would have been caught with minimal pre delivery testing prior to despatch.
 
johndon said:
JetJockey,

Noisy cooling fans was a fault on the early AVR300s. The demo one I had was very bad in this respect but the one I actually bought doesn't have this problem - I've had it for 2 weeks now and the fans haven't come on at all yet.

As for the DV79 - I've got to agree on the picture quality, it is superb. In fact, it's 'too good' at times - shows up the CGI on Star Wars Ep 1 & 2 far more than my previous player. :rolleyes:

John

If you think the picture is good on the DV79 you should take a peek at the DV29. Awesome.
 
your comment of the abilities of your newly purchased DVD player although interesting are not wanted in here :)

some of us have stricter budgets to adhere to, and are still trying to get working kit :nono:
 
Hi Crustyloafer.

Sorry but got to ask. For the extra £500 or £600. How is the picture better? The DV79 is as good as I have seen so far. Are the internals that much better (higher spec)? Is there better resolution or colour depth? Less artifacts?

Genuinely curious.

Gerald. :)
 
Radioactive__Man said:
your comment of the abilities of your newly purchased DVD player although interesting are not wanted in here :)

some of us have stricter budgets to adhere to, and are still trying to get working kit :nono:

The problems you are having with your AVR300 are unfortunate. After the first problems any further instances should have been avoided by having the dealer check the machine over before releasing the goods. This is somehting I do for all AVR300s at the moment, not becasue of the fan problem as I believe this is now resolved, but so that I can make sure that the latest software is on the machine before the customer receives it. This is something that I believe is part of good customer service from a dealer with a little bit of forethought.
 
Update

Well I recieved my replacement AVR300 from dealer Friday last, and after a weekends evaluation all seems fine, I was also supplied the latest software for my DV79 which updated no problem and removes the rainbow effect in the menus.

New amp still has 2.84 installed :( so I guess I'll have to update myself. No great hassle but as you say Chris not much effort required to have updated this prior to despatch.

I can't really fault the dealer on this, as I kinda inundated him with my faulty MJ Ref100, AVR300 and a Pair of Cyrus monoblocs for upgrade all at once, additionally they were still recovering from a small structural issue inhouse :eek:
 
Hi Radio Active man.

What was the "rainbow" problem with the DV79 menus? I have not heard of that one.

Gerald. :confused:
 
when connected via component, the menu text had a kinda convergence problem, yellow ghosting of white text, software upgrade fixed it
 
Hi.

I have an ARCAM DV79 with HDMI with soft 5.2.0 onboard ( bought it in
Sweden in august 2004 )

I know that the latest software for my DV79 is 5.13.0

My questions are :

- what diffrence is there between my old soft and the new one? Any
significant changes?

- Should I upgrade my DV79?

- How can I upgrade ?

- Can you provide my with the new 5.13.0 soft on CD-ROM?

Best Regards / Andre
 
Ok, great! the update sims thoug not to be the newest one?
It`s "only" ver.5.8.0 and the new one is 5.13.0
 

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